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section heading icon     Australian privatisation

This page highlights government asset sales in Australia, offering a point of reference for telecommunication privatisations.

It covers -

subsection heading icon     introduction

Selling off the family silver - or merely yesterday's bling - in Australia and New Zealand was not confined to telecommunications but extended across financial services (retail banks, home loans, funds management and insurance), infrastructure (eg pipelines and airports), transport (rail, shipping, airlines), energy (gas, electricity generation and distribution), manufacturing and other sectors.

It typically involves a trade sale (by way of tender, such as disposal of Sydney Airports Corporation and National Transmission Network) and public float (one off or successive sale of tranches in enterprises such as the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra and Bank of New Zealand through offering shares on the stock exchange to institutional and retail investors).

In Australia estimates of privatisation proceeds are put at US$70 billion by the end of 2001. (The corresponding figure for sale of New Zealand state owned enterprises and other assets was approximately US$7 billion, with the New Zealand privatisation programme bringing in US$4 billion from 1987 to 1992). The Australian government boasts that the nation's privatisation program was one of the largest in the OECD, second only to the UK (in value) and second to New Zealand (relative to GDP) between 1990 and 2001.

Introductions are provided in Privatisation: Sell off or sell out? (Sydney: ABC Books 2000) by Bob Walker & Betty Walker, Privatisation: An International Review of Performance (Boulder: Westview 2000) by Graeme Hodge, Privatisation, Globalisation & Labour: Studies from Australia (Federation Press 2002) edited by Peter Fairbrother, Michael Paddon & Julian Teicher and Privatisation in New Zealand and Australia: An Empirical Analysis (PDF) by Jarrod Kerr, Mei Qiu & Lawrence Rose, Corporatization & privatization: lessons from New Zealand (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1992) by Ian Duncan & Alan Bollard and Privatisation, Globalisation and Labour: Studies from Australia (Federation Press 2002) edited by Peter Fairbrother, Michael Paddon & Julian Teicher.

For a provincial government perspective see the 2002 Partnerships, privatisation and the public interest: Public private partnerships and the financing of infrastructure development in South Australia (PDF) by John Spoehr, Dexter Whitfield, John Quiggin, Christopher Sheil & Kathryn Davidson.

subsection heading icon     Australia

Landmarks include -

Australia Commonwealth Bank Jul 91 $ 1,017 SIP 29.75% Australia Commonwealth Bank Oct 93 $ 878 SIP 19.90% Australia State Bank of New South Wales * Sep 94 $ 426.75 Asset sale 2 --- Australia Bank of Western Australia (Bank West) * Dec 95 $ 672 Asset sale 3 --- Australia Bank of South Australia (Bank SA) 1995 $ 525 Asset sale --- Australia Bank West * 1996 $ 325 SIP --- Australia Commonwealth Bank Jul 96 $ 3,100 SIP 50.4% Australia Bank of Queensland * Nov 99 $ 86.7 SIP 39.6% Australia Trust Bank * Dec 99 $ 96.2 Asset sale 100%

1988

Commonwealth Accommodation & Catering Services ($14.9m)

Defence Service House Corporation loan portfolio - trade sale ($1.515bn)

1989

AMDEL ($0.92m)

1991

Australian Defence Force Home Loan Franchise - trade sale ($42m)

first tranche of Commonwealth Bank - float ($1.292bn)

Aussat - trade sale ($504)

Commonwealth Housing Loan Assistance Schemes in ACT ($47.3m)

1992

Australian Airlines - trade sale ($400m)

NSW GIO - float ($1.26bn)

Victorian State Insurance Office - trade sale ($125m)

1993

Hilmer Report

25% of Qantas - trade sale ($665m)

second tranche of Commonwealth Bank - float ($1.686bn)

WA State Govt Insurance Office - float ($165m)

Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation - MBO ($1.5m)

SAGASCO - trade sale ($427m)

Gladstone power station - trade sale ($750m)

NSW Grain Corporation - trade sale ($96m)

remainder of Qantas - float ($1.45bn)

1994

Vic BASS - trade sale ($3m)

State Bank of NSW - trade sale ($574m)

CSL Ltd (Commonwealth Serum Laboratories) - float ($299m)

Moomba-Sydney Pipeline system - trade sale ($534m)

Pipeline Authority SA - trade sale ($304m)

SA Austrust Trustees - trade sale ($44m)

Vic Grain Elevators Board - trade sale ($52m)

1995

Citipower - trade sale ($1,575m)

SA State Govt Insurance Commission - trade sale ($175m)

Eastern Energy - trade sale ($2.08bn)

Victorian TABCORP - float ($609m)

WA State Printing Division - trade sale

Aerospace Technologies of Australia ($40m)

BankWest - trade sale ($900m)

Powercor - trade sale ($2.15bn)

SA Forwood Products - trade sale ($123m)

1996

Axion Funds Management - trade sale ($240m)

third tranche of Commonwealth Bank - float ($3.39bn)

Loy Yang A - trade sale ($4,746m)

Commonwealth Funds Management - trade sale ($62.5m)

1997

Avalon Airport, Geelong ($1.5m)

PowerNet - trade sale ($2.555bn)

first tranche of Telstra - float ($14.33bn)

fourth tranche of Commonwealth Bank - float ($1.77bn)

Melbourne Airport - trade sale ($1,307m)

Brisbane Airport - trade sale ($1,387m)

Perth Airport - trade sale ($643m)

DASFLEET ($408m)

Australian Industry Development Corporation - trade sale ($155m)

Australian National Railways Commission ($95.4m)

Suncorp-Metway - float

Department of Administrative Services units (eg Asset Services, Australian Property Group, DAS Centre for Environmental Management, DAS Interiors) - ($28.9m)

Housing Loans Insurance Corporation ($108m)

Macleod Repatriation Hospital site - trade sale ($1.75m)

1998

NSW Totalizator Agency Board - float ($1bn)

Adelaide and Parafield airports - trade sale ($362m)

Canberra and Coolangatta airports - trade sales ($171m)

Darwin, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek airports - trade sale ($110m)

Hobart and Launceston airports - trade sale ($53m)

Mt Isa, Townsville, Moorabbin airports - trade sale ($24m)

Archerfield and Jandakot airports - trade sale ($10m)

Auscript ($1.1m)

Victorian Plantations Corporation - trade sale ($550m)

Aluvic - trade sale ($502m)

Dampier-Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline - trade sale ($2.303bn)

1999

National Transmission Network - trade sale ($650m)

Australian River Co. (formerly ANL) ($20.6m)

Melbourne urban rail and tram systems - concession system

ADI ($346.78m)

2000

Removals Australia ($10.4m)

2001

Essendon Airport - trade sale ($22m)

2002

National Rail Corporation and NSW Freight Rail Corporation ($1.172bn)

Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport ($5.588bn)

2003

Bankstown, Camden and Hoxton Park Airports ($211m)

2004

ComLand Ltd - trade sale ($165m)

2007

Queensland Government's electricity retailer Powerdirect Australia ($1.2bn)

Hobart Airport ($350m)






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version of December 2007
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