John Howard: The Great Privatiser?

Abstract

This article outlines and analyses the principles that have driven John Howard’s privatisation agenda in the context of the broader Australian experience. Howard has articulated a vision for the state in which individual choice has primacy over collective decisions, governments are strategic and the public sector is focused more on enabling or facilitating than on directly delivering public services. In this article we identify Howard’s articulated vision and contrast this to his time in government to address the question of whether he has, in fact, been a great privatiser. By adopting a broader framework for analysing privatisation, we argue that his vision has, in part, been enacted during the past decade through the politically strategic use of a range of privatisation technologies.

Keywords: Politics, Australia, Privatisation