Selling the Port Kembla port and other public assets has created unregulated monopolies, according to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims.
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In a blistering attack on decades of common government practice, Mr Sims said the sale of ports and electricity infrastructure and the opening of vocational education to private companies had caused him and the public to lose faith in privatisation and deregulation.
Mr Sims said privatising ports, including Port Kembla and Port Botany, which were privatised together, and the Port of Melbourne, which came with conditions restricting competition from other ports, were examples where monopolies had been created without suitable regulation to control how much they could then charge users.
"Of course you get these lovely headlines in the Financial Review saying 'Gosh, what a successful sale, look at the multiple they achieved'," Mr Sims said.
"Well of course they bloody well did.
“The owners factored in very large price rises because there's no regulation on how they set the price of a monopoly.
“How dopey is that?"
Mr Sims said he had long been a “strong advocate" of privatisation for the past 30 years.
“I'm now almost at the point of opposing privatisation because it's been done to boost proceeds, it's been done to boost asset sales and I think it's severely damaging our economy,” Mr Sims said.