An unexpected outcome of secularism taking control of our society is lots of belly laughter. There is no shortage of material to lampoon and ridicule.
One inanity which has generated a great deal of raucous mirth over the years has been "private-public partnerships" or "public-private partnerships" (depending on whether you are representing the gummint or the people). These partnerships have come into vogue in a few western countries in recent years as the socialists running things have realised money was running out. Faced with electorally disastrous options, they have scrambled to find new sources of capital. Cutting spending was the least palatable option--elections are won or lost on the weight of bribes offered. More borrowing was an equally hazardous route. Rising borrowing levels and printing money risk taking countries to the brink of credit downgrades which have lots of bad consequences for voters.
It was Margaret Thatcher who tartly observed that socialists eventually run out of other people's money. And so it is coming to pass. But wait--what about public-private partnerships, or "PPP" for short, or if you are way cool, "P3"?
A new motorway or hydro dam needs to be built. No money in the kitty? Well, what about getting nasty capitalists to stump up with the investment, in return for a guaranteed return for twenty years or more, to be paid for by the income generated off the new toll road or electricity supply? Win, win, win for all parties.
It was just such capital constraints in New Zealand led to the former Labour government approving private-public partnerships for "infrastructure assets". But, oh so sadly, none ever got off the ground.
The nasty venture capitalists were way too smart. They looked at the fine print and decided that the return the government was prepared to tolerate in no way compensated for the amount of capital required and the attendant risk. Labour governments in general hate the very thought of someone making a profit. To the Borg-like mindset of the Left, any profit whatsoever means exploitation of workers--both directly and indirectly. Everything--everything, mind you--runs better if it is state owned. So, the initial foray into PPP in New Zealand produced no issue and the womb remained barren. The Left celebrated this as a great success. Nothing significant was built, but to the purist no money is better than dirty money, and a capitalist's capital is always dirty.
Things have gone little better under the current National administration.* But very so often a project so small to be beyond the attention span of the Chattering Classes gets through.
New scanner to increase MRI capacity
Many more people at the top of the South Island will have access to an MRI scanner because of a public-private partnership.For decades the public health system "ain't got the money, honey" despite the sick having lots of time hanging around waiting for treatment. At last some non-ideological, pragmatic, outcome orientated, commercial thinking has produced a win-win-win PPP. Private capital provides an expensive machine; the public sector health system houses it in one of its buildings; both private sector and public sector access the facility and patients in both health sectors get better care.
The Nelson Marlborough District Health Board has reached an agreement with Pacific Radiology Group to install a new magnetic resonance imaging machine at Wairau Hospital in Blenheim. The agreement calls for a portable building to be attached to the hospital's radiology department, meaning both private and public patients will have access.
The scanner will be available to the district health board for four half-day sessions a week out of 10 sessions, increasing the district's MRI capacity by 80 percent. Pacific Radiology chief executive Dr Lance Lawler said it was a good example of how balanced public private partnerships can solve the problems of access to high tech care in provincial areas. The scanner is expected to be operational by February.
But if anyone dare suggest that the same "model" could work in education (to take a prosaic example), the gibbet traps would be swinging open and the victims dropping before sunrise. No. Not really. The gummint hasn't got the honey-money to build gibbets, and PPP is so last century anyway.
Postscript 1:
PPP Projects in Australia
* Southbank Education and Training Precinct, Brisbane
* Adelaide-Darwin Railway (a BOOT arrangement)
* Airport Link, Sydney
* Cross City Tunnel, Sydney
* Eastern Distributor, Sydney
* Lane Cove Tunnel, Sydney
* Sydney Harbour Tunnel, Sydney
* M2 Hills Motorway, Sydney
* M4 Western Motorway, Sydney
* M5 South Western Motorway, Sydney
* Westlink M7, Sydney
* CityLink, Melbourne
* EastLink, Melbourne
* Newcastle Mater Hospital Redevelopment, Newcastle, NSW
* Southern Cross Station, Melbourne
* Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC)construction and maintenance of a major Defence facility. Queanbeyan and Bungendore, [NSW]
PPP Projects in New Zealand
* Vector Arena in Auckland is one public-private partnership in New Zealand. The Auckland City Council and Auckland Regional Council have contributed $68 million toward the $80 million indoor multipurpose arena. Ownership will be transferred back to the city in 40 years from completion.
Wikipedia
[To this illustrious list of one successful PPP investment in New Zealand, we can now add "1 MRI scanner in Blenheim". That's a hundred percent increase, folks. Way to go. But there is one more reason for mirth: with respect to the Vector Arena PPP, notice the people stumped up 85 percent of the required capital and the private sector a mere 15 percent. Try that in Oz and you would be dog tucker. And now, in return for our cleverness, we Aucklanders are confronted with a City Council whose reckless spending and indebtedness will squeeze taxpayers and their children until the eyeballs pop for decades to come.]
*Postscript 2:
To be fair, the piece above is slightly hyperbolic. The current National government has gone some way to making some progress on PPP. It has a couple of projects underway. Some schools in Hobsonville are being been built under a PPP project. A prison in South Auckland is being built with PPP capital. And a century-long awaited motorway project just north of Wellington is slated for PPP investment. All have been opposed by state sector unions, and the Left in general, as representing "privatisation by stealth". The Left replaced thinking with chanted-slogans many years ago.When it comes down to it, the Left would rather have schools held in mud-huts and teachers of all thirty-five gender types in grass skirts than prostitute their ideology. They would rather have open-air prisons consisting of ten kilometre chain gangs than being enslaved to dirty, private capital. In such line-in-the-sand matters, compromise is the Devil's dialect.
No comments:
Post a Comment