Is revenue from taxation the best way to fund services?

[stui magpie]

Yet most of the private health services are not for profit organisations.

Granted, to start something like the ABC from scratch in a free market would be hard as hell without significant seed funding but once established, it could be viable if there was an appetite for the content.

Produce all the wonderful content you like, if no one watches it you have to ask whether it should continue.

[think positive]

[stui magpie]

Keep in mind that in that ultimate of free markets, the USA, pretty much everyone has access to PBS, with a charter more akin to the ABC than the Herald Sun and run by a not for profit organisation.

http://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/overview/

[David]

PBS is what the ABC would look like if the government cut 80% of its budget and it had to rely on philanthropy to survive. They do a good job all things considered, but it's still a woefully under-funded network that hardly anyone watches (apart from Sesame Street). Romney went to the last election promising to cut the entire government subsidy to PBS. It's a pretty hostile environment for a public broadcaster over there. I think we can learn a lot from their tribulations.

[stui magpie]

May well be, yet again we drift off topic though.

There may well be some things that it's appropriate for the government to directly fund. Do these always need to be funded via taxation though?

[think positive]

[stui magpie]

Not always. It's just the traditional way of doing it. Take money off people, pay it back to people to provide services.

As I said in the OP, there's other ways to do it.

[King Monkey]

Mmmm......

The Met, Telecom, SEC, Melbourne Water -
is now
Yarra Trams/Metro Trains/Sita Buses, Telstra/Optus/Vodaphone, Powercor/Citipower, City West Water/Yarra Valley Water/...... And so on.

The Met and Telecom once had reputatations to envy - now try and speak to someone from Telstra to sort a problem out! And good luck getting a train on time and paying only for the trip you're about to take!

I'd contend that the quality of service provided since privatisation has diminished significantly, as well as profits and jobs being funnelled overseas to foreign owners/investors/shareholders in many cases.
Also, higher (relative) costs to the consumer.

On the surface, I'd have to say that government run essential services are far more beneficial to the public than the private model. In many ways.
Id much rather my taxes going someway to funding these services than to physically be paying a foreign owned company to bugger me around and overcharge me.

[stui magpie]

I worked for telstra for 22 years, it was a great place to work but some of the waste in the system in the old days was incredible.

As I said in the OP, privatisation in Australia has had mixed results but there's a good argument whether the problem is with the privatised entities or simply poor control measures in contracts.

Private companies are trying to make a buck, as David said earlier. When the governments sold them, they were trying to make a buck and so, IMHO didn't push hard on the appropriate KPI's because it would have increased the private companies overheads and reduced the sale price.

So, again IMHO you can trace the problem with the current performance of outsourced private providers directly back to poor governance by the government/public sector who managed the outsourcing in the first place.

[King Monkey]

How many years is realistic for any original KPIs to stay in place before the multinationals have it their own way anyway??

[stui magpie]

Dunno, but anyone providing an essential service to the government like power gas or transport should have ongoing KPI's that failure to achieve result in voiding their licence to provide the service

[King Monkey]

^Metro Trains cancel services that are running late to meet timetable KPIs!! There'll always be a loophole with these sort of pricks.
And imagine the shambles for 6-12 months during a transition period if a contract was voided. A cancelled contract would mean absolutely zero care for the consumer as opposed the not much care that is goes on now.

When profits become more important than the quality of service being provided, Joe Public suffers.
But, the boat has already sailed here in Victoria on most of these matters.

[stui magpie]

Which is why rather than selling stuff off, I proposed in the OP contracting out the services on a 3 year period.

[King Monkey]

Like renting instead of buying??

Make as much as you can for the period of the contract or a few contracts, before moving on to the next sucker??

[stui magpie]

yeah, nah, read the OP.

They only milk it if you put the wrong measures in place. Do it right, and avoid the multinational profit seekers, you can make it work well.