Wrong Way: How Privatisation and Economic Reform Backfired

Leading economists assess the costs and benefits of privatisation, deregulation, marketisation and other neoliberal reforms that have dominated Australian economic policy since the 1980s.

Since the 1980s, waves of neoliberal 'economic reform' have transformed Australia.

Privatisation, deregulation, marketisation and the contracting out of government services- for three decades now, there has been widespread agreement among policymakers on the desirability of these strategies. But the benefits of economic reform are increasingly being questioned. Alongside growing voter disenchantment, new voices of dissent argue that instead of efficiency and improved services, economic reform has led to unaccountable oligopolies, increased prices, reduced productivity and degradation of the public good.

In Wrong Way, Australia's leading economists and public intellectuals do a cost-benefit analysis of economic reform across key areas. Have these reforms been worthwhile for the Australian community and its economy? Have they given us a better society, as promised?

'Has privatisation led to more productivity-enhancing competition? Has deregulation increased economic welfare in energy, finance, health, education and labour markets? Does the lived experience of Australians measure up to the promise of economic reform? The authors answer these questions with conclusions that are both compelling and disturbing.'

--Emeritus professor Roy Green, University of Technology Sydney

Damien Cahill is Associate Professor of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. He has published widely on neoliberalism, including the books The End of Laissez-Faire? On the Durability of Embedded Neoliberalism and Neoliberalism (with Martijn Konings).

Phillip Toner is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. He has contributed to government inquiries on industry and vocational training, and consulted for the OECD, the World Bank, APEC, the Australian Research Council and the Department of Innovation, Science and Research. He is the author of Main Currents in Cumulative Causation- The Dynamics of Growth and Development.