THE PRIVATISATION OF HUMAN SERVICES IN AUSTRALIA: HAS IT HAPPENED?

Abstract: The privatisation of Australia's public services has been one of the major challenges facing public administration since the early 1980s. Its enthusiastic proponents and their equally fervent opponents have generated considerable controversy. Yet its impact may have been exaggerated. A number of writers have deplored its spread in Australia's human services. Yet their evidence for privatisation does not stand scrutiny. As well, if privatisation had occurred, it would have had an impact upon the flow of public finance and that should be reflected in public finance data. An examination of that data provides almost no support for the claim that the 1980s saw significant privatisation of Australia's human services.
The current debate on privatisation … indicates a movement to return social welfare provision to sectors or systems other than government (ACOSS 1989 p.6).
The re-emergence of the voluntary sector has been facilitated by public policies designed to transfer responsibility for welfare services from the government to the non-government sector (Baldock 1990, p. 109).
with the more systematic transfer of services to the non-governmental sector (Baldock 1990, p. 113).
over the past two decades … a number of functions such as service delivery and management have been transferred from the state in a way that in most terms amounts to privatisation (NCOSS 1989, p.2).
This rebirth of the non-government sector can arguably be seen as a privatisation of the welfare state (NCOSS 1989, p.22).
Human services in New South Wales have been and continue to be the subject of a wide range of reviews intended to produce changes which fit under the general rubric of "privatisation" (Evatt Research Centre 1989, p.208).
The moves towards privatisation, if they are to continue, will have serious long term consequences (Graycar & Jamrozik 1989, p.296).