Bad politics makes bad policy: the case of Queensland’s asset sales program

On 2 June 2009, the Queensland government announced a program of asset sales projected to realise $15 billion. In this paper, the public case for privatisation put forward by the Queensland government is case is shown to be wrong and, in important respects, deliberately misleading. It is argued that the presentation of a spurious case for privatisation has contributed to poor policy decisions regarding the choice of assets to be sold, the failure to restructure the rail industry to promote competiton, and the adoption of inferior methods for sale.