Essential Report, Government regulation, Polling, Private run services, privatisation
Q. Thinking about the privatisation of Government-owned organisations (such as Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, power companies, etc) over recent years – who do you think has benefited most from those privatisations?
| Total | Vote Labor | Vote Lib/Nat | Vote Greens | |
| The Government | 25% | 18% | 30% | 18% |
| Private companies | 59% | 70% | 54% | 68% |
| The general public | 6% | 6% | 8% | 1% |
| Don’t know | 10% | 6% | 8% | 13% |
59% think that private companies have benefited most from the privatisation of Government-owned organisations and 25% think the Government has benefited most. Only 6% think the general public has benefited most. Labor and Greens voters are more likely to think private companies have benefited most while Coalition voters are a little more likely to think Government has benefited most.
Essential Report, Government regulation, Polling, Private run services, privatisation
Q. Do you think that organisations (such as Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, power companies, etc) that are privatized should be regulated by the Government or should they be treated the same as any other private company?
| Total | Vote Labor | Vote Lib/Nat | Vote Greens | |
| Should be regulated | 56% | 72% | 46% | 63% |
| Should be treated the same as any other private company | 34% | 23% | 47% | 25% |
| Don’t know | 10% | 5% | 6% | 12% |
56% think that organisations that are privatized should be regulated by the Government and 34% think they should be treated the same as any other private company. Labor and Greens voters are strongly of the view they should be regulated while Coalition voters are split 46% regulated/47% treated the same. There were no major differences across demographic groups.
EMC, ER, Essential Report, government, Government run services, Private run services, Private Sector
Q. Which of the following are better run by the private sector and which are better run by Government?
| Better run by private sector | Better run by Government | Don’t know | |
| Electricity | 22% | 61% | 17% |
| Water | 15% | 70% | 16% |
| Trains, buses and ferries | 19% | 68% | 13% |
| Motorways | 17% | 70% | 13% |
| Community services such as child protection | 14% | 71% | 15% |
| Broadband services | 53% | 29% | 19% |
| Health insurance services | 48% | 37% | 15% |
| Property insurance | 55% | 27% | 19% |
| Prisons | 10% | 76% | 15% |
| Universities | 20% | 64% | 16% |
A substantial majority believed that the Government is better at running prisons (76%), community services (71%), water (70%) and motorways (70%). However, they are more likely to think that the private sector is better at running property insurance (55%), broadband services (53%) and health insurance (48%).
Although Liberal/National voters were a little more likely to favour the private sector on most issues, they also supported the Government running most services except for broadband services (63% private/24% Government), health insurance (59%/32%) and property insurance (65%/23%). Labor voters favoured the private sector to run broadband (44%/38%) and property insurance (50%/31%) but were split on health insurance (41% private/43% Government).
Support for Government run services was a little higher in NSW than in Victoria – e.g. electricity (64% NSW/59% Vic), water (73%/65%).