The final bonus for former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce of shares worth $3.8 million was made public last week in the company's annual report. It was just another example of incidents that should raise questions about the whole 40-year history of privatisation in Australia.

The aim of sweeping away bloated, inefficient, unaccountable, publicly owned organisations to be replaced by the discipline of the market to the benefit of customers seemed laudable at the time.

But the promotion of the benefits of privatisations eclipsed the exposure of the detriments. The benefits were mostly short-term - to fix the budget and to get constituents off politicians' backs when the service provider did not provide service - the detriments were more long-term.

Rod Sims, who was chair of the Austr

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