Thesis/Dissertation Sheet

Surname/Family Name : Brann Given Name/s : James Anthony Abbreviation for degree as give in the University calendar : Ph.D Faculty : UNSW Canberra School : School of Humanities and Social Sciences What’s in the Public Interest? Identifying the relative importance of ideas, materialism Thesis Title : and vested interests in the rural debate over competition reform.

Abstract

Australian rural communities have undergone steady socio-economic decline over the past forty years. Once the economic engine of the nation's growth, rural communities are now experiencing falling incomes, sustained population decline, service constraints and a lack of employment opportunities. This phenomenon commenced with the economic stagnation of the 1970s, and was radically accelerated through the adoption of neoliberal reforms through the 1980s and 1990s. This thesis seeks to understand how the neoliberal reforms that harmed these communities so much came to be implemented.

The iconic policy of the neoliberal economic reforms, the National Competition Policy, was a swathe of reforms that sought to deregulate rural communities on free-market principles. Amongst these reforms, the application of competitive neutrality of local government services became the lightning rod that embodied both the free-market ethos of the reforms, and rural communities' resistance to them. All of the reforms were presented as pragmatic policy measures that were only to be implemented if they were in the public interest. This thesis examines the events leading up to and around the public inquiries into competition reform with a view to examining how the policy came to be accepted as being in the public interest.

The thesis finds that the application of competition reforms was not a pragmatic and procedural tool, as claimed, and that its adoption was underpinned by an ideological discourse. Furthermore, it examines the role of material events, interests and ideas in the political success of that discourse. It finds that an “actually existing” form of neoliberal ideology acted as a coordinating mechanism that enabled a number of disparate but powerful interests to be mobilised to support a shared agenda that ultimately triumphed over rural concerns about the impact the reforms would have on their communities.

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What’s in the Public Interest? Identifying the relative importance of ideas, materialism and vested interests in the rural debate over competition reform.

James Brann

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

University of New South Wales.

September 14th, 2020

Declaration

I certify that this work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. In addition, I certify that no part of this work will, in the future, be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of the University of New South Wales and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint- award of this degree.

I acknowledge that the copyright of published work contained within this thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of those works. I also give permission for the digital version of my thesis to be made available on the web, via the University’s digital research repository, the Library Search and also through web search engines, unless permission has been granted by the University to restrict access for a period of time.

I acknowledge the support I have received for my research through the provision of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

Abstract

Acknowledgments

It’s been a humbling, but privileged experience to undertake a doctoral thesis with the University of New South Wales. As the first in my family to attend University, education has not always been seen as a priority. However, hard work, persistence and a bit of gumption is a family trait. The ability to work hard has always been a value of mine, but in many instances throughout my candidature, working harder sometimes didn’t work. I had to learn a new set of skills, which was sometimes uncomfortable, but ultimately worth it. Thank you to the University of New South Wales for allowing me to undertake this candidature. I’m proud of this study and hope it reinvigorates research into rural and regional Australia.

First and foremost, I would like to thank and recognise my supervisor, Dr. Lindy Edwards who has been with me since day one. Lindy encouraged me to write from the very beginning, introducing me to the power of ideas and their re-emergence within political theory. Throughout our time together, I’ve been inspired by Lindy’s own ability to take abstract ideas regarding politics and break them down into language that can be enjoyed by all. While I’ve still got a long way to go, I found solace in the fact that academia from the likes of Lindy can be read and understood by all. Lindy has shown me that political science doesn’t need to be bogged down in technical jargon and academic-speak, but rather, a sign of good research is its ability to take complex ideas and relay them in ways that encourage further exploration.

Academia has never come easy to me, and I would like to thank Lindy for sticking it out with me. Though countless drafts and rewrites, Lindy has been a constant form of support. There were many times where the thought of quitting crossed my mind, but Lindy was always there to discuss my issues and offer sound advice. In a year that witnessed a global shut down because of COVID-19, Lindy’s support has been one of the defining factors in my ability to submit this thesis. I know Lindy took a leap of faith when taking me on as a PhD candidate, and when we can once more be safely out in public, I look forward to buying Lindy a well-earned beer.

Thanks must also go to Professor Nicole Moore, who provided some much need assistance to get the thesis into fighting shape and Karin Hosking who provided excellent professional copy editing assistance before submission.

I would also like to thank those who supported me through their own experiences. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Sharynne McLeod, Professor Dominic O’Sullivan, Dr. Jess Jennings and Professor Julia Coyle for their ongoing forms of encouragement, including their own experiences through their doctoral studies. I would also like to thank my family – Mum, Dad, Annie, Dylan, Hazel, Kylie, Ron and Harvey for the constant support and faith you have always had in me. I’ve gotten to this point because of you all and I’ll always be grateful for the unwavering belief that I could actually submit this thing.

Lastly, my enduring love and gratitude to Cass. I’m not a big fan of fate, but I count my lucky stars for meeting you. This thesis is for you (kiddo).

Table of Contents

What’s in the Public Interest? 5 Declaration 6 Abstract 7 Acknowledgments 8 Table of Contents 10 List of Abbreviations 14 Chapter 1 Introduction: Rural Australia and the Public Interest 1 Chapter Summary 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Defining Rural Australia 4 1.3 The Public Interest and Rural Australia 7 1.4 Market Reform and Rural Discontent 10 1.5 The Rural Debate over Competition Reform 14 1.6 How were these reforms implemented to the Disadvantage of Rural Australia? 16 1.7 What does this study tell us about the relative importance of ideology, material events, and interests in political debate over the public interest? 18 1.8 The Researcher and Rural Australia 20 1.9 Research Aims and Objectives 21 1.10 Outline of Chapters 22 1.11 Conclusion 27 Chapter 2 The Research Background: Rural Australia and Market Reform 29 Chapter Summary 29 2.1 Introduction 30 2.2 Traditional Rural Policy 33 2.2.1 The Economic Importance of Agriculture 33 2.2.2 Statist Rural Development 35 2.3 Australia’s Economic Decline 39 2.3.1 The Decline in Economic Importance of Australia’s Agriculture 39 2.3.2 The Beginnings of Economic Decline 42 2.4 Australia’s Economic Transformation 44 2.5 The Decline of Rural Australia’s Economic Importance 47 2.6 Rural Economic Importance in the Global Context 51

2.7 Socio-Economic Decline of Rural Australia 53 2.8 Conclusion 56 Chapter 3 The Conceptual Framework: Exploring the Public Interest during Market Reform 58 Chapter Summary 58 3.1 Introduction 58 3.2 The Contentious Nature of the Public Interest during Australia’s market reform 61 3.3 Theories of the Public Interest during Market Reform 63 3.3.1 Pragmatism and the Public Interest 64 3.3.2 Rational Choice theory and the Politics of Interest 68 3.3.3 The Ideational turn, Neoliberalism and the Public Interest 70 3.4 Structuration theory: the relative importance of ideology, material events and interests on the public interest 75 3.5 A Conceptual Framework to explore the Public Interest during rural debate over Competition Reform 78 3.6 Conclusion 80 Chapter 4 The Research Case Study: The Rural Debate over Competition Reform 83 Chapter Summary 83 4.1 Introduction 83 4.2 Market Reform and Competition Policy 86 4.2.1 The Hilmer Report 90 4.2.2 Proponents of Competition Reform 93 4.2.3 A Federal Approach to the National Competition Policy 95 4.3 The National Competition Policy 97 4.3.1 Setting an Agenda for Competition Reform in Rural Australia 98 4.3.2 Competitive Neutrality and Competitive Tendering 101 4.3.3 Competitive Tendering and Local Councils 103 4.3.4 Compulsory Competitive Tendering 106 4.3.5 The National Competition Policy and Compulsory Competitive Tendering 109 4.4 The Rural Debate over the Public Interest in Competition Reform 110 4.4.1 The Rural Backlash to Competition Reform 114 4.4.2 The National Debate over Competition Reform 116 4.4.3 The Public Reviews into Competition Reform and their impacts on Rural Australia 118

4.5 The Research Problem 120 4.6 Conclusion 122 Chapter 5 The Research Methodology: Discourses of the Rural Debate over Competition Reform 125 Chapter Summary 125 5.1 Introduction 125 5.2 Research scope and analysis overview 127 5.3 Qualitative Multi-Method Design 131 5.3.1 Exploratory Single Case Study Design 133 5.3.2 Critical Discourse Analysis 135 5.3.3 Thematic Method of Interpretation 140 5.4 Data Selection and Collection Process 142 5.5 Approach to Data analysis 145 5.5.1 Initialisation of the data 146 5.5.2 Construction of themes 147 5.5.3 Verification of themes and wider applicability 147 5.5.4 Narrative development 148 5.6 Justification of the research design 149 5.7 Conclusion 151 Chapter 6 Finding One: The Public Interest in Competition reform was shaped by ideology 153 Chapter Summary 153 6.1 Introduction 153 6.2 Conceptions of the Public Interest 156 6.2.1 What does Value for Money mean? 159 6.2.2 How is Community Development framed? 170 6.2.3 Are Open Markets Fair? 181 6.3 The Role of Ideology within the Rural Debate over the Public Interest 189 6.4 Conclusion 191 Chapter 7 Finding Two: The Ideational Power of Actually Existing Neoliberalism 192 Chapter Summary 192 7.1 Introduction 192 7.2 Proponents of Competitive Tendering and the role of the Market 194 7.3 Opponents to Competitive Tendering and a return to Statist Development 199

7.4 Actually existing Neoliberalism and the re-regulation of Rural Communities. 202 7.4.1 Elements of Actually Existing Neoliberalism within the Rural Debate 204 7.4.2 Actually Existing Neoliberalism and Economic Crises 205 7.4.3 Actually Existing Neoliberalism and Business Interests 207 7.4.3 Actually Existing Neoliberalism and State Institutions 208 7.5 The Ideational Power of Actually Existing Neoliberalism and the Public Interest in Competition Reform 209 7.6 Conclusion 212 Chapter 8 Conclusion and Recommendations 213 Chapter Summary 213 8.1 Introduction 213 8.2 Overview of Key Findings 216 8.2.1 Finding one: The Public Interest within Competition Reform was shaped by Neoliberal ideas 217 8.2.2 Finding two: The Power of Neoliberal Ideas in the Rural Debate 221 8.3 The Importance of the Study’s Findings 226 8.3.1 Actually Existing Neoliberalism, the Public Interest and Rural Australia 227 8.3.2 Ideational power in shaping the Public Interest 230 8.3.3 The Importance of the Public Interest in Rural Transformation 233 Bibliography 238 Appendix 1a Submissions to the Senate Select Committee on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy 281 Appendix 1b Public Hearings to the Senate Select Committee on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy 291 Appendix 2a Submissions to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia 300 Appendix 2b Public Hearings to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia 333

List of Abbreviations

Abbreviation Explanation

ACCC Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions

CBT Cross Border Tendering

CCT Compulsory Community Tendering

CDA Critical Discourse Analysis

COAG Council of Australian Governments

COSBOA Council of Small Business Organisations Australia

GBE Government Business Enterprise

GDP Gross Domestic Profit

IPA Institute of Public Affairs

NCC National Competition Council

NCP National Competition Policy

NFF National Farmers’ Federation

NPMT New Public Management Theory

OAPEC Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries

SMA Statutory Marketing Authorities

Chapter 1 Introduction: Rural Australia and the Public Interest

Chapter Summary

In contributing to the study, this chapter:

● Introduces the study, which identifies the relative importance of ideas, the material

environment and vested interests in rural debate over competition reform.

● Introduces the role of rural Australia as a significant economic power during the first fifty

years of federation, and the role of the state in the equitable delivery of local services.

● Provides an overview of the context for the study, which includes the economic reforms

of the 1990s, and the rural backlash to them.

● Introduces an overview of the research problem which contemplates why competition

reforms were implemented in the public interest when they were detrimental to rural

Australians.

● Introduces the theoretical question at the heart of the study, which is whether events

were driven by ideas, material events and problems, or vested interests in the rural

debate over competition reform.

● Summarises the findings of the study, and details how these findings advance the

theoretical understanding of ideology and its effects.

1.1 Introduction

For the first fifty years of federation, rural Australia provided the economic foundation for a prosperous middle class and the expansion of metropolitan areas. Despite a heavily under- populated geographical area, rural Australia and the industries that it sustained accounted for over 70 percent of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 1900 and 1950

(Pritchard and MacManus, 2000). According to Tonts and Jones (1997), federal policy since

1 federation reflected the need to leverage the large export basin of rural communities, while at the same time cross-subsidising less lucrative metropolitan areas and sustaining population drift to the city. While large agricultural and mining exporters were established and traded successfully in the global marketplace without protection, the state became a central mechanism to protect smaller emerging industries and to cross-subsidise the costs of servicing areas of low population through a series of tariffs and wage arbitration (Lockie and Bourke, 2001). As Brett

(2007) argues, the Australian federation was built on the premise that it was in the public interest to develop rural communities, grow the nation's export income, populate the sparse land mass and farm highly productive food bowls.

The economic power of rural Australia influenced policies that provided social and economic stability for country towns. Through a form of “state paternalism” or “statist development”

(Appleyard, 1981), policies were developed to secure local government services equivalent to those provided to metropolitan areas regardless of population size or cost. The egalitarian approach taken by successive governments supported rural growth by ensuring equitable access to important local services such as schools, waste collection, public housing, road works and recreational facilities (Tonts, 1996). According to Halpin (2003), the state’s approach to ensuring equitable local services regardless of location or population density emerged as a response to the failure of the market to promote rural development. For governments at the time, market competition was an impractical mechanism for building rural infrastructure and providing local services. Consequently, state and federal governments became monopoly providers to ensure the viability of rural towns, which supported national economic growth.

The post-war period marked the beginning of a shift in the economic conditions of rural Australia, as reliance on the agricultural industry eased in favour of services and manufacturing, which were more prominent in metropolitan areas (Pritchard and McManus, 2000). Compounded by an

2 exodus of populations to major regional centres, rural Australians faced service constraints, and sustained increases in unemployment levels. Rural communities represented over 35 percent of the national population during the 1920s, with this figure dropping to just under 10 percent in

2008 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010). While acknowledging that rural communities are not homogenous, Sorensen (1992) presents this confluence of rural decline as a vicious cycle whereby falling populations have made many schools, hospitals, and transport networks less viable. McKenzie (1994) argues that from a political perspective, decision makers were caught between considerations of equity and efficiency as regional population decline resulted in increasing per capita costs of service and infrastructure provision (p. 253). How governments have responded to this policy problem has been a defining feature of rural politics since the

1970s.

In the absence of large industry investment, the socio-economic decline of rural Australia was exacerbated by the adoption of economic reforms that shifted the responsibility for providing rural services from the state to the competitive market. The reform agenda was underpinned by the view that increased marketisation would produce cost effective services and present value for money (Alston, 2002). According to Cheshire and Lawrence (2005), “the impacts of such policies in regional areas have been quite profound, leading to socio-economic polarisation, population loss, and the growth of anti-globalisation sentiments” (p. 435). Cheers (1990) argues that as a result of wider market reforms, economic power has moved away from rural communities creating significant spaces of social disadvantage with thirty-three of Australia’s thirty-seven poorest electorates originating from rural locations. The socio-economic decline of rural Australia has led to a sense of political alienation as policies shifted focus from equitable service provision, cross-subsidisation and rural protection in favour of market reforms necessitating self-reliance and rationalisation of services (Herbert-Cheshire, 2003)

The introduction of competitive reforms through the National Competition Policy, and the application of competitive neutrality principles were pivotal points in this reform period, sparking a national debate over the validity of these reforms when they contributed to rural disadvantage.

This study examines the events leading up to and during the public inquiries into these reforms to understand how they were perceived to be in the public interest. By examining public inquiries that showcase competing views from a disparate group of political actors, the study identifies the roles of ideology, material events and vested interests to understand how these economic reforms were perceived to be in the public interest when they did such damage to rural communities.

This chapter introduces the study and highlights the significance of the research findings. By presenting a broad overview of rural Australia and its socio-economic decline throughout the

20th century, the introduction summarises the economic reforms of the 1990s, and the role these reforms played in exacerbating rural decline. Through an overview of the case study: the rural debate over competition reform, this chapter presents the unique research problem which considers why these reforms were seen to be in the public interest when they did such harm to rural communities. The introduction to the study concludes by presenting the outline of the thesis, and detailing the contribution this thesis makes to the theoretical understanding of ideology and its effects.

1.2 Defining Rural Australia

The notion of Rural Australia comprises many geographical, cultural and economic elements.

Current literature on rural Australia note the emergence of “rural and regional” discourses are primarily concerned with its connection to metropolitan areas. McManus and Pritchard (2000) maintain that current discourses of rural and regional Australia are often defined by “what they not; that is, they’re not metropolitan Australia. This form of definition says nothing about what

4 rural and regional Australia is, or the difference between rural and regional” (p. 383). Rural and regional Australia are uniquely different in terms of population. Depending on the definition used, approximately 7 million people or 25 percent of the Australian population live in rural and remote areas (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018). In 2017, the proportion of Australians by area of remoteness was divided into areas such as Metropolitan (72 percent), Inner regional areas (18 percent), Outer regional areas (8.2 percent), Remote areas (1.2 percent) and very remote areas (0.8 percent) (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018). For the purposes of this study, rural Australia and the communities that historically formed this component of

Australia take in the areas outside of Metropolitan and Inner regional areas. The study creates a distinction between inner regional (referred to as major regional) and areas outside these areas

(referred to as rural). By creating a distinction between rural and regional areas, the study is able to describe the changing fortunes of these two distinct communities since World War Two.

The distinction between rural and regional Australia is significantly pronounced when viewed through economic and social development. In broad terms, literature characterises the post-war period as one that witnessed a decline in socio-economic outcomes for those in rural areas; while major regional areas have grown. Beer and Maude (1995) state that “regional cities have experienced slow but steady growth since the 1940s while the proportion of the population living in rural areas and the capitals has changed considerably” (p. 138). Before the end of the 20th century, the population of rural towns had declined by 45 percentage points while major regional centres had grown by roughly that proportion (Hugo, Tan, Feist and Harris, 2015). On average, the prominent growth of major regional centres and the decline of rural areas has been associated with the subsequent reduction in socio-economic indicators of rural communities.

According to Wheller (2001), since the post-war period, the difference in health, employment, access to services and education levels have widened between those in rural areas and the rest of the country. The gap gets progressively worse when remote areas of the nation are compared

5 to major regional and metropolitan areas (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018).

Those who group rural and regional areas into same analytical definitions ignore the widening forms of disadvantage that have come to define the rural experience.

Rural communities are incredibly diverse and for the purpose of this study, the normative view of rural Australia embraces large diversity in terms of economies, links to industry and the use of land (Roberts, 2015). For example, Woods (2004) argues that

Rural is one of those curious words which everyone thinks they know what it means, but

which is actually very difficult to define precisely. Attempts by academics to define and

delimit rural areas and rural societies have always run into problems, sometimes

because the distinctions they have drawn have been rather arbitrary, sometimes

because they have over-emphasised the differences between city and country, and

sometimes because they have under-emphasised the diversity of the countryside (p.15).

While this study describes rural Australia in more general terms, it does so in the fact that there are some rural areas that have remained relatively stable while others have witnessed significant decline. This study seeks to focus on the larger phenomenon of economic decline and depopulation which has characterised rural Australia for much of the past fifty years (McManus,

Walmsley, Argent, Baum, Bourke, Martin and Sorensen, 2012)

Rural communities have a unique cultural identity that is enmeshed in character of twentieth century Australia. Specifically, rural Australia has been the home of the agrarian identity that situates the importance of the agricultural industry to the success of the national economy and creation of a cultural value system regarding virtuous life of working off the land (Botterill, 2009).

Brumby et al. (2011) argue that the development of Australia has been shaped around an

“agricultural utopia” which “supports the notion that living on the farm is coupled to the stereotypical view of a stress-free, happy and healthy lifestyle” (p. 1). When compared to major regional areas, rural areas are significantly different because of their historical and cultural importance. Through the agrarian sentiment, rural communities differ from major regional areas because the cultural perspective that agriculture activity has contributed to the strength of the national character has established significant political importance (Berry, Botterill, Cockfield &

Ding, 2016).

1.3 The Public Interest and Rural Australia

Between 1901 and 1951, the development of rural communities was considered to be in the public interest because of the significant economic contribution of the agriculture and mining industries. During the first 30 years of federation, the agriculture industry comprising growers

(vegetables, wheat, cotton and grain) and farmers (sheep, cattle and poultry) was the nation’s largest industry sector, comprising over a quarter of the country’s economic output, and contributing seventy to eighty percent of its exports (Productivity Commission, 2005). In absolute terms, the agriculture industry achieved almost forty percent of total economic output for the

Australian economy between 1920 and 1940 (Productivity Commission, 2005). Correspondingly, the mining industry comprising iron ore, oil, coal and natural gas provided sustained economic output before surging from the 1950s onwards (Blainey, 1969). Before the iron ore ban of 1938, the Australian mining industry accounted for more than eighteen percent of total exports, with five percent of Australian workers employed in the industry (Anderson, 2017). The economic strength of the natural resource industry influenced policies that would develop rural locations as an export basin for the benefit of the nation.

The significant economic contribution of the agriculture and mining industries became the foundation for metropolitan growth, as cities developed the infrastructure for successfully

7 exporting to world markets (Gray, Gray & Lawrence, 2001). According to Brett (2007), Australian cities were built to service rural communities, primarily operating in the domain of ports, transport hubs, and service centres (p. 7). As metropolitan areas were dependent on the success of rural communities, policy development presented a strategic trade-off whereby national income was redistributed to emerging industries, such as the manufacturing and service sectors, through tariffs and wage controls. As Tonts and Jones (1997) argue, federal policy since federation reflected a view of the public interest to ensure the export potential of rural communities and subsidise service provision for those living in rural areas, while at the same time ensuring the development of less lucrative metropolitan areas and the industries they supported. As Barrett

(1918) argued, “the best way to help the Australian states, and the best way to help Australian civilisation, is to develop the country life” (p. 76). The economic and social vitality of metropolitan areas were dependent on the ability of governments to compensate for uneven economic output between metropolitan and rural communities.

Challenged with the high cost of servicing rural areas, Government policy during this time also focused on establishing the same standard of living between the city and the country. Under the guise of the “ethical state” (Sawer, 1993), “state socialism”, “statist development” or “state paternalism” (Appleyard, 1981), successive governments established political mechanisms to achieve egalitarian service provision to ensure “people’s quality of life was broadly similar across

Australia” (Beer, Maude & Pritchard, 2003, p. 1). Adhering to agrarian protectionism, federal and state policies invested in vibrant rural centres through the development of publicly owned infrastructure, state-based service provision, and the subsidisation of community services.

Halpin (2003) infers that state investment in rural infrastructure and the subsidisation of rural services would have been deemed unviable by markets and private vendors, arguing that it would not be in the market’s interest to both build and sustain rural Australia. For authors such as Brett (2011), Halpin (2003), Sawer (1993) and Stokes (2004), the building and operation of

8 railways, post offices, community services, telephone exchanges and irrigation schemes at a financial loss to government revenue was the product of an interventionist approach to support rural communities, as these communities supported the wider economy, and to ensure equal opportunity for all citizens regardless of location and population density.

A by-product of the interventionism pursued by successive federal governments was that rural communities formed distinct identities and power structures based on agrarian sentiments and the “country life” (Botterill, 2009; Halpin, 2003; Kapferer, 1990). According to Davison (2005), the traditional notion of country life “was better, physically, socially and morally, than city life, and some of its virtues derived from the farmer’s arduous struggle with the elements” (p. 4).

Chapman and Greenville (2002) argue that rural towns became important spaces of social connection through the establishment of voluntary organisations, sporting clubs, churches, meeting halls and pubs which facilitated local collective interaction, fostering a sense of community spirit, belonging and distinct rural identity, while Gray, Stehlik, Lawrence and Bulis

(1998) show that this collective rural identity shared unique bonds of sentiment and “behind the perseverance of such tradition can lie kinship relations, propinquity facilitating interaction and the sharing of symbols” (p. 173). The distinctive rural identity established a sense of place outside the cultures of metropolitan areas, and perpetuated cooperative ideals about life lived on the land.

The rural identity established a strong basis for united action and political influence through the emergence of the Country Party and collective farming groups (Botterill & Cockfield, 2009).

According to Barbalet (1975), “The Country Party played the specific role of visible rural representation” (p. 4) which suggested that “a rural-urban cleavage exists in Australian politics independently of the class cleavage on which the major parties of labour and capital are founded” (p. 4). For the first half of the twentieth century, the Country Party was successful in

9 developing policies that protected rural areas from market forces while allowing more advanced industries the freedom to trade globally (Aitkin, 1972). Despite antagonism between large pastoralists and small farmers over the role of state protectionism, the Country Party was successful in uniting farmers and rural advocacy groups to legitimise the interests of rural

Australia. Richmond (1978) argued that the Country Party “enjoyed political strength far out of proportion to the independent strength of either its support in the electorate or its representation in parliament” (p. 108) and that it held “influence and power that far outweighed the relative insignificance of its parliamentary members” (p. 110). Using the collective power of rural groups, political institutions like the Country Party had substantial political agency, whereby the needs of rural Australians were a core determinant in the development of public policy.

Through an extensive review of the available literature this study posits that for the majority of the 20th century, the development of rural Australia was widely accepted to be in the public interest. The study presents a clear case that for the first fifty years of federation, the economic importance of rural Australia shaped the decision of successive governments to develop rural towns into vital service centres. Through conceptions of statist development, the high cost of supporting rural centres was deemed important, and consequently influenced the development of policies to establish social and economic fairness between those living in rural and metropolitan areas.

1.4 Market Reform and Rural Discontent

The beginning of the 1950s signalled the end of the old economic order and ushered in new roles for the state, the market and rural Australia (Frijters and Gregory, 2006; Kelly, 1992). The state’s management of the economy showed signs of structural weakness through economic stagnation and declining trade activity in the agriculture sector. From the early 1950s onwards, the agriculture industry’s contribution to GDP fell from approximately 14 percent in the early

1960s to 6 percent in the early 1980s, with total employment dropping by almost fifty percent during the same period (Productivity Commission, 2005). The social and political relative importance of agriculture also declined as the farming sector consolidated and came to be dominated by a few large factory farms responsible for the majority of output. In the years leading up to the Oil Crisis of 1973, the accepted role of state-based intervention and market regulation, which had characterised the initial 70 years of federation, began to show signs of strain as vested interests exploited wage controls and industry tariffs were becoming a costly burden on the Australian economy (Painter, 1996).

This period of time marks a significant shift in the policy direction taken by successive Australian governments, and the commencement of the reform era, which no longer placed rural Australia as being within the public interest. Starting in the late 1970s, the Australian economy underwent a series of changes to become more globally competitive, and reverse the economic decline of the preceding years (Pusey, 1991). This included, but wasn’t limited to, the floating of the

Australian dollar, the deregulation of statutory marketing authorities, and the introduction of policies which introduced private competition into areas traditionally within the remit of the state

(Kelly, 1992). Importantly, the reforms situated market outcomes, rather than state-based protection, as a mechanism to achieve economic growth. For those living in rural Australia, the adoption of these reforms exacerbated the socio-economic polarisation of their communities, causing significant social disadvantage, and contributing to ongoing population loss to metropolitan and major regional areas (Cheshire and Lawrence, 2005).

One of the most iconic economic reforms of this period was the National Competition Policy

(NCP). The NCP comprised a raft of legislative changes implemented to re-regulate all sectors of the economy towards free-market outcomes. Among these changes was the introduction of competitive neutrality for local government services, which embodied a free-market ethos, and

11 became a lightning rod for resistance from affected rural communities. For many in rural

Australia, these policies contributed to the rapid decline of their communities through rising unemployment, removal of local services and higher costs of living (Smith, 2001). This shift in policy direction represented what Kelly (1992) called “an end of certainty” whereby wider marketisation resulted in the removal of state-based intervention and subsidisation of loss- making activities. For rural Australians, the adoption of competitive neutrality was seen to erode their local communities and was not perceived to be in the public interest as they believed increasing competition only benefited those from metropolitan and major regional areas.

Political leaders and bureaucrats presented these reforms as pragmatic, and only to be implemented if they passed the public interest test. Positioned as the only way to reverse economic decline, the implementation of competitive reform was framed as a necessity to ensure Australia would remain competitive in the global economy. This characterisation of pragmatism has since been adopted by some political scholars. Key accounts of the era such as those by Kelly (1992), Collins (2010) and Goldfinch and Hart (1997), described competition reforms as arising through consensus, improvisation and practical flexibility. This perspective fits into a long-held tradition of describing Australian political traditions as being pragmatic rather than being informed by ideology. In particular, the work of Collins (1985), Wanna and Weller

(2003), and Hollander and Patapan (2007) stressed that Australian politics is generally aligned with a philosophy which is more rationalist in its approach, ensuring decisions are secular, practical and instrumental (Collins, 1995 p. 149) and that Australian politics is “largely uninformed by imposing aspirations and grand political or legal theory, or shaped by party ideology and platform” (Hollander and Patapan, 2007, p. 287). The promotion of competition reforms aligned with a popular discourse that rejected Australian politics as being ideological, and evaluated the success of policies based on their capacity to maximise material outcomes.

For the many who sought to implement competition reforms at both the federal and state levels, the shift to marketisation was a practical response to the cascading nature of trade liberalisation, and the need to be a full participant in the emergent globalised marketplace (Hollander &

Patapan, 2007). Arguably, with exposure to greater international competition, the economy needed to increase productivity and lower input costs of the public sector (Quiggin, 1999).

Policies such as the NCP and competitive neutrality were implemented to address the need to adapt to the new economic environment with the NCC stating that “firms which are more efficient have greater capacities to adjust to changes in economic conditions, including global conditions.

The Australian economy needs to be adaptable if our living standards are to be maintained and improved” (National Competition Council, 1996, p. 7). In this light, they claimed that competition reform did not stem from a dogmatic set of ideas, but rather was a practical requirement for the

Australian economy to be successful.

Political unrest and feelings of alienation in rural Australia at the introduction of competition reforms gained public attention through two major political events. The first was the arrival of

Pauline Hanson and the One Nation Party, which campaigned on a narrow form of economic nationalism, marked by a strong distrust of debt, multinationals, economic rationalism and the wider movement of globalisation. The One Nation Party had state and federal success which was attributed to its ability to collectivise rural discontent with globalisation and policies like the

NCP. The second was the strong rural vote which overthrew the Kennett-led Victorian

Government in 1999. Throughout two terms, Kennett presided over a raft of free-market reforms including the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering for local council services. Kennett entered the 1999 election in a favourable position, with most opinion polls and commentators predicting a comfortable return to government (Russell, 1999). Kennett’s coalition party suffered a 13-seat swing to the Labor party, which campaigned heavily on restoring services to rural

Australia. Kennett’s loss reflected rural Victoria's anger towards the ongoing deregulation of the

13 state’s public service and the loss of confidence from rural voters (Curtin & Woodward, 2001;

Woodward & Costar, 2000). This study shows that a clear debate emerged over what was in the public interest between those living in rural areas and the ability of the market to provide the same level of service as traditional state mechanisms.

1.5 The Rural Debate over Competition Reform

The growing rural unrest led to two major political reviews which are the focus of providing the context for this study. The Productivity Commission’s review: The Impact of Competition Policy

Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia; and the Senate Select Committee’s report: Riding the

Waves of Change: The Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy, demonstrated competing views of what is in the public interest. The reviews canvassed more than 600 submissions from a range of political actors with competing views on the benefits of competition reform. The analysis of the submissions, in relation to the impact of competitive neutrality of local council services, revealed wide-ranging debate over the benefits of exposing more public services to marketisation versus the belief that the state is a more effective mechanism for service delivery. For a collection of business interests, state governments and federal regulators, competitive neutrality would ensure local councils were more productive and services more cost effective as a result of greater transparency and access to private providers operating competitively. Conversely, small council managers, rural advocacy groups, and state- based National members argued that competitive neutrality would increase council costs, lead to a decline in service culture, and contribute to population decline through the outsourcing of labour. The reviews, which occurred at a pivotal point in time, provide a lens through which this study examines competing discourses on the public benefit of these economic reforms, and how the reforms were influenced by interest groups.

The outcomes of these reviews depict how the concerns of rural Australia were quashed in favour of the wider economic reform agenda and its promise to deliver national economic growth. The reviews indicated that, despite the commonly held view within the rural community that competition reform was an unprecedented outbreak of economic rationalism which ignored important social issues and posed a threat to their way of life – adversely affecting their standard of living and the adequacy of services in country Australia (Productivity Commission, 1999), the reforms were deemed to be in the public interest. Official responses from the federal government indicated that competition reform was used as a scapegoat for rural economic changes largely beyond the control of governments. Treasurer Peter Costello argued that rural discontent was primarily due to considerable misunderstanding of the competition reforms, and that instead of reversing the policy direction, governments should improve community understanding of how matters of public interest, and social considerations, are taken into account during the implementation of competition reforms (Costello, 2000). The reviews demonstrate that despite wide-ranging debate, rural concerns about wider marketisation and increasing competition were ignored by key decision makers.

Even though the National Competition Council (NCC) claimed that all public interest considerations intrinsically carried equal weight (National Competition Council, 1996) in the development and implementation of the reforms, this study suggests that the public interest referred to was perfunctory, favouring the expansion of economic interests over the social considerations of rural areas. This study argues that competition reform was framed to be in the public interest, while being to the detriment to those living in rural Australia. The findings contribute to existing literature (Alston, 2002; Brett, 2011; Botterill, 2009; Cheshire, 2006) which argues that as the economic importance of rural Australia declined so too did its ability to shape public debate, particularly as it related to traditional state-based service delivery and economic protection. This study bridges important gaps in the existing literature by identifying how this shift

15 took place, and considers why, and how, competition reform was legitimised to the detriment of those in rural communities.

1.6 How were these reforms implemented to the Disadvantage of Rural Australia?

This study questions how the introduction of these reforms, which exacerbated the socio- economic decline of rural Australia, was viewed to be in the public interest. Reflecting on current research from scholars such as Edwards (2007), Bell (2012), Chester (2010) and Cahill (2013), the study establishes a structurationist framework (Giddens, 1991) to examine how competing political actors shaped the understanding of the public interest during the rural debate over competition reform. This study posits that to fully understand why the public interest has shifted away from rural Australia in favour of expanding market forces, scholars must move away from one explanatory variable, and examine the interplay between the material and the ideational.

Using a form of critical discourse analysis within the structurationist framework, the study examines the competing views presented in the public inquiries into competition reform to identify the varied ideological frames employed by disparate political actors to influence what was understood to be in the public interest. The analysis identifies key themes from the submissions and aligns them with the discursive frameworks of specific ideologies. Far from being pragmatic, the study identifies competing ideologies on display during the debate over competition reform, including those which sought to embrace wider marketisation through neoliberal ideology, and those which sought to ensure the continued prosperity of rural communities through state-based regulation characterised by social liberalism. The study finds competing ideological views of the market as either a tool for increasing efficiency and quality while at the same time driving input costs, or as a system that would result in uneven distribution of outcomes with material benefits concentrated in areas with competitive advantages able to sustain competitive markets. In each case, ideology leads to varying understanding of what is in

16 the public interest and is reflective of the work of Carstensen and Schmidt (2016), and Campbell and Pedersen (2001), who argue that if one seeks to understand why one political group is successful over another, scholars should look to breaking down the competing motivations and the drivers that underpin them.

The study examines the role of material events, interests and ideas in the political success of the neoliberal discourse throughout the rural debate over competition reform. In doing so, the study identifies the relative importance of these variables and how they intersect throughout the debate. The analysis examines the importance of declining material conditions and how the economic environment was a catalyst to explore new ideas. Furthermore, the analysis identifies the interests of those who championed the introduction of wider reaching competition policies and those who sought to return to state-based service provision. The study explores the individual motivations of the political actors within the debate and identifies how those who championed competition reform would benefit economically from the implementation of the reforms. The study links the material benefits of competition reform to those who have a vested interest in their wider adoption, and their relationship to key decision makers.

The study finds that ideology acted as a coordinating mechanism enabling the mobilisation of a number of disparate but powerful interests to support a shared agenda. This ultimately overpowered concerns about the impact that the reforms would have on rural communities. By analysing publicly available qualitative data that illustrates the rural debate over competition reform, this study identifies the relative importance of the roles played by the material conditions of the time, those who had a vested interest in the reforms, and the use of ideology to frame the arguments. Through exploration of these variables, the study proves that the wider adoption of competition reforms was neither a pragmatic nor procedural tool as some have claimed, but rather they are underpinned by a neoliberal discourse. Instead of relying on just one dominant

17 explanation such as pragmatism or ideology, the study shows that a combination of factors resulted in a shift away from the older conceptions of the traditional public interest, which promoted the socio-economic development of rural Australia through state-based regulation, to one that believes in the wider adoption of market principles and the economic benefits of competition reform.

1.7 What does this study tell us about the relative importance of ideology, material events, and interests in political debate over the public interest?

The study develops previous research that attempts to explain the political transformation in rural Australia since the 1970s, while advancing the theoretical understanding of ideology and its impact. The study rejects pragmatic and ideas-centred explanations of change because of gaps in their methodological approach to causation, ignoring “the significance of institutional and wider structural variables which inevitably shape agency and institutional change processes”

(Bell, 2012, p. 884). To effectively theorise the power of ideology within the rural debate over competition reform, this study shows the utility of a structurationist understanding of ideology, where the ideology’s effectiveness is dependent upon the wider contextual and institutional circumstances in which it is deployed. By analysing the government reviews into the impact of competition reform, this study presents new findings in rural comparative politics that posits that economic crises, coupled with the presence of new ideological discourses through which actors collectively define and interpret solutions in new ways, are essential conditions of the political success of particular policy reforms (Campbell and Pedersen, 2001).

The study contributes to wider theoretical understandings of ideology by applying a version of neoliberalism shaped by material and geographic environments. Rather than viewing the rural debate over competition reform through diametrical perceptions of either the material or the ideational, this study uses a version of neoliberalism that sits in, rather than separate from, the

18 state with discursive frames that embrace re-regulation, rather than deregulation of the economy, which is a position popularly held in previous studies. The study applies a structurationist conception of an “actually existing form” of neoliberalism which theorises ideational power only when it is embedded in wider forces related to the economy, the state and institutions as regulators of market outcomes. In this instance, the study conceives of neoliberalism not as the process of removing the state in favour of a complete free-market system, as much literature purports it to be, but rather as a reconceptualisation of the state as a tool for shifting the ownership of service production from the state to the market. By positioning neoliberalism in a geographic, economic and institutional context, the study moves beyond a normative understanding of neoliberalism and its impact on rural politics. By doing this, the study provides useful leverage for further research into structurationist interpretations of neoliberalism and its role in public debate over what is in the public interest.

1.8 The Researcher and Rural Australia

The findings of this study are socially constructed, and are situated in the researcher’s use of their own varied interpretive lens. Because of the unique research design of the study, it is important to identify how the researcher’s own experiences might or might not have influenced the research process (Dowling, 2006). Through a form of reflexivity, the identification of the researcher’s own potential political bias and individual background creates a “constant awareness, assessment, and reassessment by the researcher of the researcher’s own influence, shaping inter-subjective research and the consequent research findings” (Patnaik, 2013, p. 99).

By situating the role of the researcher and their relationship to rural Australia, the study is informed by the political values of the researcher, while also establishing a form of transparency regarding how the discourses of those in the study have been modified and interpreted. To ensure strong validity of the study’s research design, it is important to place the role of the researcher and their own historical background in the context of the study.

The researcher is formed by both rural and major regional centres. Born in Moree, NSW in the early 1980s and raised in areas such as Dubbo, Gilgandra and Tamworth, NSW. Throughout this time, the major regional centres like Dubbo and Tamworth grew in size as both Moree and

Gilgandra continued their ongoing socio-economic decline. In this, the researcher has benefitted from the growth of major regional centres through greater access to better educational opportunities, job opportunities and affordable housing. However, like many, he has been part of a population exodus from rural centres as those locations have experienced a removal of local services, the absence of central business districts and high levels of unemployment. For much of the researcher’s youth, the conception of rural Australia was one of increasing poverty and locations with no real forms of opportunity outside farming and local service industries. From the researcher’s perspective, rural areas of Australia have always needed greater support from the

20 government, but he acknowledges that the increase in marketisation has significantly improved the livelihoods of the middle class of which he is a part. The researcher brings lived experience of both rural and major regional areas to the study, acknowledging the complexity of these two distinct areas and rejecting “one-size-fits-all” approaches to their development.

Politically, the researcher situates himself as an advocate of social and community progress while acknowledging the benefits of market forces in increasing individual opportunity. Aligning himself within centre-left policy development, the researcher believes in the benefits of social liberalism to promote wider egalitarianism and to ensure equal forms of opportunity. There is a sound belief in the role of market forces, but under the presumption that the state needs to regulate the excesses of the market to ensure power doesn’t become concentrated through the establishment of private monopolies. The researcher has primarily been raised in areas where the National Party of Australia has dominated local politics and has continually viewed rural policy development as being obscured by the vested interests of large pastoralists and general conservative views on society. However, the researcher also understands the power of agrarian sentiment and the passionate dislike of the Labor party in country towns. In this, there is a clear bias towards the outcomes of social liberalism, but there is also acknowledgment that market reform in Australia has benefitted many, including those in major regional centres.

1.9 Research Aims and Objectives

This study analysed a major federal policy initiative to understand how the concept of the public interest was decontested in the rural debate over competition reform. Identifying a need to progress beyond the dominant pragmatic and normative explanations for the adoption of market reform in rural Australia, this study sought to identify what roles ideology, material events and vested interests played in the decontestation of what is in the public interest and who the public interest would come to serve. To achieve this, the study utilised a multi-method approach to

21 analyse the discourse found within two public reviews of the socio-economic impacts of NCP in rural areas. Specifically, by identifying the competing discourses throughout the rural debate over the introduction of the NCP, and the wider application of competitive neutrality through the competitive tendering of local council services, the study:

● Identified whether the public interest referred to throughout the NCP was a rational,

pragmatic and procedural tool, as is often argued, or whether it was underpinned by an

ideological discourse.

● Examined how these competition reforms came to predominate the discourse about the

public interest when they were viewed as detrimental by those living in rural areas.

● Explored how the roles of ideas, material events, and vested interests combined to

shape a conception of the public interest aligned to an “actually existing” form of

neoliberal ideology.

Underpinned by structuration theory, the study demonstrates how the ideological battle for the definition of the “public interest” was won and by whom. Because of this, the outcomes of this study contribute to a neglected area of rural Australian political research, which acknowledges the role of ideational power as a coordinating mechanism for various interest groups to establish considerably powerful positions in political debates (Bell, 2012; Campbell & Pedersen, 2001).

1.10 Outline of Chapters

Chapter two provides the context for the study, which addresses the decline of the Australian economy and the free-market policies that succeeded the decline. To begin, this chapter discusses Australia’s traditional policy settings and its egalitarian outcomes. Inherent to this was the economic importance of the agriculture industry and the rural communities that support the

22 industry. The chapter documents the necessity of state protectionism to ensure market forces didn’t contravene the development of emerging industries and ensured the sustainability of rural areas. The chapter addresses the widespread economic crisis and the decline in relative value of the agriculture industry that resulted in a significant shift in policy direction; moving from state protectionism to policy that embraced the perceived benefits of the free market. The chapter concludes by demonstrating that the introduction of market reform decoupled rural communities from their economic base, contributing to the view that rural communities had been forgotten in favour of policies that promoted the development of major regional and metropolitan areas. For those in rural Australia, the market reforms that began in the late 1970s exacerbated their socio- economic decline, facing de-population, a reduction in services and increasing unemployment.

The third chapter outlines the conceptual framework that will underpin the study, and introduces concepts, presumptions and precepts that will be explored within the study. The chapter considers the economic reforms of the 1990s and argues that these reforms have exacerbated the socio-economic decline that commenced in the 1950s. By analysing publicly available submissions and historical research, the chapter demonstrates that these reforms were described by political leaders as pragmatic reforms implemented in the public interest. The chapter introduces a conceptual frame through which to consider the contentious nature of what is defined by the public interest, and compares different theories of how the public interest has shaped Australian politics through critical consideration of material and ideational theories of reform.

The chapter concludes by presenting several unique interpretations of market reform in

Australia. The first was the pragmatic interpretation of market reform, where decisions made by successive governments within this period were not made from a predetermined ideological viewpoint, but through a series of pragmatic choices designed to modernise the Australian

23 economy. This interpretation positions the more extensive marketisation of the Australian economy as a direct result of practical steps taken to ensure growth in a global marketplace. The second addresses the role of rational actors and their links to interest groups to influence successive governments to embrace free-market policies. The third conceives of the policy reforms as a result of a normative version of neoliberalism, and a reduction of the role of the state in favour of the free market. This form of neoliberalism comes from within the ideational turn and associates the shift in policy to ideologically aligned actors deep within the federal bureaucracy, and the increasing influence of think tanks promoting trade liberalisation. The final interpretation of Australia’s policy shift progresses the normative understanding of neoliberalism and introduces structuration theory to explain wider roles of both material events, as the catalysts for change, and vested interests who seek to expand their material wealth growth through marketisation. Through the concept of an actually existing (Peck, Brenner & Theodore,

2018) form of neoliberalism, the chapter posits that market reform in Australia was less about the removal of the state and more about the re-regulation (Konings, 2009) of the economy towards the market.

Chapter four introduces the case study: The competitive neutrality of the national competition policy and the contentious nature of the introduction of competitive tendering. The chapter details how the NCP came into effect, including the commissioning of the Hilmer Report, and in particular, the significance of the notion of public interest. The chapter concludes by highlighting the rural backlash to the NCP, competitive neutrality, and wider reforms such as competitive tendering in rural areas which led to two major reviews into the socio-economic impacts of competition reform.

Chapter five outlines the scope of the study, including the research methodology and the key questions addressed by the thesis. The first question considers whether these reforms were a

24 pragmatic and procedural tool as argued, or whether they were underpinned by ideology. This question provides scope for the study to further consider how these reforms were seen to be in the public interest when they did such damage to rural Australia. The outcome of both these questions provides the basis for the final question which considers how the findings of this study advance the theoretical understanding of ideational power and its effects in public debates. In resolving these core questions, the study utilises a critical discourse analysis of the two reviews into the socio-economic impacts of competition to link established themes within the debate over competitive tendering of local council services to competing ideological discourses. The themes identified will be linked to specific ideological discourses while also identifying the political actors who utilised them. The study posits that ideology was present in the debate, and frames the public interest differently depending on who would derive benefit, and what the material outcome would be. The chapter concludes by considering how the findings progress the ideas-centred explanation of political change, and indicating how ideology intersects with vested interests and material circumstances.

Chapter six presents the first major finding of the thesis, which demonstrates that these reforms were not a pragmatic or procedural tool as often claimed, but were underpinned by neoliberal discourse. By critically analysing the discourse within the rural debate, the study posits that the benefits of competition reform were shaped by ideological discourses. The chapter demonstrates that there were competing interpretations of the public interest framed by differing ideologies. From a rural perspective, critics of competition reform framed the public interest using social-liberal discourse to call for a return to state-based service provision. The study finds that social-liberal discourse argued against marketisation because of the inequitable outcomes it produced, which led to population loss and a decline in community service obligations.

Conversely, proponents of competition reform framed the public interest using a neoliberal discourse to call for greater exposure of private vendors to services traditionally provisioned by

25 the state. The study finds that the neoliberal discourse promoted the marketisation of local services because of the opportunity for competition to lower input costs, increase allocative efficiency, and support private providers to compete fairly in the market. The case study shows that the introduction of competition reform was not pragmatic, but underpinned by a neoliberal discourse that captured governments, federal regulators and business interests. Reflecting on these findings, the study concludes that ideology had a powerful position in a series of reforms that contributed to the socio-economic decline of rural Australia.

Chapter seven presents the second major finding of the thesis, which demonstrates that an

“actually existing” (Peck, Brenner and Theodore, 2018) form of neoliberal ideas served as a coordinating mechanism that gave a diverse and dispersed range of interests a shared narrative and agenda. Importantly, the study finds that the neoliberal discourse provided powerful political actors with solutions to their economic problems. The analysis of the case study posits that the wider adoption of competition tendering would specifically benefit federal and state governments and the business community to the detriment of those living in rural communities. Acting together under a unifying ideological discourse, these diverse interests had the power to override local objections, and to implement unpopular reforms that harmed local areas. In contrast, the study finds that rural critics of competitive neutrality lacked an ideological framework that would galvanise the equally disparate rural actors, nor could it provide the same material benefits for the more powerful political actors. As a result, the study shows that rural opponents lacked a coordinated agenda, were out of step with a position on the effectiveness of the public service, and couldn’t provide an alternative policy direction through which to consider alternative solutions to the challenges when compared with the neoliberal discourse.

Chapter eight concludes the study by demonstrating the wider implications of the research and how the findings of this study advance the theoretical understanding of ideology. By identifying key determinants of the role ideology played in the debate, the findings advance the current understanding of the central position ideas occupied in political and economic reform. The study shows the embedded and contextual nature of neoliberalism and how its political impact must move past the “ideas-centred explanation” as the sole reason for its success. By highlighting competing discourses over competitive reform within the rural debate, the study shows that neoliberal ideas also need wider institutional and structural variables to be politically successful.

The case study utilises a conception of neoliberalism that shifts from the normative version and presents an ideological discourse that highlights the role of the state in propagating freedom of capital, and embedding market competition into previously protected areas to the detriment of rural Australia through a form of “re-regulation” (Konings, 2009). The chapter concludes by providing researchers with a framework through which to better understand how a structurationist conception of “actually existing” (Peck, Brenner & Theodore, 2018) neoliberalism has contributed to the ongoing decline of rural Australia.

1.11 Conclusion

This chapter introduced the study and identified the relative importance of ideas, materialism and vested interests in the rural debate over competition reform. To achieve this, an overview of rural Australia was presented which argued that for the first fifty years of federation, the national economy was heavily dependent on the industries located in rural areas. The development of policy during this time reflected what Sawer calls “the ethical state” (2003), where governments actively sought egalitarian service provision regardless of location. The chapter positioned the context of the study at the end of a thirty-year period of economic reform, which arguably shifted the public interest away from those in rural areas as successive governments became less reliant on the agriculture industry. A key example of this view was the introduction of the NCP

27 and wider competitive reforms which exacerbated the socio-economic decline of rural Australia.

The chapter presented several research questions, answered by the study, which address why competition reforms were perceived to be in the public interest when they did such harm to rural

Australia. The chapter concluded by listing the outcomes of the study through breaking down each individual chapter.

Chapter 2 The Research Background: Rural Australia and Market

Reform

Chapter Summary

In contributing to the study, this chapter:

● Presents the wider research context to analyse the rural debate over competition reform.

● Introduces traditional rural policies, implemented since federation, which highlight the

economic importance of the agriculture industry and rural communities to the national

economy.

● Describes the state-based policies implemented to cross-subsidise the high cost of

servicing disparate and lowly populated rural communities.

● Highlights the decline in the economic importance of the agriculture industry, the

stagnation of the Australian economy, and the resultant shift towards market reform.

● Discusses the pro-market reforms of successive Labor governments including the

bipartisan support for trade liberalisation, public sector, wage and social security reforms.

● Posits that the economic transformation that began in the 1980s, later refined in 1990s,

decoupled rural Australia from its economic base and exacerbated the socio-economic

decline of rural communities

2.1 Introduction

The rural debate over competition reform took place during a period of economic and political change in Australia. Highlighting the significance of this transformation in Australian political history, the following sections explore Australia’s major policy settings since federation to provide context for the adoption of competition reform by successive state and federal governments. The chapter posits that the agriculture industry and rural communities held significant economic, cultural and political importance for the first fifty years of Australia’s federation. This period was characterised by strong state-based support for emerging industries, sustaining the more advanced export oriented agricultural industries such as wool, while investing in rural infrastructure and the cross-subsidisation of rural services. The political literature indicates that state-based policy development established a form of collective action because of the belief that private and corporate investment were insufficient means to develop the large rural export basin relied on by metropolitan areas and the wider economy.

This chapter provides an historical overview of traditional Australian policy settings since federation to the late nineteen seventies. Drawing on the works of Botterill (2006), Brett (2007),

Pritchard and McManus (2000) and Tonts and Horsley (2019), the study argues that for most of the twentieth century, the state acted as the primary driver of industry protection, and introduced the equitable provision of public services. Despite significant cost, successive governments introduced a series of policies focused on high levels of import tariffs, the creation of statutory marketing authorities, centralised wage arbitration, dedicated public infrastructure spending, and a robust system of social welfare. For rural Australians, the economic foundation established by these policies provided opportunity for “well-motivated, capable and hard-working people to get ahead in life and achieve their maximum potential, no matter what their social background”

(Argy, 2006, p. 9). For the rest of the nation, traditional policies, implemented prior to 1970,

30 provided the economic foundation for a prosperous middle class and the expansion of metropolitan areas. This chapter argues that the traditional policy paradigm was purposely built to develop the nation’s export capabilities, populate the sparse Australian land mass, farm highly productive food bowls, and develop rural areas in the interests of national development.

By establishing and considering the traditional policies of successive governments since federation, the chapter provides an opportunity to explore the diminishing socio-economic benefits of state-based intervention. Further to this, the chapter details the decline in the economic importance of the agricultural industry including the sharp decrease in wool production from the 1950s onwards. Commonly referred to as “falling off the sheep’s back” (Seddon, 2005), the wool industry began a rapid decline from over sixty-five percent of Australia’s total exports in

1951 to just under ten percent in 1981 (Cashin and McDermott, 2002), which contributed to the country’s larger structural economic crisis. Commencing in the mid-1970s, the economic problems of rising inflation, a wage explosion and productivity stagnation resulted in calls for new policy ideas to ensure the resilience of the Australian economy in a global marketplace

(Kelly, 1992). The decline in Australia’s economic performance necessitated the introduction of wider marketisation of the economy including the removal of industry and public sector protection.

Embraced by governments across the political spectrum, the union movement, and pro-market farming groups, significant market and competition reforms were implemented over a 25-year period. Beginning with the radical Labor reforms of the 1980s and the more targeted reforms of the 1990s, this chapter details the pro-market reforms of successive Labor governments including the bipartisan support for trade liberalisation, public sector, wage and social security reforms. For rural Australia, this represented a significant shift in the role of the state, whereby public policy was centred on the market discourses of “localism” (Hogan, Cleary, Lockie, Young

& Daniel, 2012) and “self-reliance” (Higgins & Lockie, 2001), which removed protectionist mechanisms and cross-subsidisation in favour of strategies that encouraged self-help and industry entrepreneurialism. This chapter posits that during this time, the agriculture industry and the rural communities that traditionally supported it were “decoupled” (Hogan & Lockie, 2013) to further embed rural development in an integrated market economy. Leading into the debate over competition reform, conflicts emerged because of the perceived inequity of market reforms which divided those who lived in rural areas from those who lived in metropolitan and major regional areas.

This chapter concludes by arguing that the market reforms that began in the 1980s, and were later refined in the 1990s, exacerbated the ongoing socio-economic decline of Australia’s rural communities. Through a review of current literature, this section posits that market reforms created a series of winners and losers which resulted in the mass exodus of small, family owned farms, and the depopulation of rural communities. Coupled with the corporatisation of public services, and the marketisation of community service obligations, literature from authors such as

Tonts (2010), Alston (2002), and Hogan and Lockie (2013) argues that market reforms have compounded the adverse impact of the reduction in economic importance of the agriculture industry, resulting in higher rates of unemployment, rural population decline, and the reduction of social services. This chapter illustrates that the market liberalisation of the economy intensified rural disadvantage, and created a sharp distinction between the socio-economic growth of metropolitan and major regional centres.

2.2 Traditional Rural Policy

For the first fifty years of federation, rural policy was shaped by support of the major export industries of agriculture and mining, and protection of less advanced industries, while ensuring state investment in rural infrastructure and the cross-subsidisation of rural services. According to authors such Brett (2007), Botterill (2006), Tonts (2000) and Appleyard (1981), rural policy was integral to the development of Australia’s economic foundation by strategically leveraging the export potential of rural areas. The emergent national economy was dependent on a small number of primary producers, with work by Cook (1963), Maddock and McLean (1987) and

Cashin and McDermott (2002) stating that it wasn’t until the 1960s that the economy diversified, and shifted away from the wool industry as the nation’s dominant economic commodity. Despite its under-population, rural Australia, and the industries that it sustained, was over-represented in its contribution to the national economy, with rural communities accounting for over 70 percent of

Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 1900 and 1950 (Pritchard and McManus,

2000), more than half of which was contributed by the wool industry. This singular dependency on successful agricultural exports, commonly referred to as riding “on the sheep’s back” (Cashin and McDermott, 2002) to economic success, was characterised by successive policies established to protect the prosperity of rural communities for wider national economic benefit.

2.2.1 The Economic Importance of Agriculture

The economic and cultural importance of rural communities supported a series of policy initiatives to cross-subsidise the high cost of servicing disparate and lowly populated rural communities (Aitkin, 1988; Botterill, 2009). This approach was consistent with what Smith and

Pritchard (2012) label the “state assisted paradigm” (p. 41) in which government intervention into the provision of services and local infrastructure resulted in a sustained socio-economic balance between those living in rural and metropolitan areas. Beer, Maude and Pritchard (2001) argue that “even in the countryside, few areas were left behind as services provided by State or

Federal governments supporting struggling communities, and in some instances public sector price supports, agrarian socialism, ensured the survival of whole industries” (p. 1). According to

Brett (2011), rural policy reflected Australia’s commitment to regional equality which encompassed “certain social entitlements, shared access to basic services, and a shared minimum standard of living” (p. 3). Through progressive taxation and price fixing mechanisms, federal funding was directed to develop rural centres, and provide equitable public services, irrespective of where a citizen lived. Despite significant cost to both federal and state governments, the investment in state-owned post offices, railway networks, local community services, and telecommunications networks were purposeful policy trade-offs which compensated for the economic importance of remote and isolated areas.

The development of rural policy during the first half of the twentieth century highlights divergence between the benefits of the market and the state to the success of the Australian economy. For many theorists (Sawer, 2000; Smyth 2008; Stokes, 2004), Australia’s traditional rural policy settings restricted market forces under the prevailing notion that the state would protect the economy from market failures and the negative externalities that were counter to overarching goals of egalitarianism, rural community cohesion and industry development. In this context, the state, government institutions, policy settings and economic systems have constrained the operations of the market to protect the nation’s exporting industries, and to ensure sustainable nation building activities (Pusey, 1991). It can be argued that traditional rural policy has favoured state protection over market outcomes. For ease of analysis, these policies can be better understood as one of four key domains that positioned the role of the state in developing rural Australia, and promulgated the belief that the market requires regulation to constrain power concentration and market excesses, which would have been detrimental to the prosperity of rural communities and the wider national economy (Argent, 2002).

2.2.2 Statist Rural Development

Rural development was predicated on the fact that both the Australian landscape, both geographically and economically was uneven. Rural Australia has consistently presented a challenge for policy makers because of the diverse nature of their economy, the way agriculture has improved its productivity of the land and how advanced their industry became (Pritchard,

2005). Despite this, statist rural development has been generally consistent with traditional policies which sought a balance of protectionism for emerging industries and wider liberalisation of those more developed.

The first policy domain was the substantial use of protective tariffs and Statutory Market

Authorities to bolster wages and protect the emerging Australian agriculture industry. Fenna and

Tapper (2012) argue that the level of protectionism applied to the Australian economy assisted in establishing an exceptional level of living standards for the working class, and contributed to relatively high levels of employment. According to Conley and van Acker (2011), the state- entrenched protectionist policies supported emerging industries “from international competition to ensure higher wages, bigger profits, and employment for a growing population” (p. 506).

Fenna (2013) refers to Australian protectionism as an emancipatory function of the state to improve the socio-economic status of all citizens, and reduce the economy’s vulnerability to international market competition. For these authors, this level of state intervention represented

“an economic justification of egalitarianism” (Pedersen, Kersbergen & Hemerijck, 2001, p. 309) in which state management of the economy ensured price stabilisation, equality of markets and supply stability (Round & Shanahan, 2012). Protectionist policies played a significant role in developing emergent local industries, and widening social benefits for Australians by restraining erratic global economic pressure (Hancock, 1930).

This policy mechanism is best exemplified by the creation of Statutory Market Authorities

(SMAs) from the 1920s onwards. SMAs were collective agencies representing particular agricultural products (wool, wheat and eventually dairy), with oversight of promotion, quality control, domestic supplies and price stabilisation (Harrigan, 2004). Commonly referred to as

“single desk sellers” or “statutory monopolies”, the primary function of SMAs was to establish industry control over international market competition. Jacobsen and Scobie (1995) highlight that

“statutory monopolies stifle the emergence of new organisations that could offer the same or similar services at lower prices” (p. 76), while Tonts and Jones (1997) describe the SMAs as monopolists of the selling process by establishing themselves as both purchaser and exporter.

According to Harrigan (2004), the establishment and ongoing support for SMAs was a response to the fact that “farmers were exposed to the violent price fluctuations of international agricultural markets. Because the supply of agricultural products was highly competitive, oversupply of international markets produced dramatic falls in price” (p. 14). Despite opposition from more established pastoralists (Connors, 1996), SMAs stringently adhered to state-based protectionism which, at its peak, resulted in Australia becoming second only to New Zealand as the most protected country in relation to their support of advanced industries (Castles, 1994).

The second policy domain was the implementation of arbitration and wage control, which ensured fair working conditions, and regulated wages for the emerging rural middle class.

Through an extensive network of legally constituted tribunals, the state was the arbiter on industrial relations and wage conciliation between employers and employees. Authors such as

Mangel, Delorme and Kamerschen (1994) believe the introduction of compulsory arbitration was the result of the capitalist class wanting to restrict the power of the labour movement, while others such as Alexander (1967) argued that it was the emergence of a labour movement which compelled employers to negotiate. For Macintyre (1987), Yerbury and Isaac (1971), and

Goldfinch and Smith (2006), compulsory arbitration was an integral component of egalitarian

36 state development intended to “both attain social justice and to manage globalisation” (Goldfinch

& Smith, 2006 p. 422). In these instances, the state was responsible for the introduction of fair and reasonable working conditions, citing that landmark wage cases such as the Arbitration Act

1904, and the Harvester judgement of 1907 which were intended to ensure that the market dominance of employers did not result in the exploitation of rural workers.

The third domain was state-based infrastructure development encapsulated in a policy framework referred to as national demand management. Traditionally, the state has taken a substantive role in the development of public goods, services and infrastructure. Public works within the first fifty years of federation featured alongside large scheme projects such as the

Postmaster General (Livingston, 1994), the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme (Griffin, 2003), the establishment of major regional centres (such as Dubbo and Albury), housing schemes, and higher investment in public, tertiary and vocational education (Marginson, 2004). For rural communities, state-based infrastructure development resulted in the cross-subsidisation of community service obligations including standard rates for letters, telephone calls, electricity, public transport, council service provisions, and gas supply regardless of the cost of service.

According to Tonts (2000), the cross-subsidisation of public infrastructure and social service provision such as schools, hospitals, town halls, sporting facilities and police stations was driven by the need to develop rural Australia, because “it was widely held that scarcity of such services would act as a disincentive to rural development and prosperity” (p. 62). State-based service development supported the growth of rural towns while ensuring ongoing redistribution of the

Australian population away from metropolitan areas (Brett, 2007; Aitkin, 1985).

The final domain associated with the traditional rural policy paradigm was the development of a robust social welfare system. According to Castles (1994), statist social policy provided a last resort social net to ensure that those who could work, should work. Herscovitch and Stanton

(2008) argue that traditionally the social welfare system was a strong commitment from the government to maintain high levels of employment, health benefits and pensions while providing social protection, such as paid sick leave, which was held outside the social security system

(p. 52). From a rural perspective, this meant that farmers and their families were protected through aged pensions, maternity allowances, sick and unemployment benefits through which

“the role of the state was to ensure all citizens were given the opportunity to develop their full potential” (Stokes, 2004, p. 15). Despite the work of Mendelsohn (1979), which claims that traditional welfare policy in Australia has been ad hoc with little regard to the overall objective of social responsibility, the majority of the literature argues that the state played a significant role in implementing policies that promoted equal opportunity and active citizenship regardless of circumstance or location (Sawer, 2000).

Australia has a long tradition of state-based intervention in support of the economic and social development of rural communities. Much of the political literature shows that state development constituted a form of collective action because private and corporate investment was insufficient to develop the large export basin relied on by metropolitan areas (Brett 2011; Beer, Maude &

Pritchard 2003; Hogan & Young, 2013; Stokes, 2004). As a result, over a period of 50 years, rural Australia established a unique political identity underpinned by its economic, social and cultural ethos. The agrarian sentiment (Botterill, 2009) posited that the political clout of rural communities ensured that criticisms of state-based protection, from proponents of market competition, were negligible and confined to wealthy pastoralists. For a good portion of the twentieth century, the prosperity of the nation was aligned to the economic performance of rural

Australia, which resulted in the development of statist policies to promote socio-economic equality between those living in rural and metropolitan areas.

2.3 Australia’s Economic Decline

The beginning of the 1950s represented the end of Australia’s economic dependence on the agriculture industry, and ushered in new roles for the state, the market and rural Australia. The state’s management of the economy showed signs of structural weakness characterised by economic stagnation, and declining trade activity in the agriculture sector. The agriculture industry’s contribution to GDP fell from approximately 14 percent in the early 1960s to six percent in the early 1980s, with total employment dropping almost fifty percent during the same period (Productivity Commission, 2005). The cultural, economic and political significance of rural communities declined as the farming sector consolidated, and technological innovation resulted in the market dominance of a few large factory farms responsible for the majority of output. By the 1970s the accepted role of state-based intervention and market regulation, which had characterised the first 70 years of federation, began to show signs of strain as wages increased above productivity levels, and protectionist policies were becoming a costly burden on the

Australian economy (Painter, 1996).

2.3.1 The Decline in Economic Importance of Australia’s Agriculture

Australia’s declining dependence on the agriculture industry was linked to specific structural changes made to industry operations in an emerging global economy (Frost and Parton, 2009).

In the first instance, the 1950s witnessed a sharp decline in the prominence of wool as

Australia’s chief commodity export (Campbell, Gardiner & Haszler, 1980). Although wool exports had been in steady decline since the late 19th century, the industry experienced a large drop just after the Korean War in the 1950s. Cashin and McDermott (2002) argue that despite the common understanding that the boom in the wool price during the Korean War represented the beginning of industry improvement, it was a temporary respite in the century-long economic decline of wool as a share of GDP. The authors concluded that “the notion of Australia’s

39 dependence on wool exports having continued into the 1950s is misplaced, as the wool boom which occurred during the Korean War period was a temporary aberration” (p. 262). Despite a short reprieve, the wool price in Australia continued to decline as cheaper synthetic fibres flooded the market. According to Lawrence (1987), “by the end of the 1960s it was clear that with sheep numbers reaching a peak of 180 million, synthetic fibres having become relatively more competitive and with wool being stockpiled because of low international prices, the industry was about to enter a slump” (p. 14). The introduction of competition and choice for similar products hastened the decline of the Australian wool industry.

As agriculture products like wool declined in economic value, the Australian economy diversified with a focus on mining, manufacturing, industrialisation of steel, household goods and motor vehicles (Maddock & McLean, 1987). In a deliberate effort to ensure the Australian economy had more viable economic options, large investments and protective measures were made to stimulate the development of these emerging industries because, according to Anderson (1980), manufacturing was more conducive to economic growth than the agriculture industry.

Predominantly metropolitan based, the manufacturing industry experienced gradual growth over the pre- and post-World War Two years and peaked in the early 1960s, securing almost 30 percent of both GDP and overall employment (Anderson, Lloyd & MacLaren, 2008). In particular, manufacturing in the Australian context was extremely labour intensive compared to more developed global industries (Anderson, 1980, p. 168). In a scarce labour environment this resulted in a large section of agricultural labour shifting to the emerging industry. Furthermore, the Australian manufacturing industry began to move away from its reliance on British distribution partners, which in turn brought more investment opportunities for Australian-owned manufacturing companies (Gibson and Horvath, 1983).

Along with the diversification of the Australian economy, and the rise of the labour-intensive manufacturing industry, this period saw large developments in agricultural technology.

Technological advancement created a more efficient and productive industry that required lower labour costs. The result was a shift towards larger farming techniques, greater land cultivation and increased profits (Kingwell, 2011), which allowed large farming companies to increase their landholdings. In this respect, the increasing use of technology was directly related to the emergence of centralised land holdings at the expense of small farming operations (Hicks,

Sappey, Basu, Keogh & Gupta, 2012). Lawrence (1987) believes that this led to a change in

Australia’s farming structure. Arguably, the rise in agricultural technology contributed to a divide between small farmers reliant on older, less productive techniques and larger farming operations with highly developed, efficient forms of global agribusiness (Pritchard, Burch and Lawrence,

2007). As a result, increasing numbers of small farmers left the industry, making way for large factory farms that were better able to compete in the international export market.

While the number of small farmers decreased, the purchasing power of Australian consumers also changed as the emergent middle class had greater choice, and purchasing habits diversified. As Hamilton (2002) states, “the sustained growth of the Australian economy in the post-war period elevated the bulk of the working class into income levels that were typical of the middle classes of a previous generation” (p. 2). Hamilton believes that this new-found level of wealth helped to establish a “luxury fever” where the traditional working class were now able to purchase items beyond their everyday needs. This included the purchasing of imported electronic entertainment equipment, appliances, fridges, Tupperware and clothing (McLeod,

2007). Importantly, the development of kitchen appliances and storage technologies meant that households spent less time preparing the family dinner and could store food for much longer

(Lloyd and Johnson, 2004). As a result, households began to consume more processed food, shifting away from raw produce grown within the country. The Productivity Commission (2005)

41 argues that “the broad pattern indicated by the household expenditure data suggests that shifting consumer preferences are likely to have been a key determinant of the relative decline in agriculture output and the growth of services” (p. 25). In this respect, the changing consumer patterns of a new economic middle class influenced by a more globalised and productive industry sector had a detrimental impact on the importance of Australian agriculture.

Australia’s over-reliance on the agriculture industry impeded the ability of the economy to diversify into industries like manufacturing and services, and sparked renewed interest in the resource sector. As Freebairn (1987) states, the decline of agriculture in Australia does not represent a systematic weakness of the economy. Instead, the improved productivity of the industry, coupled with rising demand for services and personal goods commensurate with increased household income, was a sign of a prospering, high-functioning economy. However, as Australia transitioned to a more global economy, the limits of state-based intervention required re-evaluation as traditional policies were too costly.

2.3.2 The Beginnings of Economic Decline

From the 1960s onwards, the traditional protectionist policies that had contributed to the development of the Australian economy would come into question. Arguably, the Oil Crisis of

1973 would become the catalyst for a dramatic shift in Australian policy direction (Akins, 1973;

Quiggin, 1999; Zheng, 2012). For the first time since the great depression, Australia faced a global economic crisis, and the state-based economic planning became overheated (Whitehead,

1973). The oil crisis began when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) embargoed oil supplies to the United States over their intervention in the Yom Kippur War which created a limited access to oil and increased global prices by around 70 percent (Salameh,

2008). In Australia, inflation was already sitting at 10 percent of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) before the oil shock (Fenna, 2013). Wage increases in the preceding decade resulted in

42 increased tariff levels in select industries (Corden, 1979). For example, the Australian Tariff

Board (precursor to the Australian Productivity Commission) stated in their 1967 Annual Report that the cost of protecting industry was more than 2.7 billion dollars a year, which was directly transferred to the citizens, through the rising costs of goods, growing inflation, and high unemployment levels.

Arguments began to emerge that the level of state intervention was unsustainable, with protected industries, union power and welfare receipts framed as costly economic burdens in a struggling market economy (Corden, 1979; Nordhaus & Tobin, 1973; Lye & McDonald, 2006).

Plowman (1992) argues that once the unions were free to engage in collective bargaining again, and strike action was no longer punishable by fines and incarceration, the implementation of policy programs such as “Total Wage” resulted in a wage explosion. As Plowman states, “by the time some control was restored by way of indexation in 1975, nominal wages were increasing by almost 30 percent per year” (p. 62). Coupled with sustained tariffs for manufacturing industries, and the rising cost of government expenditure on social welfare, public spending was criticised by free-market think tanks such as the Institute of Public Affairs and conservative political actors, arguing that vested interests inside the labour movement had effectively gained control of wage fixation, exploited wage indexation and supported the continual sustenance of “dole bludgers” to the detriment of taxpayers (Archer, 2009; Cook, 2004). It was argued that ongoing state protection, restrictive trade practices and wage inflexibility were important contributors to

Australia’s declining economic performance.

Despite a tariff rate cut of 25 percent by the new Whitlam Government in 1973, global pressure pushed Australia’s inflation rate to never seen levels of around 17 percent of CPI (Gruen, 1975).

According to McCarthy and Taylor (1995), Australia’s regulatory environment was ill-equipped to respond to large international economic disruptions. McCarthy and Taylor write that “the

Australian regulatory system established in the 1950s (in an ad hoc fashion, when capital movements were quiescent), was inadequate to control internationalised and volatile capital flows” (p. 220). The rise in inflation was combined with a stagnation of productivity commonly referred to as “stagflation” (Whitehead, 1973). High unemployment levels resulted directly from wage and price explosions, and poor productivity. In the decades leading up to the 1970s, unemployment rates ranging from 1–2 percent remained stable. From 1973, Australia’s unemployment rate jumped five percentage points to 7 percent by 1979. Despite reformist moves by the Whitlam and Fraser federal governments, Australia was still tied to traditional policies which heavily regulated market forces. The economic paradigm designed to protect rural industries for the first seventy years of federation was deemed to be exhausted. It was perceived that centralised control of the economy could no longer provide solutions to ameliorate rising inflation and unemployment rates experienced at the time. In a clear sign that these traditional policy settings had failed, the Australian economy fell into a recession in the early 1980s.

2.4 Australia’s Economic Transformation

Faced with an economic recession, and ongoing economic structural problems, an Australia primarily led by a Labor government underwent profound policy transformation toward market liberalisation. Between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s, Australia went from one of the most protected economies in the membership of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

Development (OECD) to being the most liberalised. During this time average effective rates of assistance (tariff levels) dropped from 35 percent in 1969 to just 5 percent in 2001 (Leigh, 1998).

The prevailing position at the time was that Australian public policy needed to support an increasingly interconnected international market, and economic reforms were necessary to ensure resilience against global competitive pressures (Beeson & Firth, 1998). For Kelly (2000), new economic ideas came from the top down, arguing that “the public wanted change – but it was not protesting in the streets for a floating dollar, free trade and low inflation. The intellectual

44 momentum for the 1980s reforms was elite-driven” (p. 223). For proponents of this approach, trade liberalisation, the removal of state-based protection and wider public sector reforms would ensure fair market conditions that would improve living standards (King & Pitchford, 1998), while allowing industries such as agriculture to prosper on a global stage.

Early market reforms, introduced by the Whitlam and Fraser governments, were used as a platform for the Hawke governments of the 1980s to introduce a wave of policies designed to expose the Australian economy to the global market. As an historical centrepiece, the decision to float the Australian dollar early in Hawke’s tenure as Prime Minister was a key component of sequential economic reforms to ensure the nation would prosper through a period of capital liberalisation. According to authors such as Quiggin (1998), Goldfinch (1999), Castles, Gerritsen and Vowles (1996) and Pusey (1991), the floating of the Australian dollar, the abolition of exchange controls, public sector privatisation, and wage controls by the Labor government gave the market increased power over national economic direction, which was done in agreement with the union movement. Arguably, the accord between the government and the majority of

Australian trade unions gave the Labor Party institutional support to introduce pro-market policies (Goldfinch 1999; Singleton, 1990). According to Dow and Lafferty (2007) “the accord provided the overarching policy framework within which the Australian labour movement pursued its industrial and political goals” (p. 552), while Head (1998) argued that “Labor has done more to deregulate the economy, and introduce commercial principles into the public sector, than was achieved in three decades of coalition governments” (p. 466). Through a unifying agreement with the union movement, the Labor party was able to pursue significant political and economic transformation.

For rural Australia, the liberalisation of the Australian economy focused on removing traditional protective tariffs as governments sought to expose the more advanced industries to international

45 markets, acknowledging the negative impact of traditional policies on manufacturing and wool.

Vanclay (2003) argues that in regard to rural policy, “Australian governments have unquestioningly accepted economic rationalism as the basis for political decision making”

(p. 84), citing that, under emerging unfettered global competition, “Australian agriculture would be better placed if it could improve efficiency and adapt earlier to the likely future situation”

(p. 84). Additionally, the emergence of the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), as a strident voice for trade liberalisation, highlighted the shift in policy direction and the impact on the agriculture industry. Argy (1998) argues that “throughout the 1980s the NFF was an unapologetic advocate for a liberalised economy, with its presence playing a leading role in putting issues into play within the public arena” (p. 233). The establishment of the National

Farmers’ Federation illustrates how an organised pastoralist movement, underpinned by free- market policy, became the “one voice” for the agrarian sentiment in Australia (Botterill, 2005). In essence, the NFF along with the Labor Party would become the new vanguard of market reform in Australia.

Importantly, the labour movement and the NFF followed similar rural policy paradigms for the majority of the 1980s, which focused on rural adjustment and shifted away from industry-specific protectionism. Labor’s Economic and Rural Policy Statement (Commonwealth of Australia,

1986), details a long-term commitment to reducing protectionist policies, and a shift to a market orientated position. Similarly, the NFF rejected market control mechanisms for farmers,

“expressing a preference for the normal operation of market forces with measures to assist individual farmers in managing income instability” (Botterill, 2004, p. 15). Jointly, the federal government and the NFF set the agenda for trade liberalisation during the 1986 Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (Tanner, 1996). Through multi-lateral agreements with other countries with highly competitive export-orientated agricultural sectors, the Hawke government and the NFF sought to win commitment from heavily subsidised

46 agriculture exporting European countries for industry reform. In doing so, they championed a globally oriented framework which would reduce the market-distorting effects of tariffs and export subsidies, and re-orientate internal economically protective regulations. The joint policy aspirations of both the federal government and the peak body representing the farming industry illustrate that, during this period of economic reform, the labour movement and the agriculture industry were closely aligned on the benefits of marketisation.

Through general bipartisan support and unique alignment between the labour movement and the large agriculturalists (Kelly, 1992), the market reforms of the 1980s were positioned as policy solutions to remediate the preceding years of economic decline, which no longer viewed the agriculture industry as a separate stakeholder in national economic policy (Coleman & Skogstad,

1995, p. 250). Through a significant reduction in import tariffs, the marketisation of SMAs, and the gradual exposure of domestic agriculture prices to the international market, the declining economic importance of the agriculture industry transitioned “from a complex web of regulatory programs and subventions to a situation where the agricultural sector is one the most lightly assisted in the world” (Botterill, 2003, p. 679). Coupled with shifts in wage arbitration and public sector privatisation, rural communities were no longer part of a uniform policy platform of state- based intervention, in which the economic reforms of the 1980s introduced a range of policies that exposed the agriculture industry to international competition, while also introducing greater marketisation in service provision for rural communities.

2.5 The Decline of Rural Australia’s Economic Importance

The 1990s was a period in Australian history marked by the economic reforms of the previous decade, which had been embedded by both Labor and Coalition Governments. Far from the radical and dogmatic reform agenda of Hawke and Keating during the 1980s, the 1990s produced an extension of economic liberalism through a gradual and contested implementation

47 program. As Kelly (2000) argued, the “1980s saw the globalisation of the Australian economy; the 1990s saw this globalisation being contested in a new political struggle between globalists and anti-globalists” (p. 225). The emerging conflict resulted from the perceived unevenness of the economic and social outcomes of the continued roll out of pro-market reforms, which divided those who lived in rural areas from those who lived in metropolitan and major regional centres.

O’Neill and Fagan (2006) demonstrated that regions and economic sectors not attached to those deriving benefit from the reforms struggled to ﬁnd enduring, successful growth (p. 207). For rural

Australians, the economic reforms implemented during the 1980s exacerbated the ongoing socio-economic decline of their communities.

The 1993 recession and federal election signalled that further economic change would be contested and governments would need to implement reforms more gradually than those of the previous decade (Kelly, 2009). The public refutation of Liberal opposition leader John Hewson’s

“Fightback!”, which called for large-scale privatisation, removal of wage protections, and significant reductions in government expenditure indicated that Australians had become wary of the speed of economic change (Bean, 1994). According to Painter (2009), economic policies progressed on a similar trajectory as those a decade before, but became more moderate in tone, shifting to ensure reforms could be translated to clearly articulate material benefit. For the majority of the 1990s, the reforms focused on repositioning Australia’s public sector, removing wage fixation, and bolstering the productivity of the service sector and mining industry (Brennan

& Pincus, 2002). This sustained policy direction increased the economic power of metropolitan areas while rural areas fell deeper into socio-economic decline (Looker and Dwyer, 1998;

Saunders, 2005).

The political literature on the market reforms concentrating on rural Australia highlight a

“decoupling” of the economic base of the agriculture industry, and the development of rural

48 communities. Authors such as Gray (1994) and Carsons (2011) have argued that the pro-market reforms, which characterised the general policy paths of successive governments from the

1970s, dismantled the interdependence of the people, communities and industries that shaped rural communities. Pro-market reforms resulted in the upscaling of agriculture into factory farms, making them more efficient and less reliant on labour from local communities (Botterill, 2004). As a result, policies that were implemented in recognition of the declining economic importance of the agriculture industry, and were positioned to gradually reduce state-based support for the communities which supported them. According to Hogan and Lockie (2013), the “Australian response to the decoupling of agriculture from rural communities was to seek to embed rural social relations into a market economy, where the locus of socio-economic adaptive responsibility rested with the individual and their communities” (p. 448). As a result, policies targeted local solutions to expand their economic base and reduce their reliance on both the agriculture industry and state-based service delivery.

Rural policy, for most of the 1990s, was centred on the notion of “self-reliance” for the agriculture industries, and local rural communities. The policies of successive governments were indicative of what may be termed more broadly as the individualisation of risk, whereby the responsibility for managing the risks of contemporary life had been redistributed from the state and the economy to the market (Tonts & Haslam-McKenzie, 2005, p. 437). The most obvious manifestation of this shift was the removal of support structures and cross-subsidisation programs that traditionally protected Australian rural communities from market forces in favour of strategies that encouraged “self-help” (Herbert-Cheshire, 2000) and “self-reliance” (Higgins,

2002) among farmers and rural communities (Tonts & Haslam-McKenzie, 2005). This included the steady removal of SMAs for the dairy, wool and wheat industries and widespread public sector reform of state and local government services. For the national economy to be resilient in an international marketplace the agriculture industry and the rural communities that supported

49 them needed to be independently financially viable without state-based intervention (Lockie,

1999).

Rural policy continued towards greater marketisation in the context of strong rhetoric that industries and sectors that didn’t have the capacity to become self-reliant hindered the development of an internationally competitive economy. Cheshire (2006) states that, in the context of rural development, successive governments leveraged the individualistic, and communal expressions of self-help to underpin a range of rural policy measures, which encouraged individual citizens and whole communities to develop their own revitalisation strategies, rather than relying on government support (p. 3). For the agriculture industry, this resulted in a series of policies to develop the business capabilities of small farmers to reduce their reliance on protectionism and be nationally competitive. Higgins (2002) highlights that policies such as the Rural Adjustment Scheme (RAS) and the Farm Management Deposit

Scheme (FMDS) sought to improve the entrepreneurial capacity of farmers, and position them more as business managers, because they were “seen to require skills and training in order to become not only more ‘resilient’ and ‘competitive’, but also to make the most of their economic opportunities” (p. 167). Under these conditions, the intent of rural policy was to improve the management of unviable agriculture, or assist farmers to leave the industry.

This public sector reform was reinforced by a suite of policies focused on increasing the levels of self-reliance and management capabilities of rural communities. Van Gramberg and Teicher

(2000) describe this period in policy development as a time “where public servants had their roles transformed to managers and the public to customers” (p. 476), which served “to strengthen demonstration of the diminishing role of government and the increasing reliance on the market” (p. 476). Under a rhetoric of New Public Management (NPM), policy outcomes such as the privatisation of public sector functions, competitive tendering and build-operate-transfer

(BOT) were introduced under the pretence that the market was positioned to deliver services more efficiently and effectively than the government (Pullin & Haidar, 2003). Aulich (1999) argues that “any national approach to microeconomic reform has had to consider this local government contribution to the national economy; the opportunity has also been taken to reconsider the role and responsibilities undertaken by local government in the federal system”

(p. 13). Like the overarching goals of the agriculture reforms, the new policies, introduced specifically for local government, removed reliance on government support and shifted the governance of local councils towards the principles of entrepreneurialism and business managerialism.

This study posits that the policy programs implemented in the lead up to the rural debate over competition reform built on the radical changes of the 1980s but focused on emergent sector issues resulting from the preceding decade of economic liberalism. Defined as rural decoupling

(Cheshire, Meurk and Woods, 2013), specific policies were introduced to increase self-reliance and individual rural community solutions to broaden their economic base and remove reliance on a declining agriculture industry. For rural communities, this period of reform focused on further removing reliance on state protection under the view that the agriculture industries, and the communities that supported them, needed to be more economically efficient to progress a more competitive national economy.

2.6 Rural Economic Importance in the Global Context

The decline in the economic importance of rural Australia was not an isolated experience and was representative of a more global shift in the agriculture industry. For the latter half of the 20th century, the agriculture industry in respective developed notions underwent similar policy shifts as more countries sought to be more competitive in a global market place (Coleman, Grant and

Josling, 2004). Anderson (1987) has argued that a dominant component of a growing and

51 competitive economy is the proportionate decline in a nation’s agriculture sector (p.195). For

Anderson, the decline in the economic importance was attributed to two factors: “the slower rise in the demand for food as compared with other goods and services, and the rapid development of new farm technologies which lead to expanding food supplies per hectare and per worker”

(p.195). As developed countries faced similar declines in the value of agriculture, there were divergent political and policy responses which shaped different rural trajectories from that of

Australia.

Nations such as Argentina, Canada, South Africa and Pakistan underwent similar policies as those in Australia, working to deregulate their industries, reduce tariffs and introduce a form of structural self-reliance on their farmers. For example, the Cairns Group which included many predominantly agricultural exporting countries believed that a free market was the most profitable goal and that “economic forces are inextricably linked. Once distortions are introduced into one market, they inevitably affect others even in unpredictable ways” (Shires, 1988 p.70).

Through a range of multi-lateral agreements, a large group of nation states pushed for greater trade liberationalisation including short term relief measures to phase out smaller farming enterprises that were not sustainable without some form of economic protection.

Despite a convergence of trade liberalisation across global agriculture industries, policies from the likes of the United States of America and the European Union didn’t embrace the same level of market deregulation as Australia. In particular, The European Union’s Common Agricultural

Policy (CAP) sought to incubate western European countries from wider market forces through internal price controls and protective tariffs to agricultural barriers. These regulation had the perverse of effect of market distortion through “obscene levels of overproduction” (Dinan, 1999 p.341), which was sold through a largely subsidised price (Murray, Elijah and O’Brien, 2002). For the European Union, the decision to protect their agriculture industry was multi-faceted with

52 rationales ranging from increased productivity, stabilisation of the market and to ensure a greater standard of living for the farmer (Marckovic and Marckovic, 2014). Arguably, this continued market intervention by the European Union has resulted in sustained higher prices for basic agricultural products for domestic consumers when compared to the level of prices on the world market (Diben, Potter and Cocklin, 2009).

The liberalisation of Australia’s agriculture industry and subsequent polices that promoted a form of self-reliance was not a unique phenomenon but highlighted different approaches to ensuring viability in a global market. Australia was part of a larger coalition of developing countries which sought to reduce protective tariffs while at the same time implementing forms of rural adjustment schemes to support farmers off their land. In comparison, states like the United States and the

European Union decided to protect their industries from market forces ensuring higher prices and over supply for agriculture products. While a majority of agriculture exporting countries faced structural difficulties in their national economy, the literature indicates a divergence on how individual countries sought to engage with an international market place, highlighting that there was agency and choice in how the policy debate unfolded.

2.7 Socio-Economic Decline of Rural Australia

The economic reforms that began with the Labor governments in the 1980s, and were later refined by both state and federal governments in the 1990s, compounded the ongoing decline of rural communities. Pritchard and McManus (2000) define this period as a “profound shift within the geographical manifestations of wealth and income in Australia” (p. 2). Much of the available literature on the socio-economic decline of rural Australia focuses on the adverse impacts of pro- market policies in managing the decline of the agriculture industry, and the introduction of business practices in the delivery of local services. Alston (2000) argues that “rural poverty has increased largely as a result of international market forces, the decimation of rural industry, a

53 lack of intervention by governments and societal neglect resulting in this growing sense of alienation and despair” (p. 29). Gabriel (2002) states that “the restructuring of Australia’s agricultural and manufacturing-based regional economies throughout the 1990s resulted in exceptionally high levels of regional unemployment” (p. 210). During this period, rural communities were hindered by service contractions, increasing farm debt, high unemployment and population decline when compared to their metropolitan counterparts (National Institute of

Economic and Industry Research, 1999).

Restructuring the agriculture industry through policies that abolished subsidies and protective tariffs resulted in a large division between small independent farmers and large pastoralists.

Vanclay (2003) argues that rural policy created a series of winners and losers from within the farming community, stating that “farmers who are currently being structured out of agriculture were not marginal because of their inability to farm, but because their farms were structured to be marginal to begin with” (p. 90). Botterill (2004) argues that post-war agriculture policy was designed to protect local farming families and local communities with gradual shifts towards stimulating farm production and investment. From the 1970s onwards, Australian policy “saw increased emphasis on structural adjustment in the farm sector with a recognition that not all farmers had a future in agriculture and that some realignment of resources was required in the face of declining farm terms of trade” (Botterill, 2004, p. 208). According to Hooper, Martin, Love and Fisher (2002), since the 1960s, commercial farms contracted significantly with an increasing divergence between the incomes of smaller farms compared to those with the capacity to grow.

As a result, the Australian agriculture industry became dominated by large landowners, with smaller farmers leaving the industry in increasing numbers. Garnaut and Lim-Applegate’s work in People in Farming (1998) detailed that during the late 1990s, approximately 2000 farmers and their families were leaving the industry each year. The mass exodus of unprofitable small farms

54 throughout Australia has indirectly caused the ongoing erosion of rural communities (Lawrence,

1990).

The restructuring of the agriculture industry and delivery of local public services severely impacted the viability of rural communities. Literature focusing on the changes in rural policy argues that new approaches toward economic efficiency exacerbate patterns of uneven development, marginalisation and regional inequality. Tonts and Jones (1996) argue that the shift in policy direction “has contributed to the rationalisation and withdrawal of basic services, such as schools and health facilities, together with the retreat from effective regional development strategies, as governments seek ways of ensuring economic efficiency” (p. 171).

Tonts (2010) highlights that “not only has the rationalisation of such services contributed to further economic and population decline, but it has raised serious questions of the disadvantage faced by the remaining residents” (p. 582). Forth (2000) argues that, in general, rural Australians are significantly disadvantaged when compared to those living in metropolitan areas in relation to employment opportunities, income levels, and access to basic services. In this respect, the removal of government intervention for both the agriculture industry, and the communities that support it, resulted in the steady decline of socio-economic conditions in rural Australia.

This study posits that the ongoing economic decline of rural communities that began with the reduction in economic reliance on the agriculture industry was amplified by policies which removed state-based protection and introduced market practices. With the advent of the NCP, rural areas were significantly more disadvantaged than their urban counterparts on almost all socio-economic indicators (McClinton and Pawar, 1997). Through a range of policies, which promoted economic efficiency, managerialism and entrepreneurial forms of self-help, rural

Australia has been alienated from the socio-economic growth of both metropolitan and major regional centres. The reforms implemented in these areas resulted in rural Australians facing

55 increasing levels of unemployment, reduction of services and a lack of economic opportunity.

Once described as the economic engine room for national growth, rural Australia has suffered greatly in the wake of 30 years of policy reform.

2.8 Conclusion

This chapter provided context to analyse the rural debate over competition reform that took place from the mid-1990s onwards. Importantly, this context positions the implementation of policies such as the NCP during twenty-five years of political and economic transformation. To achieve this, the traditional economic importance of the agriculture industry and rural Australia was considered through analysis of state-based service cross-subsidisation and industry protection. For the first fifty years after Australian Federation, , statist rural development had a strong focus on servicing lowly populated rural communities because of a widely held view that market mechanisms were incompatible with rural socio-economic development. In practical terms, this resulted in the implementation of an overarching policy paradigm of industry protection, investment in public infrastructure, ongoing service provision, and centralised social welfare and wage arbitration. The traditional rural policy settings of this time contributed to high levels of employment, the emergence of an Australian middle class, and the overall development of rural Australia.

This chapter further described the decline in the economic importance of rural communities and stagnation of the Australian economy. Through twenty-five years of economic transformation,

Australia went from having one of the most protected and advanced agriculture industries in the world to one of the most liberalised. Through bipartisan politics, union and industry support, successive Labor governments removed industry protection and dismantled traditional state- based approaches to service provision in favour of policies that increased the exposure of the

Australian economy to global market forces. For rural Australians, this resulted in a decoupling

56 of their community from their traditional economic base, and the adoption of wider marketisation into services previously provisioned by the state. This chapter describes how the introduction of market reforms has exacerbated the socio-economic decline of rural Australia. The chapter provides a contextual foundation from which to introduce the study’s main thesis, and to better conceptualise the significant political transformation that took place, highlighting contention between the socio-economic benefits of the state and the market in rural development.

Chapter 3 The Conceptual Framework: Exploring the Public Interest during Market Reform

Chapter Summary

In contributing to the study, this chapter:

● Describes how market reforms since the 1970s have been positioned by political leaders

as pragmatic reforms in the public interest.

● Examines the public interest as a mechanism through which political actors justify

economic transformation.

● Considers the contentious nature of what is defined by the public interest.

● Compares different theories of how the public interest has shaped recent Australian

economic transformation, and analyses critical consideration of material and ideational

theories of market reform.

● Establishes structuration theory as the conceptual framework through which to analyse

the rural debate over public interest within competition reform.

● Identifies a significant gap in the literature on Australian rural politics that positions

structuration theory to explain the neoliberal turn and how competition reform was

conceived to be in the public interest.

3.1 Introduction

The significant shift towards market reform in Australia was justified on the grounds that it was pragmatic, based on the material challenges of economic decline, and that it was done in the public interest. In his 1987 re-election speech, Bob Hawke argued that “We must continue – now as a matter of urgency – the work of modernising and revitalising our economy and industry, so that we can compete with the world – on the world’s terms. That is the only way we can restore

58 and improve living standards for all” (Hawke, 1987 p. 1). In his public commitment to building a more competitive nation, Keating stated that “sustained consistency in rational structural reform has been a hallmark of this Government. Today we have yet again demonstrated our commitment to that standard, this time in circumstances of economic adversity. With these measures we complete our transition to an open economy” (Parliament of the Commonwealth of

Australia, 1991, para. 42). There was bipartisan agreement in the practical applications of these reforms with Howard reflecting on competition policy, saying “grand visions ring very hollow indeed unless they are firmly grounded in community values and aspirations and most importantly if they deliver practical results which include the condition of life for all Australians”

(Howard, 1996). Jeff Kennett argued that “fundamentally, we have no alternative, given the economic condition of the State to improve both the quality and the competitiveness of the services that we have a responsibility to provide” (Gill, 1994). In these instances, the political rhetoric was framed as pragmatic, and for the Australian economy to be successful in the long run it was in the public interest that governments continued with their economic reform agenda to keep pace with the cascading nature of trade liberalisation.

The notion that the market reforms were pragmatic and in the public interest was accepted by scholars. Hollander and Patapan (2001) argue that, through a range of intergovernmental agreements, the federal government had become the central authority in what they described as pragmatic reforms. They state that “the solutions are designed to fit the problem; change is incremental and therefore capable of correction. Moreover, it is non-doctrinal, it allows flexibility in negotiations and solutions” (p. 291). This is supported by Bolleyer and Bytzek (2009), who argued that ad hoc policy decisions through successive intergovernmental agreements allowed for strong adaptability to the changing demands of the global economy. Painter (2001) describes this as “cooperative federalism” and highlights the roles of emergent national institutions to coordinate and reinforce the need for Australia to be seen as an integrated economy. This aligns

59 with a long tradition of describing Australian economic policy as pragmatic (Wanna & Weller,

2003).

Economic transformation and the legitimisation of Australian policy settings have consistently been implemented under the view that it is in the public interest. For the first half of the twentieth century, the development of a prosperous rural Australia was in the public interest to ensure wider socio-economic growth. Through a series of policy platforms that include industry protection and state-based development of rural services, the economic development of the agriculture industry and communities that support it had wider social importance to an emerging

Australian middle class, and the growth of metropolitan areas. Conversely, after a period of economic decline, the introduction of market reforms and the removal of state-based intervention was also implemented under the pretence that it was in the public interest. Despite notable evidence that ongoing market reform has been detrimental to rural Australia, policies such as the

NCP and the application of competitive neutrality have been viewed to be in the public interest.

Why and how market reform has continued to be accepted as in the public interest, notwithstanding the socio-economic decline of rural communities, has become an important research problem.

This chapter focuses on the contentious nature of what was in the public interest during

Australia’s market reform. Despite notable political discourse, which utilises public interest to legitimise economic and policy change, this chapter argues that there is little research that identifies how the notion of the public interest is defined and why some conceptions of the public interest are legitimised when others are not. To better explore this research problem, this chapter introduces the conceptual framework which was used to explain how the public interest was shaped during the rural debate over competition reform. The framework identifies the contentious nature of what is considered to be in the public interest, from which this study calls

60 for more research into the differing accounts of political transformations. To achieve this, the chapter addresses the established theories of pragmatism, rational choice and the ideational turn in Australia’s shift to market reform. The chapter critiques these theories using structuration theory to identify ideational power within market reform while positioning ideology alongside the material environment and powerful vested interests. This conceptual framework provides future research with a robust explanatory lens to examine how economic reform took place within rural

Australian politics.

3.2 The Contentious Nature of the Public Interest during Australia’s market reform

Acting in the public interest is central to a functional democratic system, and in some instances, is justification for instigating or reinforcing political change (Ross, Skinner and Tully, 1989).

Political scholars have attempted to delineate between what is the public interest and what is in the public interest (Bozeman, 2007). While definitions differ slightly between scholars, there is general agreement that phrases like the “common good”, “public good”, “national interest” and

“public interest” present a fundamental principle that guides key decision making in relation to the public and private dimensions of social life (Leys, 2001). However, there is considerable debate over what is in the public interest when justifying economic and political transformation.

According to Sorauf (1957), the concept of the public interest “lacks a neat and precise definition” (p. 616), but nevertheless “it has come to signify the public policy alternative which deserves most enactment” (p. 616). Ultimately, defining what is in the public interest, and how it is applied in political transformation, is an essentially contested concept in comparative politics

(Hess & Adams, 2003).

Current theories of how the public interest is shaped during economic transformation are focused on the dichotomous relationship between ideas and the material, with most instances relying on only one these explanatory variables. According to Cochran (1974), the different

61 interpretations of the public interest are revealing indications of how political theorists view the importance of different structural and ideational mechanisms which can shape change. For example, many political theorists have pointed to the influence of vested interests, lobby groups and rent-seekers to shape the public interest to meet their needs (Mukand & Rodrik, 2018). Kelly

(1992) and Mayer (1993) have argued that what is in the public interest is driven by a pragmatic need to ensure the economy is providing for the majority of citizens, while authors such as Klein

(2007) and Harvey (2005) have signalled the causative role of ideology and their influence on policymakers to introduce pro-market policies in the name of the public interest. These singular explanations of the public interest indicate a need to better identify mechanisms which shape agency and institutional change. More recently, the contested understanding of what is in the public interest has attempted to move past a simplistic dichotomy between the material and ideational (Hildebrand & Martell, 2012).

Recent political change and policy reform in Australia has predominantly been enacted under the view that it is in the public interest. However, authors such as Hess and Adams (1999) argue that what is in the public interest is “a complex and contested idea which requires significant development if it is to have utility in the reform process” (p. 1). Historically, the most consistent debates over what is in the public interest have been related to political groups attempting to shape the meaning of the public interest to accommodate the considerations of sectional interests and institutional forces (Pusey, 1991), or driving economic outcomes for material growth. For example, McDonald (2007) argues that what is in the public interest and the discourse that underpins it “is used as a tool by powerful policymakers and bureaucrats to shape community perceptions and to reproduce and legitimate dominant ideologies and social structures” (p. 350). As such, the concept of the public interest is considered contentious and within political debates there can be competing groups vying to legitimise how governments and institutions should act in the public interest.

What was in the public interest was a defining feature of the rural debate over competition reform. As evidenced in available literature and publicly accessible government documents, the introduction of competition reforms was deemed, by governments and institutions, to be in the public interest. The literature on this seminal moment in Australia’s wider economic reform is relatively quiet on why the public interest that championed the socio-economic outcomes of competition was legitimised, including singular explanations on the underlying drivers of this legitimation. To better understand this contention, the following analyses competing theories of what was in the public interest during Australia’s economic reform. In doing so, it will establish a more complex conceptual framework exploring the relative importance of ideas, material events and interests in defining the public interest during competition reform.

3.3 Theories of the Public Interest during Market Reform

There is minimal publicly available research which seeks to understand how the public interest was defined during Australia’s economic transformation towards market reform. This is significant because economic change and market reform in Australia have been enacted under the view that they are in the public interest. Available works from the likes of Hess and Adams

(2003), and McDonald (2007), argue that there isn’t a unilaterally accepted understanding of the public interest during Australia’s shift to market reform, and that more research is needed to understand the numerous public interests that have existed during this period. While the authors stress that the public interest is an analytical construct to frame “conversations and debate over the assumptions and distributional impacts of government policy” (Hess and Adams, 2003, p. 23) its contemporary usage is not aligned to the notion of the common good, but rather is used to challenge the excessive nature of market reform, and the discursive use of the term has been employed to engineer consent and silence opposition to reform.

The limited contemporary literature argues that the public interest has been used to justify market reform, but does not provide specific details as to how this has taken place. For example, the available literature acknowledges there are numerous or conflicting conceptions of the public interest but does not advance this idea to show how some conceptions of the public interest are legitimised when others are ignored. More importantly, there does not seem to be an acceptable conceptual framework to investigate how debates over the public interest take place, and how competing ideas and interests are identified and managed. The following sections establish a conceptual framework which identifies the contentious nature of what is considered to be in the public interest, referencing the work of Marsh (1995), who calls for more research that recognises the complexity and multiplicity in accounts of Australia’s shift to market reform.

3.3.1 Pragmatism and the Public Interest

Pragmatism has unique roots within the American liberal tradition, and has been labelled the

“American Philosophy” due to its American founders Charles Peirce, William James and John

Dewey. The popular use of pragmatism loosely means to do what works. Pragmatists believe that the decision about what is in the public interest should be void of dogmatic ideology. Peirce argues that for any thought, it is the practical application or consequences which extracts its meaning (1962). At the core of Peirce’s understanding of pragmatism is the pragmatist maxim.

The maxim is a method for giving abstract thoughts a clear meaning. As Peirce suggests,

“consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of those effects is the whole of our conception of the object” (1905, p. 163). According to Peirce, any idea that can’t be produced into an observable effect is meaningless.

Pragmatism exists within the material environment and theories of materialism. Sartori (1969) argues that ideas and pragmatism form a dichotomy within the political belief spectrum. While

64 ideas can comfortably sit within abstract thought, pragmatism results in “the tangible and conceivably practical” (Peirce, 1905). Tan (2012) posits that “pragmatists tend to dismiss soft, qualitative evidence, principled arguments and concerns about the intangible as inadmissible in any public policy enquiry or debate” (p. 18). Historically, Dewey was of the opinion that a democratic political order’s main outcome should be human flourishing through material outcomes. Using Dewey’s research as a springboard, Richard Rorty established himself as a political anti-foundationalist. His brand of political pragmatism means not needing philosophical justification for democratic traditions. Rorty, like Richard Posner, argues that pragmatic politics should be “business-like with disdain of abstract theory and intellectual pretension” (Rorty, 1982, p. 120). If this study takes the historical premise to better understand contemporary political pragmatism, the theory can be seen as a practical method, void of dogmatic ideals that seek to underpin the public interest.

There is a tradition in Australian political science of arguing that Australia’s political culture is one of pragmatism rather than ideology (Collins, 1985). In 1901, Albert Métin returned from Australia to address a large audience at the University of Paris. His work, which would later be entitled

Socialism without doctrines: The agrarian question and the question of labor in Australia and

New Zealand (Métin, 1901), was one of the first perspectives of the political structure of the

Australian colony. Australia was known as a social laboratory whereby popular economic and social theories were mixed to create a “workers’ paradise” but without the prevailing ideological rhetoric. Métin argued, “Australasia has contributed little to social philosophy but she has gone further than any other land whatever along the road of social experiment” (p. 95). For Métin,

Australia was a pragmatic nation, void of ideological contestation and driven by outcomes over ideas. Further to this, Hancock (1930) and Bryce (2008) described Australia as a country with a utilitarian preoccupation with material outcomes underpinned by egalitarian principles.

The performance of the Australian economy is central to the material outcomes of pragmatism.

Scholars such as Maddock and McLean (1987) infer that changes in government policy have been determined by economic performance and material outcomes. Connolly and Lewis (2010) argue that government policy has shifted due to material changes in the structure of the economy, and state that “structural change has tended to occur in waves, driven by a range of factors including rising demand for services, the industrialisation of East Asia, economic reform and technical change” (p. 6). Lloyd (2003) labels this pragmatic adaptiveness and experimentation as the “Australian Compromise” (p. 405) whereby governments make decisions based on their material outcomes and change policy direction when these policies no longer work. For pragmatists, the material environment provides important signals as to the effectiveness of experimental policies for the general public. In this respect, the pragmatist interpretation of what is in the public interest is framed by robust and adaptive changes in economic policy to increase economic growth.

The market reforms that provide context for this study have been predominantly implemented under the view that they are pragmatic and adaptive to the cascading nature of economic liberalism. Literature from the likes of Kelly (1992), Spies-Butcher (2012) and Taylor (1991) argue that the decisions made by successive governments within this period were not dogmatic or ideological but rather a series of materially based choices designed to modernise the

Australian economy. Goldfinch and Hart (1997) show that floating the Australian dollar was a catalyst which “was seen as having spillover effects and was portrayed as making further deregulation almost inevitable” (p. 250). In particular, the literature that supports a pragmatist view of Labor reformism does so by exemplifying the gradual and consensus-driven formulation of policy (Collins, 1985). Teicher (1998) argued that “state restructuring commenced in earnest under the federal Labor governments which emphasised the pragmatic benefits of their reform agenda, such as increased economic efficiency and reduced public sector deficits” (p. 1). The

66 literature that supports a pragmatist theory situates policy development deep in consensus- driven utilitarianism through what Gerritsen (1986) describes as adaptive rationality and consensual corporatism (p. 47). Gerritsen argues that the economic crisis presented an opportunity to explore new ways of non-confrontational policy making, stating that “the new policy-making system reflected popular values, it did not seek to create them; it reflected a popular democratic consensus” (p. 49).

The presumption that governments act in the public interest through pragmatic action has been challenged by scholars of ideas-centred approaches. For example, Celikates (2006) argues that the pragmatic framing of the public interest ignores the inter-subjectivity of the concept which

“cannot be understood from an objective standpoint alone” (p. 23). Celikates argues that claims of pragmatic outcomes are flawed because “they are internally related to the interpretations and self-images of their participants that can only be grasped if one takes their perspective as fundamental” (p. 28). The interpretive turn rejects pragmatic policy development and posits that meaning has no fixed term, noting that “doing what works” is invariably indeterminate (West,

1990). For both interpretative and postmodernist critiques of pragmatism, what is in the public interest is framed by heterogeneous, local and contextual truths, which are in a perpetual state of contestation and change.

Within the context of Australia’s market reform, authors such as Cahill (2004), Humphrys and

Cahill (2017), Pusey (1991) and Sawer (1982) argue how it was less consensus pragmatism that drove the reforms, but rather Labor adopting the view that a flourishing private sector is the prerequisite for economic growth. Through a form of ideological convergence, authors such as

Matheson (2000) conclude that decision making in Australia is exemplified more by economic rationalism than consensus politics. Matheson argues that since the 1980s, there has been a

“symbiosis” between politicians and bureaucrats adopting economic rationalist policies,

67 removing the importance of traditional interest groups. Importantly, the literature on Labor’s role in this ideological convergence argues that although elements such as the accord were framed on the corporatist model, it was an integral step towards the introduction of neoliberalism in

Australia (Cahill, Edwards & Stilwell, 2012). In these instances, it is argued that the pragmatist theories which explain the economic reforms of Labor were actually underpinned by a wider ideological convergence across governments, industry and union groups.

3.3.2 Rational Choice theory and the Politics of Interest

Rational Choice theory exists within materialist theories of political change. According to

Parsons (2005), rational choice theory is the application of economic models of human behaviour which assume that people seek to maximise their own utility and that their own narrowly defined economic wellbeing is an important component of this utility. Proponents of rational choice place the maximisation of individual pursuits (interests) at the centre of political processes and assume “that everything about society and social action can be reduced to statements about component individuals” (Petracca, 1991, p. 297). Scholars of rational choice theory have built the argument that all action is rational in nature, and that individuals have enough information to weigh up the material benefits and costs associated with any decision

(Browning, Halcli & Webster, 2000). Rational theorists debate the notion of public interest, arguing that individuals generate collective outcomes and aggregate behaviour that drives collective action.

The aggregated interests of individuals and how those interests intersect with policy development are described as the “politics of interests” (Cochrane, 1974). According to

Cochrane, “these interests are transformed by the political process in a manner whose conceptualisation varies from theory to theory – into outputs, policies, or outcomes which, temporarily at least, satisfy the interests of the political actors” (p. 328). Commonly referred to as

68 special interest or lobby groups, these collective associations have established a unique position in influencing public policy through direct negotiation (Campos & Giovannoni, 2007). Vogel

(1996) states that “interest groups have increased, the political agenda expanded and became more unstable, and interest groups developed new strategies to influence public policy” (p. 146).

Within the theory of rational choice, individual interests have formed powerful collective groups that challenge political debate and shape what is understood to be in the public interest.

Research into the influence of interest groups in Australia has predominantly focused on the collective power of business interests. Bell (1994) recognised that business interest groups had become more competitive and sophisticated in the past thirty years, influencing political and economic change through a diverse range of instruments such as lobbying, policy expertise

(p. 142), or what Culpepper (2010) terms the arena of “quiet politics” (p. 4). Cahill (2010) posits that the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s provided impetus for greater political mobilisation of business interests which set out to construct new state-economy relations (p. 9).

Through analysis of the economic reforms of the Labor governments during the 1980s, Cahill shows that business groups such as the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), the Australian

Chamber of Commerce (ACC) and the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia

(COSBOA) organised various forms of collective action to present policy alternatives that embraced free-market principles. Marsh, Lewis and Chesters (2014) argue that business was successful in framing the public debate, and during that period, business interests became synonymous with the public interest, with significant implications for government decision making (p. 173). For these authors, governments acting in the public interest served the interests of business groups.

Historical and discursive institutionalists have been critical of the success of business groups in influencing general understanding of the public interest. Authors such as Bell (2012), Rhodes

(2011), Hindmoor (2004) and Blyth (2002) argue that business interests clearly have a structural advantage when there are debates over what is in the public interest, but traditional explanations neglect the role of ideas in collectivising action. Bell and Hindmoor (2014) consider that “what counts in the power equation is not whether business investment is essential for growth or whether business will disinvest if a new tax is imposed, but whether actors believe this to be the case” (p. 471). For these researchers, any debate about the role of business interests in political and economic transformation needs to address the intersection of how business groups mobilise and advocate for their interests, and how ideologies are used to frame the decisions of broader political-economic institutions. In this view, rational choice explanations of how business interests influence governments and institutions leave large explanatory gaps as to why some interests are successful in influencing public policy and others are not.

3.3.3 The Ideational turn, Neoliberalism and the Public Interest

The ideational turn refers to a point in time when researchers began to focus on the roles of ideas in economic and political transformations, and scholars began to analyse the role of discourses, ideas and symbols in determining political outcomes (Blyth, 1997; Carstensen, 2010;

Parsons, 2007). Through the initial works of Hall (1989), Jacobsen (1995) and Sikkink (1991), the ideational turn sought to examine the presence of ideologies in policy changes and “probe the routes by which some ideas become influential in different national settings” (Hall, 1989, p. 56). The ideational turn emerged in response to criticism of both pragmatism and rational choice theory to explore how concepts like the public interest are framed by ideas rather than just material considerations, or the behaviour of self-interested actors. Campbell (2002) argued that “scholars have paid far less attention to how ideas, that is, theories, conceptual models, norms, world views, frames, principled beliefs, and the like, rather than self-interests, affect policy making” (p. 21). The ideational turn sought to centre the importance of ideology in explaining why specific policy positions shape what is in the public interest.

The scholarly focus on the ideational turn progressed the theoretical understanding of ideology, examined how ideas evolve, and considered when and in what ways ideas influence what is understood to be in the public interest. The ideational turn moved away from the reductionist theories of Marx’s materialism to focus on various components of ideology and its role in political debate. Blyth (2003) argues that ideas act as political weapons to legitimise change or validate existing policies. Freeden (2003) has shown that ideology, through an analysis of semantics, discourse, and conceptual history can become a device for coping with the “indeterminacy of meaning” (p. 93). For Freeden, ideas “end the inevitable contention over concepts by decontesting them, by removing meaning for context” (p. 95), while Hall (1989), Schmidt (2017) and Campbell (2002) generally conceive of ideas as “frames” that provide new ways of interpreting and solving policy problems. In this regard, the ideational turn expanded on what scholars knew about the role of ideas, and introduced a more dynamic way to understand how ideas influence contestable concepts like public interest.

Foucault’s work on discourse improves our understanding of the ideational turn, in which the theory of discourse supplements ideology, rather than opposes it. Discourse has a significant role within the ideational turn to better understand how language and other forms of social semiotics “not merely convey social experience, but play some major part in constituting social subjects, their relations, and the field in which they exist” (Purvis & Hunt, 1993, p. 474). Foucault

(1972) remarks that “in appearance, speech may well be of little account, but the prohibitions surrounding it soon reveal its links with desire and power” (p. 216). According to Durnova,

Fischer and Zittoun (2016), the subjective nature of discourse means “it is not possible to consider concepts such as ‘interest’, ‘ideas’, ‘instruments’, or even ‘value’ as objective and independent variables which can explain policy processes in the same manner as physical science explains objective movement through independent variables” (p. 36). Using a

Foucauldian approach to political and economic transformation scholars can demonstrate that ideologies are “first and foremost discursive constructions that combine heterogeneous elements such as values, instruments, and consequences” (Durnova, Fischer & Zittoun, 2016, p. 45). In this sense, a discursive analysis of political debate doesn’t seek to establish objective meanings that underpin policy decisions, but rather seeks to understand differing interpretations and the actors who invoke them.

The ideational turn rejects theories of pragmatism and the politics of interests, and places ideas at the centre of political change. The ideational turn positions ideas centrally in economic and political change despite the cognisance that these changes are specifically the domain of outcome-orientated, pragmatic explanations (Tavits, 2007). Berman (1998) argues that political actors don’t have perfect or even near-perfect information about the material environment to maximise their utility effectively (p. 31) and that material outcomes can’t be given objective weighting in isolation of the context in which they are being considered. As Hay (2002) explains, ideology frames the actor’s interpretation of the material environment and objective truth in political decisions is more the result of influential ideas which have become dominant in the general public. For ideational scholars, the analysis of what is in the public interest during political transformation needed to progress conceptions of what is practically produced in the material environment.

The ideational turn is critical of the materialist paradigm’s view regarding the rationality of actors.

For ideational scholars, political actors are incapable of making decisions which are only based on material interests because “actors act within systems of great complexity and rather a large degree of uncertainty, which makes it necessary to use ideas as heuristics for action”

(Carstensen, 2011). Schmidt (2010) argues that pragmatic conceptions of rationality are “still left with the irrationality of the choice of institutions to begin with; the deterministic trajectory of

72 change over time, now for better or worse; and the limited rationality of these supposedly

‘rational’ actors at any given point in time” (p. 6). Likewise, Blyth (1997) argues that rational choice is methodologically flawed when conceiving what is in the public interest because the method of individualism “quickly becomes ontological individualism because they assume that all social structures and institutions are (and by definition must be) fundamentally reducible to individual utility” (p. 230). For those who posit the importance of ideas, the pursuit of rational self-interest lacks any form of interpretive framework to identify wider social forces that motivate action outside the material environment.

The ideas-centred approach has been predominantly used to describe how the development of rural Australia was deemed to be in the public interest. Much of the literature on the statist development of the economy before the market reforms of the 1970s argues that it was underpinned by a social-liberal view of both the market and the state. This was referred to by

Sawer (2003) as the “ethical state”, which “involves much higher expectations on the part of citizens concerning the duties of the state than our governments have been anxious to encourage in recent times” (p. 2), responsible for fair policy outcomes regardless of location or socio-economic status. An idealist concept, the ethical state is rooted in the social-liberal theories of T.H Green and the economics of John Maynard Keynes. For theorists like these, the state played a pivotal role in the wellbeing of society by nurturing the environment in which citizens could fulfil their potential, while classical liberal economics lacked the cohesive elements for society to function appropriately (Jahan, Mahmud & Papageorgiou, 2014). Social liberalism ultimately views unregulated capitalism as a tool of systematic oppression and argues that a free market ignores underlying inequalities and power imbalances that exist within economic relationships (Carter, 2003; Oakes, 1996). As an ideology, social liberalism conceives of the state’s obligation to intervene in the market when there is unequal representation and power distribution between the two parties. Through the ideas-centred approach, Australian policy

73 development, from the time of federation to the late 1970s, was arguably underpinned by social- liberal ideas and a firm belief that government intervention was needed to promote positive liberty in the public interest.

The ideational turn has also been the most prominent explanation for the shift towards free- market policies in Australia. Authors such as Brett (2011), Tonts and Haslam-McKenzie (2005),

Cheshire and Lawrence (2005), Pusey (1991), and Pritchard (2005) argue that normative neoliberal ideas were responsible for a series of policy decisions which led to the wider deregulation of the Australian economy. Tonts and Jones (1997) highlighted that the introduction of neoliberalism promoted “a laissez-faire approach to economic management” (p. 174) and that this translated to policy prescriptions which “reduced levels of government economic intervention and regulation, and replaced this with regulation by the market” (p. 174). Halpin and Guilfoyle

(2014) explored the causation of neoliberal ideas and the introduction of policies which reduced the role of the state to unfettered marketisation and neoliberal modes of governance that promoted individualism over collective forms of action (p. 106). Using this causation, scholars present the rise of neoliberalism in Australia as a series of policies which resulted in the retreat of the state in favour of a deregulated market. In these examples, the ideational turn has established a direct causative relationship between neoliberal ideas and resultant policy positions.

Critics of the ideational turn target the causal application of ideas in political and economic transformation. Importantly, in the past decade the debate has progressed beyond whether ideas matter and expanded into areas which identify how, and under what circumstances, ideas matter (Bell, 2012). For example, Blyth (1997) refers to the ideational theory as possessing deus ex machina characteristics in that “like any classic deus ex machina such exogenous factors work their magic by entering the drama, causing trouble, and leaving” (p. 230). For Carstensen

74 and Schmidt (2015), ideational scholars “conflate the notion that ideas matter for policy-making with the power of ideas”, arguing that little work has been completed in political research “to explicitly theorise ideational power” (p. 318). Noting the methodological and ontological gaps in the ideational turn, scholars have begun to seek new conceptual frameworks to better understand the influential nature of ideology and move away from the problematic tendency to apply a causative relationship between ideas and change. This study progresses beyond the ideational turn and explores a structurationist framework to identify the dynamic way ideas influence the public interest during political change.

3.4 Structuration theory: the relative importance of ideology, material events and interests on the public interest

Structuration theory (Giddens, 1991) provides a more robust framework through which to identify the role ideology plays in defining what is in the public interest. A structurationist perspective on the role of ideology rejects rigid demarcation between the material and ideational to identify the interplay between the two. Structuration theory encompasses the wider work of constructivists, historical institutionalists and critical analysts to establish comparative views of both the material and the ideational to challenge what Béland (2009) argues are significant gaps within the theory of ideational turn “which concern the selection of the issues policy makers choose to address, the particular context of policy proposals, and the construction of reform imperatives” (p. 703).

Bell (2011) argues that comparative politics must move past the material-ideational debate because the established positions on policy reform are unable to explain institutional change effectively and any attempt to explain change does so predominantly through one explanatory variable such as rational choice or interpretivism. This section establishes structuration theory as a conceptual framework which expands the explanatory scope of this study and highlights the inherent complexity of policy change processes.

Scholars of structuration theory are critical of the ideational turn because the theory lacks any empirical or counterfactual comparisons to show rather than assume causality.

Structurationalism recognises the existence of ideology in political change but moves past its causative nature and identifies its influence within a material context. In doing so, it empirically proves the multiple ways ideas shape and influence political transformation. Schmidt (2008) argues that ideas serve interest groups by providing the “recipes, guidelines, and maps for political action and serve to justify policies and programs by speaking to their interest-based logic and necessity” (306), while earlier literature from March and Olsen (1989), Campbell and

Pedersen (2001) and Campbell (1998) identified that ideas can be used frame material problems and provide the means by which to solve them. For Campbell (1998), ideas provide actors with “symbols and concepts to frame solutions to policy problems in normatively acceptable terms” (p. 167). Both Blyth (2002) and Freeden (2003) argue that ideology is used by political actors to “decontest” or “delegitimise” material outcomes or existing institutions, or legitimise viewpoints over traditional norms. In these instances, the scholars show the material application of ideas within policy debates and the multi-faceted ways that ideas shape and influence politics.

Structuration theory advances the ideational turn by explaining why some ideologies can successfully shape what is in the public interest while others fail. The theory posits that to understand why some ideas triumph over others, scholars must understand the role of ideas as contingent upon the contextual circumstances in which they were deployed (Cahill, 2013). For scholars to understand the success of a particular ideology they have to consider the context of the material environment in which they were enacted, the specific interests of those utilising an ideology, and the institutional power relations at play. This is true of studies which have presented cases that demonstrate how some ideas become tied to policy change, including the work of Hall (1989) and his analysis on the adoption of Keynesian ideas by some states, and

Blyth (2002) who showed that economic crises in the United States allowed for the introduction of new ideas. This framework moves away from the initial consideration of why ideas matter and progresses the power of ideological forces as an explanation for the change.

The work of Cahill (2012, 2013 & 2014), Chester (2010), Bell (2012) and Edwards (2007 &

2012) presents the most current understanding of structuration theory within the context of

Australian politics. Their research establishes a better understanding of the role of ideology in the economic reforms of the past forty years, and moves past the ideational approach that ideologies have been the only explanatory variable for the rise of free-market policies. By analysing the work of the Howard Government, Cahill (2013) identifies the role of free-market think tanks as a proxy for government and institutions to argue that their influence needs to be factored in rather than just considering the role of ideas. Likewise, Edwards (2012) highlights the instrumental power of business groups and their ability to “convince politicians that their private interests are reliant on them complying with the businesses’ preferred positions” (p. 519). Here,

Edwards makes a very clear distinction between the instrumental power of business groups to shift private behaviour and their ideational power to shape a wider understanding of the public interest. Bell (2012) similarly calls for a form of institutional analysis which examines the preferences of institutionally situated policymakers and the calculations and trade-offs they make. For Cahill, Bell and Edwards, those who seek to understand why some ideas are successful and others fail in Australian politics must move beyond an ideational explanation of political reform and embrace wider material and interest-centred explanations.

The use of structuration theory, as an explanatory framework, does not feature in the rural

Australian political literature, presenting a significant gap in the understanding of how political change takes place. Where studies have taken place they have focused primarily on just one variable within the duality of materialism and ideation. Freebairn (2003) explicitly references rural

77 economic conditions in introducing neoliberal ideas to signal that “markets have the advantage of making effective use of information on wants and constraints, and especially in coordinating the efficient allocation of resources in response to changes” (p. 412). For Freebairn, the declining material environment became the main explanatory variable for the advancement of pro-market reforms. However, Tonts and Jones (1997) infer that rural policy settings had been influenced by special interest groups seeking to benefit from the widening of available markets, arguing that “ regional policies are constrained by the interests of capital and tend to be ineffective in redistributing the location of economic activity in a more equitable manner, either socially or spatially” (p. 183). In this sense, the shift in rural policies was the result of interest groups, such as the National Farmers’ Federation, lobbying governments to expose more of the

Australian economy to market forces. This progresses the understanding of why the development of rural Australia is seemingly no longer considered to be in the public interest but has only done so through a uni-dimensional explanation. There is a significant need to introduce structurationalism within the context of rural Australian politics.

3.5 A Conceptual Framework to explore the Public Interest during rural debate over

Competition Reform

Reflecting on the initial work of Edwards, Bell and Cahill, there is significant need to introduce a conceptual framework to examine how competing political actors shaped the understanding of the public interest during the rural debate over competition reform. This study posits that to fully understand why the public interest has shifted away from rural Australia in favour of expanding market forces, a framework is needed to explain the interplay between the material and the ideational. In doing so, the study is positioned to challenge the dominant conceptual framework that neoliberal ideology influenced the implementation of competition reform in areas previously reserved for the state. The conceptual framework used by this study rejects the use of singular variables to explain how competition reform was implemented to the detriment of those living in

78 rural areas. The study views the power of ideology as contextually dependent on material circumstances, not distinct from the economic environment and those who wish to shape the decisions of governments in line with their own vested interests. Applying structuration theory to the rural debate over competition reform allows the study to identify the relative importance of ideas, the material environment, and vested interests in defining what is in the public interest.

The framework applied to this study has been chosen because of its ability to fill analytical gaps left by previous studies examining rural political change. The framework will be applied to the research to examine the wider ideational and material variables at play throughout the debate over competitive neutrality. The study identifies the beneficiaries of competitive neutrality and the influence these interest groups had on key decision makers. In doing so, it identifies why some policy ideas were successful while others were not adopted. By identifying the structural variables at play within the rural debate over competition reform, the study is well-positioned to articulate why competition reform was seen to be in the public interest despite it being detrimental to those living in rural areas.

This framework contributes to the theoretical understanding of ideology by applying a version of neoliberalism shaped by material and geographical environments. A structurationist understanding of ideology establishes an “actually existing” (Brenner & Theodore, 2002; Cahill,

2010; Chester, 2010; Peck, Brenner & Theodore 2018) form of neoliberalism embedded through the role of the state. The neoliberal ideology positioned in this study deviates from its normative version and repositions the role of the state as an expanding regulator of market outcomes. The study does not witness a retreat of the state but rather the introduction of new forms of economic regulation, including the creation of new institutions to legitimise the expansion of private production and service delivery. When applied to the rural debate over competition reform, the rhetoric of market deregulation, which has become a prime cause of rural discontent, is better

79 considered as re-regulation (Konings, 2009) and includes the institutionalisation of service provision which favours private providers over state-based operations. This conceptual framework progresses beyond the current understanding of the neoliberal turn in rural communities, and presents an expansionist regulatory state to legitimise the implementation of wider competition reform.

The framework further provides a model through which to interpret the history that preceded the introduction of the competitive reforms, and progresses the traditional understanding of how ideology functions in political and economic transformation. Importantly, the framework informs the research design of the study, ensuring the results are grounded in contemporary political theory. As a result, the study contributes to an emerging body of structurationist thought as to how the public interest was conceived during the political change in rural Australia.

3.6 Conclusion

This chapter introduced the contentious nature of the public interest during market reform, and the conceptual framework which was used to examine how the public interest was shaped during the rural debate over competition reform. To achieve this, the chapter positioned the concept of the public interest as central to the functioning of a democratic system, and as an integral justification for the traditional policy settings that developed rural Australia for the first fifty years of federation, and introduced free-market policies from the 1970s onwards. In particular, it establishes the precept that the market reforms which exacerbated the socio- economic decline of rural Australia were deemed to be pragmatic decisions in the public interest.

This presents a unique research proposition which considers why and how reforms that have been detrimental to an area of traditional importance to Australia could be deemed to be both pragmatic and in the public interest. The contested nature of what is in the public interest and

80 how it is applied through policy change in Australia is positioned as a focal point for the study to consider how it was used to justify policies that have impacted rural communities.

While the concept of public interest is generally agreed to be a mechanism that decision makers use to decide the benefits of a policy in favour of those it governs, this chapter demonstrated that there is a lack of consensus on what is in the public interest. Historical explanations of what is in the public interest, within the context of Australian market reforms, are divided into dialectical theories of the ideational and the material, or the state and the market. The first was the presumption of pragmatism and its relationship to the management of adaptive economic policies for the material benefit of citizens. In a pragmatic sense, what is in the public interest is directly related to material outcomes and their wider utility. The second was the view of rational choice and the position that aggregated interests will shape the public interest to maximise utility. The chapter highlighted how the theory of pragmatism, and the roles of vested interests, have both purportedly shaped what is in the public interest through the development of policies grounded in material outcomes. Pragmatism and rational choice were critiqued within interpretive and ideational paradigms which find problems with the objective nature of material outcomes, arguing that these theories ignore the dynamics of inter-subjectivity, power relations and the role of ideas.

The chapter introduced the ideational turn which emerged in response to gaps in the theories of pragmatism and rational choice. Through the ideational turn, what is in the public interest and the political success of specific policies are influenced less by the material and more through ideational elements such as discourses, ideas and symbols. The ideational turn has become a popular explanation for the rise of neoliberalism in Australia, including the presumption that free- market policies have reduced the role of the state and resulted in unfettered deregulation of the national economy. In particular, the ideational turn focuses on the causal links between

81 fundamental neoliberal ideas and the decisions of successive governments. However, critics of the ideational turn in political theory have targeted the causative application of ideas in political transformations and called for more investigation into how, and under which circumstances, ideas influence change.

The chapter concluded by establishing the contextual framework for the study, which uses a structurationist framing of ideas, and links their influence within wider structural variables. By rejecting a rigid demarcation between the material and the ideational, the framework theorises that ideational power is needed to understand why some ideas of what is in the public interest are successful and others fail. The framework advances on previous research in rural political change by identifying the relative importance of ideas, interests and the material environment in contesting the notion of public interest. In doing so, the framework theorises the power of ideology and its effects by applying an “actually existing” form of neoliberalism to the case study which analyses the rural debate over competition reform.

Chapter 4 The Research Case Study: The Rural Debate over

Competition Reform

Chapter Summary

In contributing to the study, this chapter:

● Introduces a case study by which to analyse competition policy reform and the

competitive neutrality of local councils.

● Provides an overview of federal competition reform as an extension of the market

reforms that began with the Labor government in the 1980s.

● Introduces the National Competition Policy, competitive neutrality and competitive

tendering of local councils as major competitive reforms.

● Argues that the public interest referred to in introducing competition reform was

contentious and led to a national debate over the impacts of competition reform in rural

Australia.

● Introduces the research problem, which challenges why these reforms were seen to be in

the public interest when they did such harm to rural Australia.

4.1 Introduction

Australia’s National Competition Policy (NCP) was a major economic reform program established by Keating’s Labor Government in 1995, and was viewed as a continuation of the larger market-based policy transformations from the 1980s onwards. Keating, supported by a coalition of business interests and federal bureaucracy, sought to introduce a federal approach to removing the inconsistent application of competition policies across different states and territories. The NCP was developed to further ensure that the domestic economy was

83 competitive, open to, and able to integrate with, a global marketplace through a robust policy framework which reversed anti-competitive practices, removed state-based monopolies, and opened up public sector services to private competition (James, 2005). At the centre of the NCP and policy reforms such as competitive neutrality was the view that state-based service provision and the protection of areas of the economy from competition were detrimental to the national economy. Competition reform sought to position the Australian economy as an integrated market through federal regulatory bodies such as the National Competition Council and the Australian

Competition Commission that were tasked with ensuring state-based compliance and commitment to agreed competition principles.

The NCP and wider application of competitive neutrality were only to be implemented if they were judged to be in the public interest. Described by governments and public institutions to be a pragmatic, procedural tool, the public interest used as the basis for the implementation of the

NCP reversed the onus of proof in favour of expanding competition. For rural Australia, the policy reforms included in the roll out of the NCP hastened the socio-economic decline of communities. Importantly, the competition policy package was symbolic of the wider market reforms which reduced the economic importance of the agriculture industry, contributed to higher rates of unemployment, precipitated a decline in local service provision, and escalated population migration to larger cities. The public outcry from rural areas led the federal government to initiate two reviews into the socio-economic impacts of competition reform, with the specific intent of understanding why the NCP was perceived to be damaging to these communities.

As with the wider market reforms of the 1980s, the public interest used within the competition policy was highly contested. Proponents of competition reforms argued that the public interest referred to within the NPC was a procedural tool which evaluated the net benefit of competition

84 reform based on objective analysis. Conversely, critics of competition reforms argued that the public interest was part of the larger neoliberal turn in Australian politics, which sought to deregulate the economy in favour of the material benefits of the free market. For these critics, the public interest was framed by a neoliberal ideology which overrode social concerns about the increasing marketisation of services traditionally operated and delivered by governments.

This chapter argues that contention over the public interest, and how it was framed during the rural debate over competition reform, was conceptually too simplistic, and caught between the material and the ideational.

This chapter introduces the case study for the thesis, which specifically analyses the rural debate over the competitive tendering of local council services. In particular, the case study documents the introduction of the NCP including previous iterations of competition policies since federation. Congruently with wider market reforms, the case study argues that competition policy has followed a similar policy paradigm, with initial versions seeking to restrict competition to ensure domestic economic growth. As the wider market reforms were implemented by the Labor government during the 1980s, traditional competition policies supported by the Trade Practices

Act were deemed to no longer be sufficient, with inconsistent application across different states and territorial jurisdictions. This chapter details how the NCP was introduced through the public endorsement of the business community, but included a public interest clause at the request of union and community groups.

This chapter analyses the implementation of the NCP, and the subsequent application of state- based competitive neutrality. The analysis instantiates that the NCP became a target for rural

Australians who were angry at the uneven distribution of outcomes of the reforms, challenging how the competition policy could be implemented when it contributed to the ongoing decline of rural communities. The chapter documents the initiation of two public reviews entitled the Impact

85 of Competition Policy Reforms of Rural and Regional Australia (Productivity Commission, 1999) and Riding the Waves of Change: Senate Select Committee Report on Socio-Economic

Consequences of the National Competition Policy (Parliament of Australia, 2000) which received more than 500 public submissions, and facilitated more than 20 public hearings canvassing the views of a range of political agents on the benefits of competition reforms.

The chapter concludes by establishing significant research problems which question how these reforms were seen to be in the public interest when they were detrimental to those in rural areas, and why current explanations rested with simplistic dichotomies between the material and the ideational. By framing these problems within current theories, the study is well-positioned to further explore how the public interest was framed during the rural debate over competition reform.

4.2 Market Reform and Competition Policy

Legislation aimed at reducing or eliminating trade practices is commonly referred to as

“competition policy” or “anti-trust” and has been an integral component of Australia’s market reforms. Motta (2004) defines these market reforms as a “set of policies and laws which ensure that competition in the marketplace is not restricted in a way that is detrimental to society”

(p. 30). According to authors such as Motta (2004), the level of restriction on competitive practices between firms is explicitly linked to a wider economic policy agenda and their relationship to global commodity markets. In Australia, competition policy has followed a similar path in shifting economic paradigms since federation but according to Merrett, Corones and

Round (2007), initial competition reforms commenced significantly earlier than the market reforms of the Labor government. While similar in intent, increasing pro-competition legislation preceded Labor’s market reforms during the 1980s, with landmark instruments such as the

Trade Practices Act 1965 (Cth) and the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1971 (Cth). The adoption

86 of competition reform supported by early iterations of the Trade Practices Act laid the foundation for the implementation of the National Competition Policy.

Competition policy remained relatively dormant in Australia until 1965. The first iteration of legislation underpinning this policy program in Australia was the Australian Industries

Preservation Act 1906. This piece of legislation mirrored principles inherent in the United States’

Sherman Antitrust Act 1890 (USA), which sought to protect citizens from cartel-like behaviour and the coercion of consumers. Plowman (1992) explains that while the Australian Industries

Preservation Act 1906 was intended to establish the federal regulation of competitive markets across the newly created federation, it was essentially designed to protect local manufacturers and agriculturalists from international competition. Plowman argued that Australian-owned monopolies were acceptable “provided that the fruits of protection were shared between management and labour, and provided protection did not result in unfair prices or unfair competition” (p. 51). The legislation was seen to be largely ineffectual, which resulted in independent states, territories, government-owned enterprises and statutory market authorities operating under different, and sometimes conflicting, policy settings (Hunter, 1961). Despite poor application, the legislation and associated policy programs remained, attracting sporadic interest from future federal governments intending to promote competitive markets (Round & Shanahan,

2014).

It was not until 1965 that there was a second major attempt at establishing a platform for the implementation of a federal competition policy with the introduction of the Trade Practices Act

1965. The Trade Practices Act 1965 (Cth) took influence from the United Kingdom’s Restrictive

Trade Practices Act 1965 (Plowman,1992), and was representative of previous individual state legislative instruments positioned to bridge inconsistencies left by the inefficient federal regulation of the Australian Industries Preservation Act 1906 (Cth). Arguably, the Trade

Practices Act 1965 (Cth) was the first real attempt to apply a federal lens to competitive conduct across differing state jurisdictions and inter-industry relationships (Round & Shanahan, 2014).

The Trade Practices Act 1965 (Cth) was positioned to preserve competition in Australian trade and commerce to the extent required by the public interest. Importantly, the legislation necessitated an administrative and technical approach to competitive practices, with many commending its wide scope and application (Ahdar, 1991). Explicitly, the legislation established the Australian Trade Practices Commission, which had statutory authority to monitor and enforce the conduct rules found within the Act. The combination of the Trade Practices Act 1965 (Cth) and the Australian Trade Practices Commission attempted to establish a national framework through which to consistently apply competitive conduct across different states, and industry sectors.

The second iteration of the Trade Practices Act, the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) arguably reflected the policy-driven shift towards marketisation that began with the Whitlam and Fraser governments. As Round and Shanahan (2002) argue, “the Whitlam government wished to remove anachronistic legislation governing competition and to bring Australia into the modern era of consumer-focused competitive markets” (p. 3). The Trade Practices Act 1974 was the first substantial approach to removing restrictive trade practices in the interest of improving economic conditions. Round (2013) argues that the changes between the Trade Practices Act 1965 and the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) were symbolic because there was a shift in what was deemed beneficial to the national economy, whereby the implementation of legislation that would establish fair, open, and competitive markets was deemed more appropriate than the traditional restriction of competition. Furthermore, the role of the Trade Practices Commission also shifted in both scope and application, whereby its statutory oversight moved to increasingly remove anti-competitive practices under the presumption that widening competition would create more efficiencies within agriculture and mining industries, reduce pricing, and establish more

88 choice for consumers (Merrett, Corones, & Round, 2007). The Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) symbolised a shift in how industry competition was viewed and applied. Instead of just restricting and monitoring competition breaches within the jurisdiction of the legislation, the applied competition policy would form an important part of the emerging market reforms.

At the centre of the changes applied to form the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) was a series of mechanisms that introduced competition into previously protected industries and state-based operations. Explicitly, part four of the legislation included a new policy lever to promote competition where under previous versions it was deemed to be in the public interest to restrict competitive practices. Round (2013) refers to the expanding scope of the Trade Practices Act

1974 as “reversing the approach of the previous restrictive Trade Practices Act” whereby

“anything that was permissible until shown to be contrary to the public interest” and “for the first time, a Commonwealth Government has enacted consumer protection legislation in which all anti-competitive conduct is prohibited unless shown to be in the public interest” (p. 15). This addition to Australia’s federal competition policy expanded competition policy and instigated a significant shift in the understanding of the role that market forces play in supporting the public interest. This policy reversed the view that the state would restrict competition unless it could demonstrate it was in the public interest, and established a precedent whereby market forces should only be prohibited if it was in the public interest to do so.

After the implementation of the Labor government’s market reforms, the application of the Trade

Practices Act 1974 (Cth) was deemed too limited and inconsistent with a more internationally focused economy (Hilmer, 1993). As the Hawke and Keating trade liberalisation reforms led to a cascading of policies to modernise the Australian economy, a political lens was applied to areas which were still protected from market forces. Critics of the policy argued that for the economy to be internationally competitive the legislation would need to remove state and industry based

89 exemptions (Hollander, 2006; King, 1997), and address state-based inconsistencies, which when applied across state borders, created market inefficiencies (Harman, 1996).

Proponents of extending the scope of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth), which included the

Business Council of Australia, the National Farmers’ Federation, and free-market think tanks, argued that it was fair that further promotion of competition should apply universally to all business activity regardless if it was private or public (Connors, 1996). In their view, for the economy to continue to grow internationally, a consistent whole-of-nation approach to competition was necessary.

4.2.1 The Hilmer Report

A key feature of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments during the 1990s was the microeconomic reform of the Australian economy. As the wider reaching market reforms began to take shape, and Australia was heading into another recession, it was evident that existing competition policy programs underpinned by legislation such as the Trade Practices Act 1974

(Cth) were insufficient in meeting the needs of a more competitive economy. In 1991, Hawke set the agenda for an aggressive plan to reverse the “patch work” coverage of the Act to be more inclusive of state public sector businesses, large SMAs, local government organisations and significant areas of the public sector (Hawke, Keating & Button, 1991). Hawke’s ministerial statement entitled Building a Competitive Australia (Parliament of the Commonwealth of

Australia, 1991) introduced the need for a structured national competition and policy framework to widen the ambit of the Act to include excluded areas such local government reform. Hawke argued that:

In meeting these tremendous challenges that lie ahead, we are not, in 1991, starting out

from scratch. We are not, in this decade, coming to the task cold. We have already taken

many of the essential decisions, we have already learned many of the vital lessons, we

are already enmeshing ourselves with our region, we have already mastered many of the

skills that we will need, to enter the next century with well-founded confidence that we will

reach our goals. But we must face the fact unflinchingly that we need, as a nation, to

equip ourselves further, to meet the challenges of exposure to international competition

(Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1991, p. 1170).

Along with a suite of rural adjustment policies, and a continual reduction in import tariffs, Building a Competitive Australia was a move towards a federally coordinated approach to competition policy.

At a Special Premiers Conference held in 1991, it was agreed that an independent review of the scope and application of the Trade Practices Act would be undertaken to assess its capacity to broaden in line with a National Competition Policy. The Independent Committee Inquiry into

National Competition Policy (commonly referred to as the Hilmer Inquiry) was presented to the

Federal Government in August of 1993. The committee was chaired by prominent management consultant and business academic Frederick Hilmer, and highlighted the need to explore gaps in the current Trade Practices Act that impeded a more open and competitive economy. The committee was tasked with identifying opportunities to expand the scope of the Trade Practices

Act to effectively manage anti-competitive conduct, and was asked to review existing government regulation, and the feasibility of transferring responsibility for competition regulation to a centralised and national body under a national framework. Importantly, the committee was charged with advising on fit-for-purpose structures to manage the regulation of pro-competitive conduct by government businesses and trading enterprises to replace the Australian Trade

Practices Commission (Hilmer, 1993). Implicit within the terms of reference was the need to

91 apply a consistent approach, and to recognise the increasingly national scope of market operations.

The Hilmer Report made sixty-six recommendations to develop a National Competition Policy, and to establish Australia as a single integrated market (Hilmer, 1993). Reflecting on the need for a national approach to competition policy, the report recommended amendments to the

Trade Practices Act that would form the core of a National Competition Policy (Hilmer, 1993).

The report argued that the Trade Practices Act was an effective tool for maintaining market conduct, but to ensure a more competitive economy new policies were recommended to support the removal or modification of regulatory restrictions on protected areas such as SMAs. The report recommended a dual approach to the legislation underpinning the new policies whereby cooperative state-based laws were to be considered. Where new national laws were needed, the report recommended several safeguards for federal cooperation, and the establishment of a

National Competition Council. The report argued for a regulator to be jointly established between the Commonwealth, states, and territories to oversee the introduction of the new policy initiatives within state jurisdictions (Hilmer, 1993).

The National Competition Council would be expected to coordinate nationwide reviews on the level of anti-competitive practices within the jurisdiction of individual states, and facilitate ongoing industry-specific reforms outside the scope of the Trade Practices Act that would remove barriers to greater competition. Importantly, these specific reforms included the structural reforms of public monopolies, and delineated between regulatory and commercial functions; access to essential facilities that couldn’t be duplicated economically; monopoly pricing and the introduction of competitive neutrality for government business through commercialisation

(Hilmer, 1993). The committee also recommended the establishment of an Australian

Competition Commission to work in tandem within the National Competition Council to provide

92 national oversight and enforcement of the proposed market conduct rules and mechanisms for price surveillance. The report recommended that the National Competition Council should not only be responsible for ensuring the consistent application of these new policies but should also be responsible for administering appropriate institutional support, and managing an effective transition to the new policy landscape.

4.2.2 Proponents of Competition Reform

The literature on the Hilmer Report indicates that the Independent Committee Inquiry into

National Competition Policy did not originate because of public demand but from Australian business interests. According to authors such as Margetts (2011), Harman (2010), Pusey (1991) and Ranald (1995), the National Competition Policy had considerable bipartisan support from both sides of politics but was notably absent in public discourse. Despite the Hilmer Report arguing that there was “strong and widespread community support for implementing an effective national competition policy” (Hilmer, 1993, p. 4), the literature shows that the major driver for the inquiry came from areas such as the Business Council of Australia, senior government officials, wider business interests, and the Industry Assistance Commission (which would later become the Productivity Commission). Margetts (2007) states that because of the strong bipartisan approach between the major parties and the coalition of business interests, “the general community remained largely uninformed about the significance of the policy” (p. 4). Griffin,

Svensen and Teicher (1999) challenge the composition of the Hilmer Committee, arguing that “a

Labor Government placed the formulation of competition policy into the hands of representatives of large manufacturing, agriculture, commerce and mining interests” (p. 28). The available research argues that while the Hilmer Report stated that removing anti-competitive practices would benefit the general public, the main proponents of the original inquiry were those seeking to expand business interests.

The same research into the development of the National Competition Policy maintains that the successful implementation of the policy resulted from a strong bipartisan approach which included a coalition of business interests and a federal bureaucracy motivated by economic growth. Authors such as Harman (2010), Margetts (2011), Ranald (1995) and Pusey (1991) highlight how business interests were able to collaborate with key decision makers in the federal government to lobby on behalf of a wider range of interests, and state governments, to support the Hilmer Report. Svensen and Teicher (1999) argued that the NCP had the support of major business organisations, such as the National Farmers’ Federation and the Business Council of

Australia, which represented the majority of Australia’s largest corporations and were major players in the success of the policy (p. 21). For authors such as McDonald (2007) and Valentine

(1999), the NCP legitimised business interests, through partnerships of federal institutions, to restructure the Australian state-based approach in favour of market outcomes.

The dominance of business interests contained within the Hilmer Report is clearly evident in the submissions to the inquiry, and the policy network (Harman, 2010) that influenced the final recommendations. A review of the submissions made to the Hilmer inquiry highlights that of the

138 submissions on record, only a small fraction of them came from areas that would not benefit from the liberalisation of the economy, which would give business leaders more power in the supply chain relative to their workforce and suppliers. The majority of submissions originated from business conglomerates such as BHP Limited, Caltex Ltd and Roadshow Film Distributors

Pty Ltd, and lobby groups such as the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Mining

Industry Council, state-based Chambers of Commerce, and the Australian Consumers’

Association. Importantly, groups supporting large farming operations such as the National

Farmers’ Federation, the United Dairy Farmers of Victoria, the Australian Dairy Farmers

Federation, and the Australian Dairy Industry Council were all proponents of the reforms.

This study posits that public support for the Hilmer Report, and the need for a National

Competition Policy, were primarily driven by the federal government in coalition with powerful business interests. Despite calls from the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), community groups and local councils that the recommendations in the Hilmer Report lacked social welfare, rural, ecological and equity considerations it was the strong federal approach with the backing of business that would see it implemented as an iconic policy framework after fifteen years of market reform.

4.2.3 A Federal Approach to the National Competition Policy

The National Competition Policy relied on a coordinated and consistent policy adoption program across state and territory governments. As a mechanism for state, territory and federal cooperation, the Hilmer Report’s recommendations would need to be adopted by the Council of

Australian Governments (COAG). However, initially the states and territories were hesitant to commit to the recommendations, arguing that the NCP represented a shift in revenue from the states to the federal government. Despite in-principle support for the adoption of the majority of the Hilmer recommendations at the Hobart COAG meeting in 1994, the following Darwin meeting was widely considered a failure (Harman, 2010; Churchman, 1996), with the official communique from the meeting indicating derision and frustration, noting that for the Hilmer recommendations to be successful politically, the financial benefits would need to be evenly distributed. The official communique stated that “all governments should share the benefits of economic growth and revenue from Hilmer and related reforms to which they contributed”

(Industry Commission, 1995, p. 1). For the Hilmer recommendations to be adopted, the federal government would need to redress long-term intergovernmental issues and revenue allocation.

To break the contention over how the economic benefits of the NCP would be distributed to the states, and to garner public support, COAG agreed to undertake a financial assessment of the

Hilmer recommendations and the impact on federal and state revenue. The Industry

Commission’s report entitled The Growth and Revenue Implications of Hilmer and Related

Reforms (1995) examined the proposed impacts of the NCP and the wider microeconomic reforms of the then Keating government. The commission estimated that the implementation of these reforms would result in a 5.5 percent increase in Australia’s Gross Domestic Product

(GDP). The report also argued that Commonwealth revenue would increase by 6 percent and states and territories would increase by 4.5 percent (Industrial Commission, 1995), allowing for equitable distribution if the reforms were to be operationalised. Despite predicting strong economic gains, the report was criticised by some for ignoring wider socio-economic disruptions that would result from the reforms (Forde, 1995; Quiggin, 1997). Quiggin (1997) argued that the report ignored the wider socio-economic outcomes of increasing market reform, postulating that for completeness, the commission should include the effects of labour displacement, the formation of private monopolies, and the erosion of community service obligations.

By accepting The Growth and Revenue Implications of Hilmer and Related Reforms (1995), and facilitating a series of additional round tables, the state and territory governments endorsed the implementation of the Hilmer reforms at the third COAG meeting in April 1995. Integral to this endorsement was a series of financial commitments from the federal government in relation to annual grants, and a set of special competition payments to the states and territories based on their ability to meet the obligations of the policy package (Hollander, 2006). These payments were encapsulated in the Agreement to Implement the National Competition Policy and Related

Reforms (Council of Australian Governments, 1995) which was established by the Keating government to ensure the states and territories would uphold their commitment to economic reform within their own jurisdictions (Churchman, 1994; Hollander, 2006). With a signed agreement from the states and territories, strong backing from the business community and

96 bipartisan support in parliament, the Competition Policy Reform Act 1995 (Cth) was passed into law, and the new policy framework was established later that year.

4.3 The National Competition Policy

In 1995, the Keating Labor government ensured passage of the Competition Policy Reform Act

1995 (Cth) and introduced the National Competition Policy. From a legislative perspective, the

Competition Policy Reform Act 1995 (Cth) involved significant changes to the scope of Part IV of the Trade Practices Act while also shifting many functions of competition conduct regulation away from the states and territories to within the purview of the federal government. First, the

Act modified the existing Trade Practices Act and added a new Part IIIA which established procedures for new forms of market access. Second, the Act abolished the Prices Surveillance

Authority and the Trade Practices Commission, and formed the Australian Competition and

Consumer Commission. Third, the Act established the National Competition Council and, in collaboration with the states and territories, assigned new regulatory and oversight powers.

Fourth, the Act made several amendments to Part IV of the Trade Practices Act, including repealing price discrimination provisions and extending the rule to the resupply of services.

Finally, the Act extended price surveillance arrangements to state government enterprises for circumstances where state-based reforms prove inadequate. In its essence, the Competition

Policy Reform Act 1995 aligned to the original principles of the Hilmer inquiry in that it expanded the scope of trade practices and pricing monitoring and applied them consistently within greater federal oversight and regulation.

The more operational, and non-legislated components of the NCP were a combination of three key agreements between the Commonwealth and the state and territory members of COAG – the Competition Principles Agreement, the Code of Conduct Agreement, and the Agreement to

Implement the National Competition Policy and Related Reforms. Of particular interest to this

97 study was the implementation of the Competition Principles Agreement which established guiding principles for state and territory governments to achieve structural competition reform, and improve their economic efficiency. The agreement was bound by federal government financial incentives including the removal of government-owned monopolies, and access of private sector interests to state-owned infrastructure like telecommunications. Central to the agreement was the intention to review all state-based legislation to ensure that competition was not restricted unless it could be demonstrated that the benefits of the restriction outweighed the cost to the community. Explicitly, the legislative review of restrictive competitive practices was to be applied to local government activities, with the expectation that it would be reviewed annually by the newly created National Competition Council (NCC).

4.3.1 Setting an Agenda for Competition Reform in Rural Australia

The NCP was a paradigmatic policy platform that resulted in significant changes to rural

Australia and the industries they sustained. The premise of the NCP was that competitive markets would generally serve consumer and community interests by providing incentives for suppliers to operate more efficiently (Productivity Commission, 1999). To achieve this, the scope of the NCP was far reaching, addressing areas of the economy that were protected from forms of competitive practice. The available literature on the NCP and Rural Australia deals mostly with the direct impact on the agriculture industries, the influence of Westfarmers and Woolworths Ltd, and subsequent rural adjustment schemes for small, family owned farming businesses.

Outside the implementation of the competitive reform of the public sector, the literature generally characterise the reforms of the NCP as having significant impacts on both on rural consumers and rural producers. Studies have indicated that by removing anti-competitive practices in rural industries, consumer prices have dropped while at the same time, rural producers have become increasingly concentrated (Keith, 2012). For example, studies from the likes of Knox (2012),

Harrigan (2004) and Margetts (2007) have detailed the removal of Statutory Marketing

Authorities and the subsequent impacts on dairy and wheat farmers. The authors have shown that the removal of SMAs or “single seller desks” have allowed large agricultural industries to scale to increase their market share in a more globalised economy. As a result, smaller competitors have effectively been priced out of business, contributing to large-scale exoduses of traditional family farmers from rural areas.

Extending past primary production within the agriculture industry, a large amount of literature has also documented how policies like the NPC has intensified the market concentration of commercial supermarkets to the detriment of small independent operators. For instance, authors such as Margetts (2011) and Baker (1994) have argued that the deregulation of the retail sector has effectively created a market duopoly between Coles (owned by Westfarmers) and their competitor Woolworths (owned by Woolworths Ltd.) which have dramatically reduced consumer prices but have also set price controls down the supply chain which is no longer sustainable for smaller producers. Further to this, the available literature has shown that the ability of the big two firms to effectively price out smaller, independent retailers has contributed to a hallowing out the traditional retail centres in rural towns (McKinna, 2011). Scholars have argued the NCP hastened the market concentration of large agricultural producers and retail companies which has increased profit margins, reduced prices for consumers while also ensuring that smaller, locally owned, farming business are no longer viable.

Accompanying the agenda for competition reform was a series of rural adjustment schemes to incentivise the exit from agricultural industries by smaller businesses that were no longer found to be viable without some form of economic protection. According to Cockfield and Botterill

(2006), “rural adjustment programs have generally provided short to medium term funding, as either grants or loans, intended to induce the redeployment of labour movement out of an

99 industry by some, usually smaller firms (farm businesses)” (p.70). The available literature on rural adjustment programs (RAS) argues that they represent a growing acceptance of competition reform and the impact of deregulation on rural communities. Scholars such as

Higgins (2018) and Gray and Lawrence (2001) have shown that the agenda for competition reform was enacted under the pretense that the increasing adoption of market forces in the

Australia economy would decouple rural communities from their economic base and that the industry would become increasingly concentrated. Therefore, rural adjustment schemes have become a tool of successive governments to transition family owned business out of the industry as global agri-business firms increase productivity and increase their control of the supply chain.

The shift to competition reform in the agriculture industry and the decoupling from their local communities has been well documented in the current literature (Cheshire, Meurk and Woods,

2013). However, very little literature exists that explores the impacts of the NCP on the introduction of competitive neutrality of local council services. In that, while much of the attention from scholars has tended focus on the impact of the deregulation of the agriculture industry on local communities and not seek to understand how policies like the NCP have potentially compounded rural disadvantage by also having an impact on local service provisions.

Consequently, the scope of this study addresses this gap in the literature and is primary concerned with the impact of competitive tendering of local government services in the context of the wider competition reform in rural Australia. By ensuring the scope is firmly aligned to this area of competition reform, the study is in a unique position to present new findings on how the notion of the public interest was applied and for whom.

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4.3.2 Competitive Neutrality and Competitive Tendering

Competitive neutrality reform was a key component of the Competition Principles Agreement

(Council of Australian Governments, 1995) within the NCP. At the core of competitive neutrality is the provision, contained within clause three, that government businesses should not receive net advantages because they are owned and operated by the public administration. The agreement stipulated that the rule would only apply to the business activities of public-owned entities, and that non-revenue generating activities would be exempt. For public entities engaging as a Government Business Enterprise (GBE), the agreement stipulates that each entity should adopt a model of corporatisation. The overarching aim of corporatisation was to structurally align the activities of public entities to be more “business like”, and to introduce new administration practices and management tools to increase efficiency and effectiveness (Grossi

& Richard, 2008; Felmingham & Page, 1996).

In practice, competitive neutrality establishes a level playing field between GBEs, local councils, and private providers. Hood (1995) describes this as “lessening or removing differences between the public and the private sector and shifting the emphasis from process accountability towards a greater element of accountability in terms of results” (p. 94), while Alam and Pacher

(2000) maintained that by establishing competitive neutrality across most state jurisdictions, public service providers would treat residents more as customers and would work “hand in hand to ensure that management acquires all private sector management styles so as to become more customer responsive” (p. 365).

The Competition Principles Agreement required that all GBEs and the business activities of public entities implement a significant program of market-based reforms within a given timeframe. Firstly, entities had to ensure they didn’t engage in price discrimination, and that the

101 prices charged for goods and services reflected full cost attribution for those activities. Second, public entities would need to adhere to the same regulations as the private sector, including service areas such as environment, planning and health and safety approvals. Third, public entities managing business activities would need to ensure that they were subject to the same tax laws as private providers. Finally, the agreement stipulated that debt guarantee fees would be offset against any competitive advantages. It was stated that through the application of these reforms public entities would not receive a net competitive advantage simply because of their public ownership.

Competitive neutrality was rationalised because it was in the public interest to ensure that public providers were subject to the same level of transparency and market performance measures as those of private providers (Rennie & Lindsay, 2011). Arguably, when compared, public-owned services achieved competitive advantage because of their links to government, rather than traditional market indicators such as performance, consistent efficiency or technology improvements (Capobianco & Christiansen, 2011). Basic competitive advantages, previously secured by the public sector, arguably created market distortions driving inefficiencies which were then passed onto the consumer or citizen. The protected public ownership of these services resulted in a lack of transparency, no real understanding of market value which could result in mismanagement of public funds, overall resource wastage, and delivery underperformance.

Scholars argued that the ownership of the service was less of a determinant of allocative efficiency and overall service quality if competitive neutrality was achieved (Vining & Boardman,

1992). Borcherding, Pommerehne, and Schnieder (1982) argued that “given sufficient competition between public and private producers (and no discriminatory regulations and subsidies), the differences in unit costs turn out to be insignificant” (p. 136). Importantly, theorists

102 like Virtanen and Valkama (2009) argue that complete competitive neutrality is considered unrealistic, with private companies also engaging in activities that undermine fair and competitive conditions. Despite this, at the core of competitive neutrality is the notion that it is not in the public interest for publicly owned services to engage in practices that create market distortions (Zwalf, 2017). According to the principles of competitive neutrality, for the effective optimisation of economies, services operated by both private and public entities must be able to compete fairly without any form of non-commercial advantage.

4.3.3 Competitive Tendering and Local Councils

Competitive tendering was an optional tool used by the government to expose local government services to market competitors and achieve competitive neutrality. In practice, competition tendering establishes that a service that would traditionally be the responsibility of local government would be exposed to similar private providers to compare both cost and quality

(Boyne, 1998). According to the Industry Commission, competitive tendering is a “process of selecting a preferred supplier from a range of potential contractors by seeking offers (tenders) and evaluating these on the basis of one or more selection criteria” (Australian Industry

Commission, 1996, p. xix). For the purposes of this study, Cross Border (or Boundary)

Tendering (CBT) is also considered to be part of the wider competitive tendering process. Cross border tendering is the process of smaller councils investing in the services provided to a larger council to effectively pool resources. As a group, the introduction of competition into local government services was a policy mechanism utilised with the overarching goal to become competitively neutral.

There are over 550 local government areas (LGAs) in Australia, which vary considerably in terms of economic and social dimensions (Department of Infrastructure and Regional

Development, 2016). Local governments are responsible for the delivery of local services, such

103 as road, sewerage, waste and sporting facilities. The primary source of local government revenue comes from local sources (rate payers) with approximately 10 percent coming from grants and subsidies (Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, 2016). Local government in Australia is the responsibility of the states and the Northern Territory with state- based variances in the systems overseeing the functions of local councils. Local governments are not the responsibility of the federal government but provide representation to the commonwealth through groups such as the Australian Local Government Association and the

Council of Australian Governments (Grant, Dollery & Kortt, 2012). Policies that impact on local government are implemented by the state and through intergovernmental agreements through forums like the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

Fisher (2007) provides a useful typology to group local councils into five different categories based on both social and economic variables. Central business districts and metropolitan councils are defined by their share of economic activity and moderate population growth. Peri- urban and regional councils are defined by their moderate economic growth and large population growth. Rural councils are characterised by their typically low population change and relatively high levels of socio-economic disadvantage. McKenzie (1994) found that rural areas have seen a significant decline in population since World War Two, with shifts towards coastal, major regional and metropolitan local government areas. The most evident impact on rural population decline has been the ability of rural councils to raise revenue without relying too heavily on state and federal subsidies (Dollery & Johnson, 2006).

Competitive tendering in local government areas specifically encompasses the services traditionally within the remit of local councils. The range of services going to tender differs on a state by state, local government by local government basis but generally includes services such as rubbish collection, local road repairs, traffic management, water facilitation, parks and garden

104 services (Painter, 1991). In some instances, local governments will go to tender for larger scale operations such as overall management, environmental planning, information technology systems, administrative services and civil engineering. Importantly, competitive tendering is not considered privatisation and is treated differently within the literature with differences on state and market ownership (Rennie & Lindsay, 2011). The main difference between competitive tendering and the privatisation of local government services is that the public sector retains the authority to determine the resourcing output towards the production or delivery of the service

(Marshall, 1998). Of equal importance to this study is that neither the Competition Principles

Agreement nor the wider NCP dictates the application of either privatisation or competitive tendering, but rather incentivises individual states and territories to achieve competitive neutrality through financial payments.

The literature on competitive tendering associates the effectiveness of local councils procuring private services with management strategies that elevate economic efficiency, and an organisational culture geared towards commercial outcomes (Steane & Walker, 2000). However, the benefits and costs are highly contested. Ernst, Glanville and Murfitt (1998) argue that the most widely accepted benefit of competitive tendering is the potential for local councils to reduce costs while maintaining a level of service quality. This is due to the reduction of labour costs, and the effect of competitive forces in driving down prices (Boyne, 1998). Painter (1991) indicated that the initial cost reduction from competitive tendering might be a result of tenders seeking unrealistic pricing levels by purposely trying to undercut in-house services. In this case, once the private firm has established itself prices are likely to increase (Quiggin, 1996). The available literature on competitive tendering argues that it eventually leads to market monopolies which inevitably lead to price manipulation because of the lack of competition.

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Further to cost benefits, some areas of the literature posit that competitive tendering results in increased productivity. Authors such as Symanski (1996) and Domberger, Hall and Li (1995) argued that introducing competition into local government services would improve the allocation of labour, and focus on the accountability of management practices. This focus on management accountability arguably establishes a consumer-centric mentality, resulting in an ever-increasing level of service quality. Much like the contestation over cost reduction, a large volume of evidence (Hensher & Stanley, 2003; Hodge, 1996; Munro, 1997) proves that competitive tendering has little impact on service quality. Importantly, some literature suggests that private vendors will only provide a minimum level of service to ensure maximum economic return on investment. In a practical setting, the perceived benefits of competitive tendering are questionable. However, the theoretical basis of competitive tendering aligns to the overall aims of competitive neutrality found within the NCP.

4.3.4 Compulsory Competitive Tendering

Before the introduction of the NCP, a state-based argument about the need for local government reform was already underway. From the beginning of 1993 to 1996, each state independently reformed its system of municipal authorities with the intention to improve efficiency and the effectiveness of operations. While not specifically a debate over competitive tendering, several state governments, and key influencers, began to discuss the inefficiencies of local government.

From the early 1990s to the emergence of the NCP in 1995, there was growing concern about the functioning of local government, including the need for the development of policies that would support transparency and drive efficiencies. As Marshall, Witherby and Dollery (1999) state, “by the early 1990s there was a growing conviction that local government could and should play a more critical role in implementing the Commonwealth's microeconomic and social justice strategies” (p. 37). Marshall (1998) also highlights that “councils had become increasingly absorbed into the fabric of major state and federal policy initiatives and had come to be seen as

106 significant contributors to cultural, environmental, social justice and urban renewal strategies” (p.

648).

The majority of the states initiated changes to their Local Government Acts during the early

1990s to “provide the necessary framework for wider microeconomic reforms in local government, to improve its performance orientation, its accountability and its relations with other spheres of government” (Wensing, 1997, p. 91). According to Cahill (2002), local government reform originated from state-based bureaucrats, and economically liberal think tanks aligned to business interests. As Ernst, Glanville and Murfitt (1998) state, “to date, local government reform has been a story told primarily by government ministers and officials. Occasionally other voices are heard, but often these are from sectors with a strong vested interest in the process, such as senior local government managers and private contractors” (p. 2). There was growing momentum to focus on local government operations as a part of the wider economic movement, prior to the implementation of the NCP, creating an environment ready for further market reform.

The most comprehensive local government reforms emerged in the state of Victoria. In 1994, within the first few months of a newly elected Liberal state government, Premier Kennett used his substantial house majority to implement wide-ranging reforms that would decisively deal with the pressing financial issues facing the state (Martin, 1999, p. 2). The Victoria Commission of

Audit highlighted increasing government debt, rising unemployment and a declining economy compared with states like Queensland and New South Wales (Murfitt, 1996). To ensure the

Victorian government could redress the economic problems resulting from high inflation and a stagnant economy, the introduction of competitive tendering was deemed necessary. Under the advice of right-wing think tanks, such as the Institute of Public Affairs, the Victorian Government set a policy prescription of marketisation. Cahill (2002) shows direct links between the Kennett reforms and the influence of lobbyists such as the Institute of Public Affairs, the Centre for

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Independent Studies and the HR Nicholls Society. In 1990, the Institute of Public Affairs released Project Victoria – Reforming Local Government in Victoria (1993), a polemically framed series of reports that established the public benefit of pursuing market structures within public entities, including council amalgamations and competitive tendering. Project Victoria was a collaborative project, combining more than thirteen pro-business and employer groups, including the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Farmers’ Federation and the Victorian

Employers Federation who championed state-based reforms like competitive tendering. Pro- business interests in expanding market access into local council areas were articulated by both government policy makers and right-wing think tanks, and they aligned to business interests that espoused the material benefits of the reforms (Mendes, 2003).

A key component of this policy position was the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering

(CCT) under the Local Government (Compulsory Competitive Tendering) Act 1994 (Vic). The

Victorian model established a system of compulsory contracting, whereby local councils exposed 20 percent of their annual budget to competitive arrangements. These competitive arrangements were designed to increase exponentially over the proceeding years with an overall requirement of at least 50 percent of all services to go to tender by the end of the 1996–

1997 Victorian financial year. In an important amendment to the Local Government Act, the CCT introduced a reporting framework for local governments, which required the provision of accountability statements to ensure ongoing compliance with the reforms. CCT was an integral policy decision from Victorian state leadership, and characterised local government as

“inefficient, incompetent, isolationist and incapable of running local governments as businesses interests” (Alam & Pacher, 2000, p. 20). While the introduction of CCT in Victoria commenced before the NCP, it included many features that would later be used by other states to achieve competitive neutrality.

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4.3.5 The National Competition Policy and Compulsory Competitive Tendering

With the establishment of the NCP in 1995, the NCC was very careful to distance itself from any prescription towards compulsory competitive tendering. Specifically, the NCC argued that the

NCP did not require the contracting out of particular government services and that “competitive neutrality does not have to be applied as a matter of course. It should be applied only where the expected benefits from implementation outweigh the costs” (NCC, 1999, p. 53). Arguably, the

NCC was cautious to avoid any form of political backlash resulting from the application of compulsory tendering, while at the same time highlighting the benefits of tendering. Despite avoidance from the NCC, states like Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania would implicitly or explicitly link the NCP with competitive tendering (Felmingham & Page, 1996).

From a state-based perspective, the compulsory application of competitive tendering was not widely accepted politically. For example, in 1994 the NSW government under Liberal Premier

Nick Greiner lost a motion to introduce Compulsory Competitive Tendering on the floor of parliament (Domberger & Rimmer, 1994). The Western Australian Liberal government completely ruled out Compulsory Competitive Tendering, believing that it was impractical in rural areas, with Queensland also rejecting the proposition because of its risk to employment levels

(Tiley & Dollery, 2010). The public resistance to compulsory competitive tendering from the states explained the hesitancy of the NCP to enforce competitive tendering, seeking instead to frame the benefits as a means to achieve competitive neutrality.

The private tendering of local council services began well before the introduction of the NCP.

The Industry Commission suggests that, at the time of the introduction of the NCP, 10 to 20 percent of total council expenditure was administered through tender processes, with the majority of services, including waste removal and clearing services, commercialised. Aulich

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(1999) describes the Victorian, South Australian and Tasmanian examples of compulsory competitive tendering as highly technocratic, promoting the efficient structure of the state over a more democratic decision making process. South Australia rejected a completely compulsory version of competitive tendering, but established individual targets for contracting local services.

Likewise, the Tasmanian state government investigated the monopoly powers of local government business activities and its integration with state-owned water and sewerage services. Over a period of five years between 1993 and 1998, the state government privatised roadworks, water and sewerage alongside the commercialisation of local council services.

Conversely, states such as Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland went through what Aulich describes as a pluralist approach to competitive tendering. New South Wales and

Queensland in particular encouraged, rather than mandated, competitive tendering through financial incentives and cross-subsidisation to commercialise local government services. With the implementation of the Competition Principles Agreement, between 1997 and 1999, all states progressed amendments to their local government acts to ensure ongoing compliance with the

NCP to continue the practice of competitive tendering.

4.4 The Rural Debate over the Public Interest in Competition Reform

Acting in the public interest was a defining feature of the rural debate over the impact of competition reform. The notion of the public interest was leveraged as a crucial policy tool to justify the implementation of the NCP and state-based competitive neutrality. In practice, the public interest referred to within these reforms was used as a political test to assess both beneficial and detrimental aspects of the policy package, and the impact on the general public.

According to the then Chair of the Productivity Commission Gary Banks, the core principle of the public interest within the NCP was “that governments should retain (or introduce) restrictions on competition only where they can demonstrate that the benefits to the community exceed the costs” (Banks, 2001, p. 1). However, Margetts (2001) argued that the application and

110 prescription of the public interest within the NCP were purposely made unclear so that “any further tightening or clarification of public interest considerations may have resulted in the fragile competition policy agreements falling apart” (p. 289). For those in rural Australia, the notion of the public interest, in implementing the NCP, was as a tool to justify a range of reforms that contributed to the socio-economic decline of these communities.

The use of the phrase “the public interest” was frequent throughout the implementation of the

NCP, but it is neither referred to, nor explicitly defined, in the legislative and non-legislative areas of the policy. However, a quasi-public interest test was enshrined in a targeted section within the

Competition Principles Agreement, binding governments in ensuring that the implementation of any reforms were balanced against social and environmental outcomes. Specifically, clause 1(3) of the Competition Principles Agreement stated that:

Without limiting the matters that may be taken into account, where this Agreement calls:

(a) for the benefits of a particular policy or course of action to be balanced against the

costs of the policy or course of action; or

(b) for the merits or appropriateness of a particular policy or course of action to be

determined; or

the following matters shall, where relevant, be taken into account:

(d) government legislation and policies relating to ecologically sustainable development;

(e) social welfare and equity considerations, including community service obligations;

(f) government legislation and policies relating to matters such as occupational health

and safety, industrial relations and access and equity;

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(g) economic and rural development, including employment and investment growth; (h)

the interests of consumers generally or of a class of consumers;

(i) the competitiveness of Australian businesses; and

(j) the efficient allocation of resources.

Under this particular clause the merits of implementing competitive neutrality, the structural reform of public monopolies, and access to publicly owned infrastructure by private vendors would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Clause 1(3) of the Competition Principle

Agreement, commonly referred to as the public interest test within the NCP (Samuels, 1998), aimed to provide policy makers and the community with a guide to assess the impact of the reforms. The clause was a policy tool which encapsulated a series of economic and social criteria for consideration as to the impact to the community.

Similar to the contention over what was in the public interest during the wider market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, the public interest test that was integral to the NCP was challenged. The public interest test was described by the NCC, the ACCC, governments, and institutions such as the productivity commission as a pragmatic, procedural tool for evaluating the impact of the reforms. Gary Banks (2001), the former chair of the Productivity Commission, stated that when considerations of the public interest were called into question, a regulator like the ACCC “seeks factual evidence of benefits and costs to assess whether the net benefit to the public would outweigh the likely anti-competitive detriment” (p. 3). The NCC endorsed the position that government restrictions on competition should be adjudicated by an independent review panel that was able to undertake an independent and objective assessment of all matters relevant to the legislation under review, including restrictions on competition and public interest matters

(NCC, 2002). The NCC (2002) argued that on each occasion the review panel had “considered all relevant evidence and reached reasonable conclusions and recommendations based on the

112 evidence before the review” (p. 2). In most instances, the net benefits of the reforms were predominantly equated with the costs associated with achieving significant economic efficiencies.

From a process standpoint, the public interest test was activated if the change was perceived to be socially or economically damaging to the Australian public. However, a key shift in the application of the public interest test within the policy, compared with previous practices, indicated an implication that competition is intrinsically good, and that the onus of proof in deviating away from that assumption rests with the individual or community group. Banks (2001) stated that “the NCP has reversed the traditional onus of proof in policy reform, whereby it has generally been up to the proponents of change to demonstrate that change will be worthwhile”, and that “reversing the onus of proof is justified on the grounds that removing restrictions on competition will typically be in the public interest” (p. 3). Arguably, reversing the onus of proof was strategic in challenging vested interests, and acted as a counterweight to the political power of vested interests. In practice, the process of administering the public interest test was premised on the notion that increasing competition in areas previously protected was in the public interest.

Critics of the public interest test argued that the scope and application were specifically driven by a need to legitimise the interests of the business community under a neoliberal hegemony.

McDonald (2007) argues that the public interest referred to within competition reform was less about the net community benefits and more about “legitimising private interest” (p. 351) of the nation’s business community. For McDonald (2007), the public interest test was framed by neoliberal ideas by “powerful authorities” (p. 361) which have “coalesced to set the prevailing discourse about the beneficial effects of competition policy” (p. 359). This argument was supported by authors such as Larnar (2000), Conley (2004), Margetts (2011) and Mulgan

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(2000), with Hess and Adam (2005) who concluded that the public interest test was a neoliberal construct. These authors maintain that neoliberal ideas had been adopted by key decision makers with a “rhetorical use as a claim for legitimacy for what are often sectional interests”

(p. 11). Critical literature on the public interest test used within the NCP aligns it with the larger neoliberal turn in Australia, which promoted the community benefits of market deregulation, privatisation and free enterprise.

4.4.1 The Rural Backlash to Competition Reform

The implementation of the NCP was enacted with little public recognition or ostentation (King,

1997). However, this swiftly changed when in 1998 the policy was catapulted from relative obscurity by an impassioned group of rural voters, supported by emergent political actors, who argued that the impact of competition reform had specifically benefited those living in metropolitan areas at the expense of those in rural communities (Griffin, Svensen & Teicher,

1999; Smith, 2001). For many, the active promotion of competitive tendering, in a local government context, to achieve competitive neutrality was part of wider market reforms which had contributed to increased unemployment, a decline in local services, price rises, and the depopulation of the community. Competition reform through policy programs such as the NCP, and the wider application of competitive neutrality, was considered by many in rural Australia to mean that they had been forgotten by governments, and were no longer of importance to the nation. As a result, the notion of the public interest at the heart of these reforms was questioned, with national debate ensuing over the impact of competition policy in rural Australia.

Political unrest, and feelings of alienation, resulting from competition reform in rural Australia gained public attention through two major political events. The first was the arrival of the populist politics of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in 1997, who campaigned heavily on discontent from rural voters who felt they were not benefiting from years of market and competition reforms.

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Leach, Stokes and Ward (2000) label the advent of the One Nation Party as a cultural phenomenon, informed by a narrow form of economic nationalism, marked by a strong distrust of debt, multinationals, economic rationalism, and the NCP (p. 176). Importantly, the literature analysing the rise and fall of the One Nation Party argues that it was largely the politics of the regional and rural rebellion that assisted the Party in receiving an unprecedented 22 percent of the popular vote in the 1998 Queensland Election, and almost 10 percent of the vote in the following Federal Election. Jackman (1998) describes the emergence of Pauline Hanson and the

One Nation Party as the artificial politicisation of mainstream Australia (p. 168). Jackman (1998) asserts that the rising rural discontent began to appear in the mid-1990s as individuals and communities sought to challenge the growing acceptance of globalisation, and policies such as the NCP, which were overwhelmingly perceived to disadvantage people living in rural areas.

The second major event was the defeat of the Kennett-led Liberal government in the 1999

Victorian state election, which was characterised by rural backlash over local government reforms. Key to the defeat of the Liberal government was the shift of three rural independents who threw their support behind the Labor party, which had campaigned heavily for the removal of Compulsory Competitive Tendering from rural councils, and the tightening of the public interest test under the NCP. According to O’Neil (2000), the opposition Labor Party was

“unexpectedly elected, in large part due to a rural backlash, the incoming Bracks government appeared to offer public servants a welcome antidote to the harsh prescriptions of the Kennett era” (p. 109), while Smith (1999) argued that the political environment under Kennett placed economic growth as “more important than anything else, issues related to community seem to be missing out” (p. 53). Significant to the defeat of the Kennett government was the view that the competition reforms had been implemented too rapidly, and disproportionately affected those living in rural communities (Alam & Pacher, 2000).

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Along with the unexpected defeat of the Kennett government, and the rise of the One Nation

Party, there was a small but significant outcry from people living in rural areas over the impact of the changes taking place with their local council services, and the wider competition reform movement. These local council reforms had wide-ranging repercussions for local towns, with local citizens showing concern about the rapid pace of change taking place in their community

(Marshall, Witherby & Dollery, 1999). In 1998, the National Party’s State Conference moved against the Victorian government to initiate a formal review into the practice of competitive tendering for local councils (The Weekly Times, 1999). In the same year, the City Council of the

Central Queensland town of Rockhampton voted to not undertake competitive tendering.

Backed by the Australian Services Union, the Council decided to move against the NCP in favour of protecting local employment (Courier Mail, 1998). In these instances, rural discontent had begun to grow, claiming that the NCP, the application of competitive neutrality, and the wider market reforms could not be conceived to be in the public interest because of their contribution to the continued socio-economic decline of rural communities.

4.4.2 The National Debate over Competition Reform

The emerging disquiet from rural Australia allowed the opposition to use the NCP as a lightning rod of political discontent (Smith, 2001) and elevated the concern to the federal sphere. The national debate over competition reform began with rising internal clashes within the Coalition government, and from the Labor Party, who were now in opposition. In 1998 Tim Fischer, the then leader of the National Party, admitted that “he had made a mistake in not acting quickly enough to determine the impact of the Government’s competition policy on rural areas” (Mitchell,

1998, p. 14). In a media article entitled “Bush Whacked”, the Courier Mail argued that

“competition policy, of which little was heard before two recent state elections, is a clear loser for the National Party” and quoted NSW National backbencher Kay Hulls who argued that

“Competition in some areas has been good but it has impacted on a lot of areas, so you’ve got a

116 lot of our people on their knees. We’ve gone too fast, we’re dragging them along, they haven’t had time to catch their breath” (Charlton, 2001, p. 18). In another example, the coalition partners appear to contradict each other with Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson arguing for widening competition reform to be more considerate of rural Australian, only to be contradicted. In the same news article the then Treasurer, Peter Costello, is quoted as saying that “the government will increase competition in the economy because it’s in the interests of consumers” (Henderson,

2001, p. 2). Media reports from the time highlight contention between the coalition government over the public benefits of competition reform in rural areas.

Further media reports indicated that the Labor Party, in federal opposition, used the extension of competitive tendering within the NCP to criticise their state and federal government Liberal Party opponents. This opportunity was taken by the then Labor leader of the opposition, Kim Beazley, who used the 2001 election to criticise state and federal Liberal governments for employing the underlying principles of the NCP as an ideological tool for further marketisation. Beazley was quoted in 2001 saying that “there’s a place for competitive tendering, but the compulsory competitive tendering that has been utilised in past by state governments of Liberal hue, and as a constant threat out there to the councils, particularly in regional Australia – it’s got to go”

(Henderson, 2001, para. 6). Further to this, Beazley argued that the Howard Government had distorted the original goals of the NCP, which had caused pain and anger in regional communities, accusing the “‘ideologically obsessive Coalition governments’ of using competition policy as an excuse to outsource, downsize and privatise” (Lawson, 2001, para. 5). While the rhetoric seemingly indicates that Labor was against competitive tendering, at the state level,

Beazley was also found retreating from the full removal of competitive tendering by arguing that

“Labor remains committed to competitive tendering where appropriate, but we believe that services should only be put out for tender after a full application of a strong public-interest test”

(Lawson, 2001, para. 6). In these examples, both the National Party and the Labor Party were

117 found to form federal opposition to the perceived overreach of the underlying principles of the

NCP. Despite both parties arguing for changes to the application of competitive tendering in rural Australia, they were also bound by the overall application of competitive reform.

The rural outcry over the NCP quickly turned into a political liability for both state and federal politicians. In 1998, the Queensland State government unanimously passed a motion expressing concern about the impacts on “job security, social welfare, equity, health and safety”

(Queensland Government, 1999, p. 1) and that the NCP was having a “deleterious effect on rural and regional communities” (Queensland Government, 1999, p. 1). According to Parkin and

Anderson (2007), the newly established Howard Liberal government was supportive of the NCP when in opposition but now faced being wedged between the growing discontent from rural voters, and the continued push for market reform. Although early projections of the impacts of the NCP indicated a positive economic outlook for the nation, state and federal governments and institutions such as the NCC began to highlight the “structural adjustments” or “transitional costs” (Tonts & Jones, 1997) occurring in rural areas of Australia as a result of competition policies. It was early in the introduction of the NCP that two key reviews were initiated to understand the effects of expanding competition reform in rural and remote areas with specific intent to address the contention over the public interest.

4.4.3 The Public Reviews into Competition Reform and their impacts on Rural Australia

The first public review initiated was the Productivity Commission’s inquiry entitled the Impact of

Competition Policy Reforms of Rural and Regional Australia (Productivity Commission, 1999).

Established by the Federal Government Standing Committee on Financial Institutions and Public

Administration, the Commission’s inquiry highlights the inherent feeling of unease within rural communities regarding the implementation of the NCP. The Productivity Commission stated that

118 many people in country Australia saw the National Competition Policy (NCP) as an unprecedented outbreak of “‘economic rationalism’, which ignored important social issues and posed a threat to their way of life — adversely affecting their standard of living and the adequacy of services in country Australia” (p. 23). The Commission’s inquiry into the impacts of the NCP specifically addressed three main areas. Firstly, the inquiry was tasked with assessing the impacts of the competition policy reforms on regional and rural Australia, including comparing these impacts with the wider economy. Secondly, the inquiry would address the differences between metropolitan and regional areas in relation to the operation of major markets. Finally, the inquiry would highlight any opportunities to mitigate the negative impacts of the reforms on people living in rural Australia. The public review received more than 300 public submissions, held nine public hearings, and facilitated meetings across 80 regional locations in Australia.

The second review was overseen by the Select Senate Committee and was entitled Riding the

Waves of Change: Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy

(Parliament of Australia, 2000). Initiated through a combined vote by the Federal Labor Party and the Greens, the Senate moved to produce an interim report in 1999 entitled Competition

Policy: Friend or Foe – Economic Surplus, Social Deficit with a final report produced in 2000

(Parliament of Australia, 2000). The report confirmed that the wider community was concerned about the changes resulting from the NCP, general microeconomic reform, and globalisation

(p. 13). The report was similar to that produced by the Productivity Commission, but was not directly targeted at regional and rural Australia. Despite this, the report did investigate a common set of variables also considered by the Productivity Commission’s inquiry report. Firstly, the review addressed wider unemployment conditions and workers’ rights. Second, the inquiry examined the overall management of the NCP by the NCC, including how individuals and community organisations could better understand the administration of competition reform.

Third, the universal application of the NCP was reviewed, including “equity trade-offs” and

119 community service obligations in local council areas. Finally, the review also sought to apply a critical lens to the role of the public interest, and the way it had been applied within the NCP.

More than 200 public submissions were received during the review process, and 13 public hearings facilitated to gather information and feedback.

The public reviews into the impacts of competition reform were a political response to the disenfranchisement of rural communities that began during the Labor market reforms in the

1980s, alongside the decline in the economic importance of the agriculture industry. The reviews contextualised the debate over what was in the public interest, as it related to competition reform, and provided insight into how the outcomes could be viewed differently across the nation. The contention over the public interest documented in the reviews challenged held views that the reforms were pragmatic because of the harm caused in rural areas.

4.5 The Research Problem

Despite rural outcry over the implementation of competition reforms, this study shows that the continuation of market reforms in domains previously reserved for the state were seen to be in the public interest. For rural Australia, competition reform only concentrated on the economic benefits, which ignored important social issues, posed a threat to the rural way of life, and adversely affected the adequacy of services in country Australia (Productivity Commission,

1999). However, the reforms were deemed, by the administrators of the NCP, to be in the public interest. Official responses from the federal government indicated that competition reform was used as a scapegoat for rural economic changes largely beyond the control of governments.

Treasurer Peter Costello argued that rural discontent was primarily due to considerable misunderstanding of the competition reforms, and that, instead of reversing the policy direction, governments should improve community understanding of how matters of public interest and social considerations were taken into account during the implementation of competition reforms

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(Costello, 2000). Formal replies to both the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms of Rural and

Regional Australia (Productivity Commission, 1999) and Socio-Economic Consequences of the

National Competition Policy (Parliament of Australia, 2000) demonstrate that despite wide- ranging debate, rural concerns about wider marketisation and increasing competition in communities were ignored by key decision makers.

The contentious nature of what was in the public interest during the rural debate over competition reform presents challenging research problems. Governments, bureaucrats and federal regulators promoted these policies as pragmatic reforms that were in the public interest despite being detrimental to those in rural Australia. It is clear from the available literature that the concept of the public interest, as it was positioned within the reforms of this time, was contested and influenced by those who sought further economic liberalisation, or those who sought to ensure the social and economic viability of rural Australia. What is not clear is why those who championed the removal of state-based protectionism were successful in legitimising a conception of the public interest underpinned by market outcomes. This identifies a significant gap in current research that examines how the concept of the public interest was used to justify radical changes in policy positions, and questions how these reforms were legitimised to be in the public interest when they contributed to the ongoing decline of rural Australia.

Expanding on the need to explore how competition reforms were deemed to be in the public interest, closer attention needs to be paid to the dynamic roles of vested interests, ideas and the material environment. For governments and federal regulators, the public interest presented a pragmatic and procedural tool reflecting the material conditions of the time. For others, the public interest was underpinned by a hegemonic neoliberal ideology (McDonald, 2007; Margetts, 2011) positioned to drive a form of deterministic economic rationalism and progress a range of policies, seeking to recast the role of the state from regulating the market to propagating the freedom of

121 capital. In these instances, the underpinning drivers of the public interest were framed by a single explanatory variable, situating the debate as an argument between pragmatism and the influence of ideas. The current literature over what shaped the public interest during competition reform presents dialectical explanations between the ideational and the material which warrants further investigation.

4.6 Conclusion

This chapter presented a comprehensive case study forming the basis from which to explore in greater detail how the public interest was framed during the rural debate over competition reform. To achieve this, the chapter presented a historical review of the formative competition policies since federation. The analysis found that early attempts to regulate economic competition mirrored the wider policy direction of the time. By detailing the creation of the Trade

Practices Act 1967 (Cth), and the subsequent changes included in the Trade Practices Act 1974

(Cth), the study demonstrates that competition policy gradually evolved with the wider market reforms in that the application of competition ceased being a practice that needed to be restricted, but was one that should be actively promoted to improve the performance of the economy. Specifically, this analysis argued that following the market reforms of the 1980s, the

Trade Practices Act was deemed to be inconsistent, with prominent business interests calling for its scope to be increased to ensure a whole-of-nation approach to competition reform.

The chapter introduced the National Competition Policy, which was an iconic program of reforms that sought to introduce competitive practices into areas previously reserved for state-based operations. Commencing with the Hilmer Report, the NCP introduced state-based competition reforms through a federal system of regulation including organisations such as the National

Competition Council and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Tied to financial payments for achieving desired outcomes found within the Competition Principle

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Agreements, state-based reforms targeted areas such as statutory marketing authorities, removing anti-competitive practices from legislation, and the competitive neutrality of local council services. The use of competitive tendering by local councils was explored, highlighting the Victorian experience of implementing compulsory competitive tendering to introduce more private vendors to administer services such as local waste management, road maintenance and local support provisions. The chapter argued that while compulsory competitive tendering was not prescribed by the NCP, it was supported as a means to reach higher levels of competitive neutrality.

By introducing the competition reforms forming the basis of this study, including the NCP, the application of competitive neutrality, and the adoption of competitive tendering, this chapter was positioned to detail the rural debate over the introduction of each. The NCP became a target for those who believed that twenty-five years of market reforms had contributed to the removal of essential services, rising unemployment, and population drain in their communities. With the advent of the pro-protectionist One Nation Party in Queensland, and the rural backlash to competition reforms implemented by the state-based Liberal Party in Victoria, the NCP formed part of a wider debate over the impact of competition reform in rural areas, and how the public interest test was conceived as the policy was applied. As a result of mounting political pressures regarding the view that policies such as the NCP had been distributed unevenly, and favoured those living in metropolitan and major regional areas, two public reviews were initiated to better understand the wider socio-economic impact of competition reform in Australia.

The chapter concluded by presenting the research problem that will form the basis for further analysis. As with the introduction of the market reforms that began in the 1980s, the introduction of competition reforms should only have progressed if they were deemed to be in the public interest. In this case, the public interest was presented by the government and institutions such

123 as the NCC as a pragmatic and procedural tool that would weigh up the net benefit of restricting competition on a case-by-case basis. Critics of the public interest, as it is positioned within competition reform, argued that it was part of wider neoliberal economic transformation, promoting wider business interests. This chapter challenged both these views as being situated within a dichotomy of ideas versus the material conceptions of the public interest. By highlighting that the most prominent explanations of how the public interest was framed during competition reform rested within either ideational or material explanations, the chapter concludes by arguing for a better understanding of how the competition reforms came to be accepted to be in the public interest.

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Chapter 5 The Research Methodology: Discourses of the Rural Debate over Competition Reform

Chapter Summary

In contributing to the study, this chapter:

● Presents the overall research scope and methodology of the study.

● Introduces the primary data set analysed, which includes submissions to two public

inquiries into the socio-economic impacts of competition policy.

● Introduces the use of qualitative multi-method research design to answer the research

questions posed by the case study.

● Explores the use of critical discourse analysis as a research methodology, and positions

it to explore the competing discourses found with the debate over the introduction of

competitive tendering.

● Demonstrates the appropriate use of the thematic method to interpret the discourses

established in the submissions through a systematic process of codification.

● Highlights the limitations of the Critical Discourse Analysis method with corresponding

controls implemented to ensure validity and wider applicability.

5.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the overall research scope, and introduces the adoption of a qualitative multi-method research design to answer the research question posed. The method has been utilised as an effective research design to contribute to the wider body of thought that seeks to progress beyond the ideational turn to explain economic and political transformation. The multi- method design incorporates several qualitative methods to better understand discourse related to the public interest, to explain how it was used to justify pro-competition reforms, and to argue

125 for traditional state-based ownership of local council services. Through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of a single explanatory case study, the research design identified a series of themes articulating competing views of what was in the public interest, and addressed areas such as community needs, market fairness, value for money, and conceptions of efficiency.

Through the systematic application of a thematic method of interpretation, the established themes are presented through different ideological lenses to explain how a neoliberal framing of fairness differed greatly from a social-liberal framing. The multi-method research design was chosen for its flexibility to assist in analysing and understanding how the everyday language used in the submissions potentially hides implicit or explicit meanings shaped by power and ideological motivations.

The chapter concludes by highlighting the limitations of the use of critical discourse analysis, and the challenges of data interpretation. Specifically, the critics of discourse analysis argue that research that employs this form of methodology is prone to political bias, detailing how the political views of the researcher will shape how the data is analysed and presented (Chenail,

2011). Critics also argue that discourse analysis lacks a systematic approach to interpreting data, resulting in invalid results and difficulty in replicability. To control against these perceived research limitations, the chapter documents the steps taken to ensure transparency, particularly in relation to the researcher’s background, and details a four-step data analysis process to ensure valid results and future research reproduction. Despite minor criticisms over the use of critical discourse analysis, the qualitative multi-method design introduced in this chapter produces a holistic understanding of how the public interest was framed in the rural debate over competition reforms, including detailed identification of political actors and what motivated their interpretation of the public interest.

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5.2 Research scope and analysis overview

This study analysed a major component of the competition reform in Australia to examine how the public interest was framed throughout the rural debate. Identifying a need to progress beyond the dominant pragmatic and normative explanations for the adoption of market reform in rural Australia, this study sought to identify what roles ideology, material events and vested interests played in the rural debate over competition reform. To achieve this, the study employed a qualitative, multi-method approach to analyse the discourse found within the two public reviews of the socio-economic impacts of NCP in rural areas. Specifically, by analysing the competing discourses throughout the rural debate over the introduction of the NCP, and the wider application of competitive neutrality through the competitive tendering of local council services, the study:

● Identified whether the public interest referred to throughout the NCP was a rational,

pragmatic and procedural tool, as is often argued, or whether it was underpinned by an

ideological discourse.

● Examined how these competition reforms came to predominate the discourse about the

public interest when they were viewed as detrimental to those living in rural areas.

By applying a structurationist conceptual approach, the study sought to unlock how one of

Australia’s most significant policy transformations occurred, and how the ideological battle for the definition of the “public interest” was won and by whom. In doing so, the study is well- positioned to contribute to a neglected area of rural Australian political research, which acknowledges ideational power as a coordinating mechanism for disparate vested interests to establish considerably powerful positions in political debates (Bell, 2012; Campbell & Pedersen,

2001).

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The study employed the use of critical discourse analysis (Van Dijik, 2011) through a singular case study method, which is a new approach seeking to move beyond the ideas-centred explanation of political and economic change in rural Australia. Predominantly, the use of CDA in examining changes that affect rural Australians has focused on the sociological impacts of

Australia’s market reform. For example, Liepins and Schick (1998) used discourse analysis of the media to explore how agrarian masculinity has been constructed, and articulated through notions of strength and battle under structural reform. Lockie (2000) applied discourse analysis to the media coverage of the rise of the One Nation Party in Queensland to ascertain how rural and regional Australia had been portrayed by conservative leaning newspapers, while

Cheshire’s (2006) exploration into the development of self-help as a practice of rural governance applied several discursive analyses to two Australian cases studies to ascertain how rural development policies are dominated by themes of “resilience”, “individualism” and “self- sufficiency” (p. 58). In these examples, the analysis of discourse has provided research into the sociological perceptions of rural Australians through market change, and examined how power has been exercised by business interests and government bureaucrats to challenge traditional policy settings. The use of CDA in this study expands on these examples to theorise the ideational power in rural political debates, which has received little interest from researchers

(Brodie, 2005).

Specifically, CDA has been applied to the case study to establish a more detailed understanding of the debate over the introduction of competitive tendering of local council services. Using the public submissions that informed the Select Senate Committee’s report entitled Riding the

Waves of Change: Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy

(Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 2000) and the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms of Rural and Regional Australia (Productivity

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Commission, 1999), this study codified several discourses which were supported the introduction of competitive tendering, and included the rationale for the perceived benefit of competitive tendering. In establishing the foundations of the argument, the discourse used by critics of competitive tendering for local councils was also codified, and included their views of the detrimental nature of the policy to them and their communities. When compared, the discourses clearly identify a debate over what is in the public interest in which competing groups use discursive frames (Wodak, 2001) to shape the legitimation of their own conception of what constitutes the “public interest”, and decontest the differing conceptions as being illegitimate.

While the use of the phrase “the public interest” was rarely found in the submissions to the two reviews, the codification of the discourses was analysed thematically to produce competing themes aligned to the core concept of the common good.

Competitive tendering of local council services, as a specific area of analysis within the wider competition reforms of the NCP, was chosen because of its wider applicability to the overarching research objectives. Explicitly, the debate over competitive tendering for local council services represents a microcosm of the wider debate over competitive reform in rural areas, and extends to describe how the introduction of private vendors into areas previously serviced by government was contested in relation to socio-economic outcomes for rural communities. Proponents of competitive tendering for local councils utilised similar discourses already documented in the analysis of wider competition reforms, arguing that competition for local council service contracts reduces input costs while representing greater value for money, and stimulating the local economy. Conversely, rural critics of competitive tendering of local council services argued that competition in small populations was dysfunctional and would lead to private monopolies which increased prices, reduced service quality, and sourced labour from outside local areas leading to sustained unemployment. While competitive tendering was only one component of the NCP and the application of competitive neutrality, it created significant contention over how competitive

129 tendering was implemented when it was considered by many in rural Australia to not be in the public interest.

The codification of discourses into themes that represented the actors' conception of the public interest was found to be closely aligned to the inherent values within both normative versions of social-liberal and neoliberal ideologies. The study shows how CDA can uncover the hidden political meaning and belief systems of common texts in which ideologies are produced and reproduced (Van Dijk, 1995). The ideological underpinning of the submissions show how different political actors were influenced by their own social perceptions when evaluating the benefits of competitive tendering, which aligned with evaluative judgements of the public interest such as fairness, efficiency and what was best for the community. By using CDA, the study shows how different political groups shaped these judgements to align to the inherent values of either social liberalism or neoliberalism. This further highlights an ideological contestation over the public interest, identifying how socially conceived judgements such as fairness, efficiency and what is considered best for the community were conceived differently.

The use of CDA assisted with identifying the vested interests of the actors in the submissions including the material benefits they sought to gain during the debate over competitive tendering.

Through several codifications of the submission text, the study was able to identify the underlying motivations of groups active within the debate and considers how the underpinning ideology framed the material problem and solutions. For example, the groups coded to market fairness framed the traditional delivery of local council services as financially irresponsible. By allowing fair application of market principles, private providers would perform similar services for less investment. The neoliberal framing from this group situates economic failure with the traditional adoption of government-owned monopolies for the provision of local council services.

Subsequently, through a second round of codification, this group would also materially benefit

130 from the application of competitive tendering. Conversely, another group was coded to fair outcomes which framed the disproportionate delivery of local council services under private production. For this group, the introduction of competitive tendering would result in improved services for metropolitan and major regional centres but would reduce the quality of service provision in rural towns. Through the application of CDA, the material drivers of the participants are evident, including how ideology is used to frame material problems and influence the subsequent policy solutions.

Through a comprehensive multi-method design, the findings from analysis of the public submissions, which are directly related to the debate over the introduction of competitive tendering, are applicable to the wider contention over what was in the public interest during competition reform. In the findings, the study shows that the public interest was heavily aligned to neoliberal values of free-market competition and the benefits of allocative efficiency. The neoliberal framing used to understand the debate is congruent with the wider market and competition reforms, which articulated that traditional policy settings had become financially unviable and that economic growth would only continue through marketisation. The neoliberal drivers clearly outweighed social and economic considerations from those in rural Australia, which provides key understandings as to how competition reform was seen to be in the public interest despite exacerbating the decline in these areas. The debate over competitive tendering provides an important example of how the intersection of ideas, material events, and vested interests shape the public interest, and was identified as a relevant and appropriate case study to respond to the study’s main research questions.

5.3 Qualitative Multi-Method Design

To address the stated research questions, this study employed a qualitative, multi-method research design to better understand how those who contributed to the public submissions

131 made meaning of their social world. According to Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2010), “social reality is assumed to be subjective and varied; there is not just one story but multiple stories of lived experience” (p. 455). The lived experience of participants in the rural debate is of particular importance to the study, which includes subjective reality presumably grounded in natural or objective settings. For participants in the study, the public interest was subjective and is situated in critical issues of power, manipulation and control in which qualitative analysis allows the examination of how and why some meanings of the public interest are justified over others. The study challenges the view of pragmatic policy implementation in the public interest, and identifies that there were competing interpretations of what was in the public interest. In doing so, the study highlights that one interpretation of the public interest came to dominate over others. The use of a qualitative research design was integral to the findings of the study because of the scope that the methodology provided in highlighting the inter-subjectivity of political policies claiming to be pragmatic and identifying different interpretations of the public interest.

The use of a qualitative multi-method research design also provided the study with a number of techniques to analyse the critical junctures, and path-dependent processes of political change

(Fairclough, 2017). The changing material circumstances of rural Australia are better understood through the adoption of a qualitative research design which hypothesises various explanations for why policy changes were made, and how the outcomes were interpreted. The use of a qualitative research design provided scope to analyse the social aspects of the decline in agricultural output, as well as addressing community discontent, outrage, and the sentiment that rural Australia has been forgotten by the rest of the nation. While the study situates economic growth as the main driver for the changes to competition reform, the qualitative research design assesses the social consequences of this critical divergence from policies that protected the rural way of life. By identifying the social criticisms of competition reform, the study is positioned to argue that through the adoption of competitive tendering, the discontent of rural Australia can

132 be described by more than just economic outcomes, and includes the loss of community and diminution of the rural identity.

A qualitative research design aligns with structuration theory, which establishes the conceptual framework of the study. Structuration theory and qualitative research methods are inherently linked as they both focus on the social components of institutions, and the dynamics of institutions, agents and political change (Stones, 2005). As structuration theory has been used in this study to explain why some ideologies can successfully shape what is in the public interest while others fail, the adoption of a qualitative research design creates an analytical framework to identify how this takes place. The following methods have been used by the study to progress the ideas-centred explanation for how competing political actors shaped the understanding of the public interest during the rural debate over competition reform.

5.3.1 Exploratory Single Case Study Design

This study used the National Competition Policy, and the wider application of competitive neutrality in rural Australia, to answer the research questions. A single qualitative case study design was chosen to capture the contextual circumstances explaining why competition reform was deemed in to be the public interest for rural Australians. According to Yin (2003) the case study design is considered appropriate when the focus of the study is to answer “how” and “why” questions, where the contextual conditions of the phenomenon of the study are particularly relevant and the extremities are not coherent enough between the problem being analysed and its context. Case studies are useful in comparative politics to test several competing or auxiliary hypotheses that can be present in any given phenomenon (Mahoney, 2007). The capacity to test competing hypotheses is central to this study as the rural debate over competition policy included competing views of what was conceived to be in the public interest, and the outcomes sought. The use of a single case study allows for an important narrative to be delivered, which

133 encapsulates the significance of real world (Potter & Edwards, 1996) change that has taken place in rural Australia, including the specific lived experiences of those who can detail the cultural, economic and social losses to their communities.

The research design considers the entire scope of the NCP and deems the implementation of competitive tendering as a viable case study. While the entire National Competition Policy, and its impact on rural Australia, was deemed to be too large in scope to be considered as a case study for this research, the use of a single case study focusing on the introduction of competitive tendering of local council services was more applicable to the research questions, particularly as they relate to the impact of market reforms on those living in rural Australia. The local debate on the introduction of competitive tendering has direct similarities to the wider debate over market reform, which questions how the public interest was legitimised. The case study establishes a clear discourse over the implementation of competitive tendering, with submissions identifying representation from business interests, state governments and rural community groups. The study also depicts competing views of the role of the state and the market in the delivery of local government services, with those from rural Australia championing the egalitarian benefits of state-based provisions while challenging the market outcomes of competitive practices. While there was scope to include the removal of SMAs and the deregulation of retail hours, preliminary investigations indicated that they presented similar results to those obtained in the analysis of the competitive tendering case study.

Establishing a generalised position from a single case study is a noted research consideration in this study. To ensure generalised applicability of the results from the case study, strong background data has been provided to ensure that the research is grounded in a much greater understanding of the context than just what is in the case study (Evers & Wu, 2006). Further to this, the structure of the case study has been shaped by the wider conceptual structurationist

134 theory that sought to explore the role ideology played in defining the public interest. The study theorises the ideational power of a more contextual version of neoliberal ideas which provided a powerful group of vested interests to frame the introduction of competitive tendering as positive for rural communities. By addressing the relative importance of ideas, the material environment and interests in the debate over competitive tendering, the study draws valid inferences (Kazdin,

1981) from the results, with important potential application to other debates that took place in relation to competition reform.

5.3.2 Critical Discourse Analysis

The qualitative, multi-method research design utilised CDA as the main research method to identify, explore and analyse the competing discourses present in public submissions to the review of competitive tendering. Discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary tool to analyse social practices and power relations to obtain meaning. The term discourse, in this context, refers to an abstract category which designates broadly semiotic elements of social change (Fairclough,

2013). For the purposes of this study, discourse is analysed through the presentation of discursive texts, which depending on the analytical framework can be as narrow as linguistic analysis or as broad as an intertextual focus on social movements that directly impact on a text being studied (Wodak & Meyer, 2009).

Discourse analysis seeks to uncover the hidden meaning of everyday text through what

Sheyholislami (2001) describes as “making transparent the connections between discourse practices, social practices, and social structures, connections that might be opaque to the layperson” (para. 4). In practical application, the reference to text can refer to multimodal semiotics signifiers through production of written text, recorded sound, political lectures, painted works and other cultural products (Boréus and Bergström, 2017). Discourse analysis treats any

135 text as a political and cultural phenomenon through which inter-subjectivity of meaning is continually contested within wider power relations.

The foundation of discourse analysis may be found in the work of Foucault. Foucault argued that discourse acknowledges the myriad of lived experiences and how power relations produce, disseminate, legitimate and consolidate particular discourses (Hook, 2007). Foucault (1972) argued that systems of thought and knowledge are governed by rules which operate beneath the consciousness of individual subjects, and define a system of conceptual possibilities that determines the boundaries of thought and language. Foucault’s work examines not only how scholars can extract meaning from discourse, but also how the interdependency of power and social relationships is considered. By taking a Foucauldian approach to policy analysis, the study demonstrates that changes in public policy are “first and foremost discursive constructions that combine heterogeneous elements such as values, instruments, and consequences”

(Durnova, Fischer & Zittoun, 2016, p. 45). In this sense, a discursive analysis of the debate over the implementation of a public policy does not seek to establish objective meanings that underpin policy decisions, but rather identifies differing interpretations of policy outcomes and the actors who invoke them.

Critical Discourse Analysis emerged from the work of Fairclough (1995 & 2003) and Wodak

(2006) with prominent contributions from Dijik (1989) and Augoustinos (1999). CDA extends past the original Foucauldian premise and subsumes a variety of approaches towards the social analysis of discourse which differ in theory, methodology, and the type of research issues to which they tend to give prominence (Fairclough, 2013, p. 1). This extension of Foucauldian thought is best summarised by Fairclough (2001) who states that:

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The overriding objective is to give accounts – and more precise accounts than one tends

to find in social research on change – of the ways in which social changes are changes

in discourse, and the relations between changes in discourse and changes in other, non-

discourse, elements or ‘moments’ of social life (including therefore the question of the

senses and ways in which discourse ‘(re)constructs’ social life in processes of social

change). The aim is also to identify through analysis the particular linguistic, semiotic and

‘interdiscursive’ features of ‘texts’ which are a part of processes of social change, but in

ways which facilitate the productive integration of textual analysis into multi-disciplinary

research on change (p. 11).

In this sense, CDA represents more of a holistic ecosystem into which discourse can be analysed, moving past an independency of power relations, and examines the subjective meaning within a variety of discursive texts to extract, and understand how social practices occur.

Fairclough’s multidimensional framework for the study of discourse seeks to bring different forms of available discourses into one map of sociocultural practice as a communicative event.

Fairclough’s approach to CDA, through this framework, was employed by this study to explain how language, ideology and human experience interrelate in the rural debate over competition tendering. By adopting this framework, the study is positioned to link the themes found within the public submissions to the intrinsic values embedded in contemporary ideologies, and the most closely aligned policy mechanism. According to Fairclough (2003), “it (CDA) is an explanatory critique in that it does not simply describe existing realities but seeks to explain them, for instance by showing them to be effects of structures, or mechanisms or forces that the analyst postulates and whose reality s/he seeks to test out” (p. 9). The Fairclough framework allows the study to establish and consider how ideas have framed the differing agendas at play in the

137 submissions to the two public reviews and how they are linked to wider interests and material motivations.

Fairclough’s framework establishes that discourse comprises three key elements which explore the intertextuality of discourse events. The first element within Fairclough’s conception of CDA is the linguistic analysis of discursive events as “text”. Text, according to Fairclough, is the semiotic dimension of social events, for which Fairclough provides the example that “the written documents and websites of governments are texts in this sense, which are also the interviews and meetings in government or business organisations” (Fairclough, 2003, p. 25). Fairclough

(1992) argues that “If the surface of a text may be multiply determined by the various other texts that go into its composition, and their meaning may be ambivalent – different meanings may coexist, and it may not be possible to determine ‘the’ meaning” (p. 277). For Fairclough (2003), the textual analysis of the submissions should assess the makeup of the text, which includes how the text is structured and its composition. Based on this, the study progressed as a commentary on text, and included the use of vocabulary, modality and various forms of ambiguity present.

The second element within Fairclough’s framework is the practice of discourse. As ideology is often produced through discourse (Fairclough, 2001), it was important to not only analyse the textual product of the submissions, but to understand how the discourse described in the study was produced and received. By analysing the wider practice of discourse, the study highlighted the meaning of context, and in particular identified the power imbalances at play within seemingly fair discourse between individuals and groups. Importantly, the framework acknowledges that the production of texts is transformed by the process of distribution.

According to Young (2008), discursive practice involves paying attention to the “production of meanings by participants as they employ in local actions the verbal, nonverbal, and interactional

138 resources that they command” (p. 2). Fairclough explains this as a set of spoken and unspoken rules, norms and models of socially acceptable behaviours that govern the production and dissemination of a text. Based on the practice of discourse, the study ensured that close attention was paid to how the text was transferred in the process and the public delivery of the submissions.

The final element comprising the multidimensional framework to analyse the public submissions was the ideological dimensions of any particular communicative event. Fairclough argues that the act of discourse is framed and shaped around societal interactions, whereby discourse is

“socially constitutive as well as socially shaped: it constitutes situations, objects of knowledge, and the social identities of and relationships between people and groups of people. It is constitutive both in the sense that it contributes to transforming it” (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997, p.

258). According to Fairclough, each text is situated in its societal and political context, which in turn affects how the text is consumed.

The meaning of a text is derived by both the originator of the text and how the audience interprets the text. Fairclough and Wodak (1997) explain that discourse does ideological work, arguing that “to understand how ideologies are produced, it is not enough to analyse texts; the discursive practice (how the texts are interpreted and received and what social effects they have) must also be considered” (p. 50). According to this framework, discourse does not exist in a vacuum; it is informed by social and ideological constructions. Using this framework, CDA challenges the pragmatic view embedded within the seemingly pragmatic outcomes of the competition reform, citing how ideology has been used to legitimise existing social relations and expand power differentials between those living in rural Australia and those in metropolitan locations.

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5.3.3 Thematic Method of Interpretation

To organise the data into interpretable results, the qualitative multi-method research design utilised a thematic approach for identifying patterns and signifiers of meaning in the data set.

The thematic method has been used in this study because of the need to take a systematic approach to analysing the discourse of more than five hundred public submissions in relation to the socio-economic impact of competition reform, ensuring that the analysis is transparent, and can be communicated and reproduced (Sandelowski, 1995). The utility of the thematic method is in assisting the researcher to organise, report and describe the recurrence of patterns in any form of discursive text. Boyatzis (1998) describes the thematic method as a translator that if used effectively can translate meaning across qualitative and quantitative analysis methods, arguing that a descriptive use of the thematic analysis “is desirable if the particular methodology chosen for the study requires enhancing the clarity or results or findings and the ease of communication” (p. 7). This study utilises the thematic method to assist in interpreting how particular themes identified within the data set can explain ideological framings of the public interest.

In this research design, a “theme” is defined as a series of codes or subcodes which have a common point of reference and a high degree of generality and repeatability. According to Gavin

(2008), a theme is considered to be a thread of underlying meaning, simplicity discovered at the interpretive level by the researcher and assigned elements of subjective understandings from the participants (p. 101). In practice, this means that the establishment of a theme is an attempt by the researcher to identify a participant’s perspective at a deep level of abstract conceptualisation, and is then an attempt to identify or codify an implicit meaning which can be interpreted by the reader (Braun & Clarke, 2012). In most instances, the development of a theme is a cyclical process in which the researcher will repeatedly return the data to code and

140 then recode to create a sense of immersion from which new forms of meaning emerge (Agar,

1983). Reflecting on Fairclough’s approach to CDA, the thematic method allows for codification first as text, then through discourse in practice, and finally through ideology. As a result, the cyclical coding and recoding of a theme moves from a more abstract level to something more tangible.

The thematic method is applied to this study to interpret how disparate actors described the outcomes and consequences of competitive tendering in rural communities. By coding and recoding the responses, the study identifies what the actor perceives to be in the public interest through the construction of themes to establish and interpret different meanings. Through a construction phase of codification, the themes are compared according to their similarities and differences, and structured to form clusters of new codes focused on the research questions.

The themes were then matched with the signifiers found in contemporary neoliberalism and social liberalism frameworks, and included consideration of how each ideology shaped the initial theme. For example, “fairness” was a major theme found in the two submissions, but was articulated differently depending on the ideological lens that was applied when the response was coded. For some, fairness meant there was opportunity to compete on an even playing field, while for others fairness related to the need to restrain market behaviour so that smaller operators were able to be successful. In this example, the neoliberal interpretation of fairness was aligned to free-market competition, while the social-liberal interpretation of fairness sought protection against the excesses of market concentration. The use of the thematic method to interpret the underlying meaning of common phrases used in the submissions allowed the study to examine how ideas shape public debate.

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5.4 Data Selection and Collection Process

To achieve the research aims, the study analysed the public debate over the concept of public interest within the NCP to identify the key competing discourses, examined which interest groups were associated with each discourse, and assessed which discourse predominated, providing an explanation of how this took place. The primary data set used to underpin the analysis was sourced from the two public inquiries into the NCP and its subsequent policy reforms – the Senate Select Committee Report on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the

National Competition Policy (Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 2000); and the

Productivity Commission's Public Inquiry into the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia (1999).

Both inquiries and subsequent reports were managed similarly, with each inviting submissions from the public to elucidate public perceptions and sentiment, and to assist in shaping the recommendations presented in each report. The public submissions took the form of written documents and formal hearings (Appendix 1a, 1b and Appendix 2a and 2b) which sought to obtain the views of a broad cross-section of the community in relation to the impacts of competition reform.

The Senate Select Committee Report on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the National

Competition Policy was established on 1 July 1998. The Committee produced an interim report just prior to the 1998 federal election, placing the finalised report on hold while the election was carried out. The following year, the Senate agreed to re-establish the Committee, and progress the process initiated the year prior, which culminated in the receipt of 203 submissions and the convening of more than ten public hearings. The Productivity Commission’s Public Inquiry into the Impact of Competition Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia was established in response

142 to the recommendations made by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial

Institutions and Public Administration in 1998. The Commission received 303 written submissions, and more than 100 participants to public hearings, providing opportunity for comment on an initial draft of the report. The government released a public response to both of these reports in August 2000, which included more than 42 recommendations made across both reviews.

Aligning to the qualitative multi-method research design, and in addressing the initial research questions, data collection and analysis commenced with a preliminary review of the research literature focused on policies implemented during the previous forty years, which were seen to be contentious in the view of rural and regional Australians. The NCP was chosen because of the early view that increasing competition was in the public interest. The research literature illustrates that the benefits of increasing market competition were integral in supporting theories of normative neoliberal ideas. Through further preliminary research of media reports of the time, the NCP was found to be relatively detrimental to those who were living in rural areas of

Australia. In many instances, the voices of rural Australia appeared to use the NCP to blame the government for their declining circumstances, with a general premise that the government had forgotten the plight of these communities. With this positioned as a general area of inquiry, the study sought to investigate the implementation of the NCP with explicit reference to rural

Australia.

In this initial review of the NCP and its impact on rural Australia, three key policy initiatives were selected for further investigation – the deregulation of SMAs, the deregulation of retail hours, and the implementation of competitive tendering of local council services. Through a second review of these policies, it was found that implementation of these reforms, as a component of the NCP, had to adhere to a general public interest test which sought to safeguard communities

143 against outcomes which were either socially or environmentally detrimental. The second review included the two inquiries into the socio-economic impacts of the NCP, with specific intent to understand how the public interest was viewed through the submissions provided in response to the inquiries. Importantly, the first full readings of the two inquiries found little publicly available research that sought to compare the competing views found in the submissions, including any attempt to understand how notions of the public interest were conceived.

All submissions to both reviews were included in the first round of data collection to provide the basis of the study, with the decision to do so made on several key initial hypotheses and research principles. Firstly, the data set was directly linked to the introduction of the NCP and initially demonstrated that the notion of public interest depicted within the reforms could neither substantiate arguments of political pragmatism nor substantiate complete neoliberal hegemony.

Second, the data selected aligns with the intersection between market reform, the rural Australia context, and discussions on the public interest. Third, the data has a comparative structure from which many discourses present informed public debate over the outcomes of the reforms, and could be linked to wider political or interest-based representation. Finally, the data set is publicly available and can be used to replicate or refute the findings of this study. On this basis, four intersecting data sets were collected based on the three major issues within the inquiries.

During the second round of analysis, data related to the deregulation of SMAs, and the deregulation of retail hours, was removed from the study’s scope of inquiry. While each provided a robust narrative of how the public interest was framed within differing policy-driven industry changes, the scope was considered too large for the purpose of meeting the research aims of this study. While each policy initiative would meet the requirements of the wider research objectives, it was considered appropriate that the results produced by applying a discourse analysis to the competitive tendering of local council services would still have wider applicability

144 and contribute to meeting the research objectives. Concentrating on the public debate over the introduction of competitive tendering as the primary input for this investigation provided an opportunity to focus on a policy initiative that had attracted less research attention compared with that of the removal of SMAs (O’Keeffe, 2016; Edwards, 2003), and the extension of retail operating hours (Baker & Marshall, 1998; Margetts, 2011), and in doing so, allowed this study to make a unique contribution to this particular area of research.

The public submissions to the two inquiries were accessed publicly through government websites and stored locally for ongoing access and analysis. Where direct quotes were used, the text was referenced with its corresponding submission number and location in the appendices. Complying with ethical and privacy requirements, only the publicly available names were referenced in reporting the results. To ensure that the study could link individuals and groups to wider institutional or material influences, submissions were not considered private and therefore no aliases or pseudonyms were used. Submissions that were written in confidence were omitted from the study to maintain compliance with the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988

(Cth).

5.5 Approach to Data analysis

This study used the established research design to construct a series of themes in the public submissions to both inquiries. Based on the multidimensional conceptualisation of discourse by

Fairclough (2013) and the thematic method established by Vaismoradi, Jones, Turunen and

Snelgrove (2016), the study employed a cyclical, stage-like model to identify recurrent issues and ideas in the data set. As each recurrent idea was identified, a codification process was instigated to transform the raw data into high-level abstractions to derive more meaningful interpretations from the “everyday” language of the participants. Through this process of coding, and recoding, the text, the themes reveal a collection of explicit and implicit meanings which

145 articulate how participants viewed the implementation of competition, and the outcomes the associated policies produced. Captured within these meanings are different interpretations of the public interest, particularly as it related to the application of competitive tendering. Viewed through an ideological lens, the themes are interpreted by comparative values present in competing ideas, which can be argued as influential in how actors create shared meaning. In this sense, the alignment of themes to unifying ideas assists with the development of a central argument that the debate over competitive tendering was, at its centre, an ideological debate of the effectiveness of the market over the state. The approach taken in analysing the data comprised a four-stage process based on the aforementioned model.

5.5.1 Initialisation of the data

Initialisation of the data was the first step in the process, and sought to transform the raw data from the written submissions and transcripts of the hearings, into themes whereby recurring abstractions, constructs or what Vaismoradi et al. (2013) label as “units of meanings” (p. 103) can be more readily identified. To achieve this, the study completed multi-stage reviews of all submissions and available transcripts with intent to highlight direct quotes from the data that convey similar viewpoints, regardless of submission type or representation from the actor. Each unit of meaning was allocated a “conceptual code” if it was identified in the data more than three times, and was then extracted to provide a more precise definition. For example, in initial coding, several submissions referenced the “lack of accountability” of private firms residing outside local council areas to provide the same quality of service as the local council themselves. The extracted code of “accountability” was then analysed alongside further codifications, including the characteristics and perspective of the actor, and the conditions associated with competitive tendering. As a result, each code was manually created, and included an intricate network of subcodes, elaborating on the actor’s background, intentions and motivations. This data initialisation phase allowed the study to apply recurring units of meanings, including the

146 identification of individual actors, and consideration of their perspectives, in a large and complex data set.

5.5.2 Construction of themes

After establishing recurring codes from the data, the study constructed and classified the codes to identify similarities and differences in the public perception of competitive tendering and how it was viewed to be in the public interest. This process included the organisation and reorganisation of similar codes under a consistent theme through which Vaismoradi et al. (2013) describe as a “recurrent unifying idea that characterises the experiences of participants by a holistic insight from the whole of data” (p. 105). Labelling codes derived directly from the data set, including the adoption of similar phrasing, ensured each code captured complete ideas, and did not require considerable explanation. In ensuring adequate description of each labelled code, a series of signifiers was created to reflect the normative values of social-liberal and neoliberal ideologies, which was then captured as a draft theme. For example, the theme of

“what’s best for the community” was established following four recodes of the data, with the phrase “community” producing different interpretations between neoliberal and social-liberal signifiers. At the completion of the construction and classification phase three major themes emerged which were framed by ideas to distinguish groupings of actors, and their views of the introduction of competitive tendering, in particular, whether it was viewed to be in the public interest or not.

5.5.3 Verification of themes and wider applicability

After constructing a range of themes from the data, the study progressed to verify the themes, test their validity, and contemplate potential wider application to further research. To ensure that the identified themes held valid connections to established ideologies, further research was undertaken to pinpoint examples of the ideological values in practice. For instance, in the

147 example of the theme “value for money”, the neoliberal framing and social-liberal framing of competition were positioned within available research literature to argue that, for some, market- based solutions would drive prices lower, while for others, state-based restrictions on competition were needed because of the effect of private monopolies in increasing costs.

Revisiting literature that provided examples of common ideological framing ensured that the themes identified were relevant to an established knowledge base, and were positioned to assist further research with grounded interpretations. In confirming that the established themes were relevant to the wider debate over the introduction of competition reforms in rural areas, it was also confirmed that these themes could be replicated in considering the deregulation of SMAs and the expansion of retail hours. The verification of the ideological frames and established themes ensured that the study could consider differing conceptions of the public interest from a grounded and established understanding of ideological constructs.

5.5.4 Narrative development

The development of an overarching narrative, presented as a written commentary connecting various themes in the public debate over what was considered to be in the public interest, was critical in completing the analysis of public responses into the inquiries on the socio-economic impact of competitive tendering. According to Vaismoradi et al. (2013), “creating a ‘storyline’ provides an opportunity to review the whole process of data analysis, promotes further ideas and collects even more data to improve saturation of theme” (p. 107). Reflecting on the work of

Fairclough, the creation of this narrative allowed the study to progress the discourse found within the submissions past that of just text, to consider how both discursive and social practices influenced its interpretation. As a result, the study advanced from a series of established themes aligned with competing ideological views of what was in the public interest, to tell a linear story about how the implementation of competition reform was seen to be in the public interest despite contributing to the steady socio-economic decline of rural communities. By establishing a

148 consistent narrative of the themes identified within the public submissions, the study presents its findings to provide a holistic view of the lived experiences of those in rural Australia.

The approach to analysing the data obtained from the two reviews into the impacts of competition policy was premised on the application of Fairclough’s multidimensional framework for understanding discourse, and the established thematic method constructed by Vaismoradi et al. (2013). By reviewing the submissions through a phased approach, themes were identified that demonstrated both implicit and explicit units of meaning. The requirement to understand how groups of actors perceived their own public interest, particularly when not explicitly stated, necessitated the flexibility of CDA to expose hidden political meaning in everyday language. This analysis allowed for contested themes, representing core components of the public interest, to be identified, establishing an in-depth understanding of the political views of those that supported the introduction of competitive tendering, and those that believed it was detrimental to their local community. Through a comprehensive use of CDA and a thematic method of interpretation, the study finds, and articulates, the existence of competing versions of the public interest and considers how ideology was used to frame sub-themes of the public interest such as fairness, community support, and value for money.

5.6 Justification of the research design

The use of CDA as the primary research design is appropriate for this study after extensive due consideration of known criticisms of the methodology. Authors such as Breeze (2011) and

Hammersley (1997) consider CDA as lacking intellectual precision because of the inherent political biases of the research, with Breeze arguing that “CDA’s claim to ‘interpretive power’ and

‘emancipatory force’ can be regarded as mere assertions that one can accept if one chooses to share their point of view, or not, as the case may be” (p. 500). The criticism of the underlying premise of the “critical” nature of CDA, and the interference and influence of the researcher’s

149 political bias, has been controlled through a detailed understanding of the researcher’s background and political beliefs in chapter one of the study. While the political bias of the researcher can create epistemological problems in both the interpretation and codification of the data, Van Dijk (2001) argues that it is acceptable that value judgements inform the context of discovery but they need to be established transparently to show how the discourse may have been modified, and can be defended through the researcher’s exposition of how biases might impact data analysis. The researcher’s potential political bias has been identified in the study

(see Chapter 1), and details provided about how this might influence the interpretation of the data.

CDA is further criticised over a general lack of rigour when interpreting textual and intertextual properties. Widdowson (1998) stated that CDA lacks a systematic approach typically consistent with that of a comprehensive model, and that solely relying on textual analysis results in invalid interpretations with no ability to be replicated. Widdowson argues that “analysis is not the systematic application of a theoretical model, but a rather less rigorous operation, in effect a kind of ad hoc bricolage which takes from theory whatever concept comes usefully to hand” (p. 137).

To manage this general criticism regarding the lack of an overall systematic approach to analysis, the study implemented the thematic method based on the work of Vaismoradi et al.

(2013) to ensure methodological consistency and a basis for replicability through the management of a comprehensive four-step process. Importantly, the thematic interpretative method employed in the study is primarily focused on the comparison of text found, and the existence of co-occurring features which critics have argued would not be evident through the use of CDA as a standalone tool (Stubbs, 1997). By employing a thematic method for the analysis of the discourse found within the data, the study has established a systematic approach to interpreting the data, and disseminating the results.

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By reflecting on criticisms of CDA, the study was positioned to establish and manage research controls to support and justify the research design. To ensure the political biases of the researcher were disclosed and managed effectively in the analysis, the introductory chapter of the study situated the researcher (Rose, 1997) and provided an overview of the researcher’s background including political views. Furthermore, the study established a systematic thematic method to interpret the competing discourses found within the public submission to ensure general applicability and future replicability. While acknowledging the criticisms of CDA as a qualitative research method, the controls implemented by the researcher ensure the validity of the results, including in-depth academic rigour, to appropriately answer the research questions.

5.7 Conclusion

This chapter introduced the research scope of the study, including the design of the research methodology, and addressed two key questions regarding the implementation of competition reform in rural Australia. The first question sought to identify whether these reforms were a pragmatic and procedural tool as argued or whether they were underpinned by ideological discourse. The question challenges the precept that the introduction of wider competition, following twenty years of market reforms, was the only option available to policymakers, with competing views regarding the benefits of market reforms in rural Australia. By establishing whether the implementation of competition reform was pragmatic or ideational, the study then questioned how these reforms were seen to be in the public interest when they did such damage to rural Australia. In considering these questions, the study identified competing conceptions of the public interest, and identified the groups holding the power to legitimise a version of the public interest in favour of market forces. The answers to these questions advance the theoretical understanding of the power of ideas, progressing the ideational view of change and its effects in public debate. By exploring the intersection of the ideational and the material

151 throughout the debate over competitive tendering, the study shows the relative importance of ideas, material events and vested interests in how the public interest was legitimised.

To answer these core questions, this chapter described the use of a qualitative multi-method design to provide a running narrative to better understand a range of lived experiences within the rural debate over competitive tendering. Specifically, the chapter detailed the application of critical discourse analysis of the public submissions to the two inquiries into the socio-economic impact of competition reforms. Through a process of codification and recodification, a series of themes were identified which highlighted differing views of the public interest. Based on

Fairclough’s multidimensional approach of discourse analysis and Vaismoradi et al.’s process of thematic interpretation, the research design produces a narrative-like account of the ideological debate over what was in the public interest, and how traditional policies supporting rural

Australia were no longer viewed as important.

The selection of this research design was deemed appropriate because of the capacity inherent in critical discourse analysis to expose implicit and explicit meanings that are shaped by both ideological and political power. While the application of critical discourse analysis is relatively new to the study of Australian rural politics, the use of CDA provided valuable insights into the role ideology played in the rural debate, and how ideas can galvanise disparate actors into a shared narrative. The chapter concludes by reviewing the known criticisms of the research design, and detailing the research controls implemented to ensure the transparency of biases and replicability of the thematic method.

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Chapter 6 Finding One: The Public Interest in Competition reform was shaped by ideology

Chapter Summary

In contributing to the study, this chapter:

● Presents the first finding of the study, which shows that the public interest was neither

pragmatic nor a procedural tool, but a notion shaped by neoliberal discourse.

● Refutes a common understanding that the public interest achieved neoliberal hegemony

by demonstrating dissent from those in rural Australia.

● Identifies the existence of several different perceptions of the public interest by exploring

a range of sub-themes related to the public interest.

● Identifies a series of winners and losers from the implementation of competition reform

and considers the unequal outcomes for those living in rural Australia, while detailing

dissent towards the marketisation of their communities.

● Concludes that the rural debate over the public interest was an ideological contest

between those who used a social-liberal discursive frame to criticise competitive

tendering, and those that used a neoliberal discursive frame to champion the economic

benefits of competition reform.

6.1 Introduction

The debate over the introduction of competitive tendering for local council services identified competing understandings of the public interest for those in rural areas. The language used by those involved in the development and implementation of competition policy was that the public interest was a pragmatic and procedural tool used to assess the benefits of not progressing with competitive reforms. Current ideas-centred literature argues that the public interest represented

153 the accession of neoliberal hegemony, which legitimised economic benefits over social concerns that the material outcomes were distributed unevenly. Rural Australians challenged how the introduction of competitive tendering could be seen to be in the public interest when it was detrimental to the vibrancy of their local communities. As evidenced in the two reports produced following inquiries into the socio-economic impact of the National Competition Policy, the view that the public interest was a pragmatic, procedural tool or mechanism for economic rationalism was challenged by competing groups using ideology to frame the outcomes of competitive tendering. Through analysing competing discourses present in the two reviews, this chapter presents the first finding of the study, which challenges the view of pragmatism to show that the public interest described within competition policy was underpinned by a neoliberal discourse. In doing so, the study refutes the ideas-centred argument that competition policy was a form of neoliberal hegemony, and showcases a battle of ideas by competing groups of their conceptions of what is in the public interest.

This chapter presents the first finding of this study, and describes the differing conceptions of the public interest documented in the two inquiries into the socio-economic impacts of the NCP.

Utilising discourse analysis, the public submissions to the inquiries were categorised into two competing groups, with a series of sub-themes of the public interest identified that presented disparate views of the benefits and drawbacks of competitive tendering. In the first instance, the study found competing views on whether or not competitive tendering represented value for money, with a dominant neoliberal discourse arguing that competition incentivises the production of local services for less money, while a rural social-liberal discourse argued that the administration of tendering, coupled with the view that economic rationalism leads to a decline in quality, represented an increase in prices for local communities. In the second instance, the neoliberal discourse was found to frame the positive aspects of allocative efficiency, which argue that the community is best served when the local production of services aligns with consumer

154 preferences. Conversely, this was contested by rural groups using the tenets of social liberalism to argue that the marketisation of community services would introduce a form of economic rationalism and that to sustain a high level of community service obligations there need to be strong forms of cross-subsidisation to achieve local social aims. Finally, the study identified contestation over the fairness of market competition, with the neoliberal discourse framing fairness as ensuring that private firms had opportunity to compete fairly and equitably. This premise was counteracted by rural groups using a discursive social-liberal frame to argue that increasing competition results in inequitable outcomes for those in areas of low market concentration. The analysis illustrates that ideas were used to frame competing notions of the public interest and the material outcomes produced.

The chapter concludes by discussing the significance of the first finding of the study, including refuting the work of theorists claiming that the notion of the public interest underpinning wider market reforms was the result of pragmatic, adaptive policymaking. This finding also progresses the work of ideas-centred scholars who have previously claimed that the public interest identified in the NCP had achieved a level of hegemony to legitimise economic growth over social and community concerns by highlighting rural voices of dissent. This finding establishes ideological contestation over what is in the public interest, and rejects the principal concept that the implementation of competition reform was the pragmatic option available to governments of the time.

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6.2 Conceptions of the Public Interest

Submissions to the Productivity Commission and Senate Select inquiries into the NCP reveal several arguments in support of competitive tendering and the overall benefits of competition reform to the nation. The proponents, including pro-business advocacy groups, federal institutions such as the NCC and the Australian Business Council, and larger councils from metropolitan areas, argue for greater market control of the production of local services using a rhetoric of choice and allocative efficiency to improve local council services. The dominant discourse used throughout the submissions was underpinned by the rationale that economic growth is the main consideration for the public interest because it empowers the consumer. They challenge the status quo of state owned and operated local services, arguing that they distort the market, which leads to a waste of money and propagates a lack of accountability which ultimately adversely affects the consumer. In different ways, and to different degrees, this diverse group of stakeholders drew on the narrative depicting the benefit of choice, framing citizens not as members of a community, but as individual consumers. They believed that the market, not local government, was best placed to support the prosperity of consumers who could generate further wealth by maximising activities. Inherent within this discourse is the notion that without strong market indicators, individuals are beholden to large, inefficient bureaucracies that don’t have the economic benefit of consumers as their main motivating factor. For the proponents of competitive tendering, ensuring market competition is central to the state’s application of competitive neutrality, is in the best interest of consumers.

The submissions into the NCP inquiries also revealed opposition to competitive tendering, focusing concern on the wider impacts on rural communities. Importantly, the opponents of NCP are not homogenous but are distributed across different groups predominantly from rural

Australia, including local councils, National Party members in opposition, local community

156 groups, and rural contractors. These groups are typically resistant to market reform, and support the ongoing state regulation of local services to protect workers who live in the local area. They argue that the introduction of contract tendering for local council services is fundamentally detrimental to the social fabric of rural towns. The discourse challenges the perceived benefits of local councils introducing competitive tendering as it moves councils away from their community obligations and shifts the production of services to the private sector. In this sense, they sought to protect the wider production of local services to ensure viable communities, and the inherent social structures that they support. They argued that the state was an important regulator that could protect a particular way of life, and standard of living. Specifically, the discourse argued that the marketisation of local services would drive cost cutting in production chains, resulting in fewer employment opportunities in rural areas, increased administration and administrative costs, and rationing of key community service obligations. This would lead to an overall decline in population and the collapse of unique rural communities. They further argued that allowing private firms to provide local council services would exacerbate the socio-economic decline of rural Australia compared to the ongoing material growth of metropolitan and regional areas.

Competing views over what was deemed to be in the public interest were at the heart of the debate over competitive tendering. Through the use of CDA, the study confirms differing interpretations of the public interest identified by sub-themes recurring in the public submissions to the inquiries. The sub-themes were challenged by competing groups through the use of discursive frames shaped by competing ideas of the benefits of the state and the market in the delivery of local council services. In one grouping, neoliberalism was identified as a consistent discursive frame, articulating the social and economic benefits of introducing increased competition into areas usually reserved for the state. Through analysis afforded by the establishment of sub-themes of the public interest, including “value for money”, “community development” and “market fairness”, the proponents of competitive tendering seemingly weaved

157 the principles of economic liberalism, individual choice and the prominence of private ownership of production together in advocating for the improved productivity of local councils. The second grouping utilised a social-liberal discursive frame to articulate how competition reform resulted in an unbalanced distribution of material outcomes, shifting economic benefit away from those in rural areas, and improving the socio-economic livelihoods of those in metropolitan areas.

Through identifying competing discourses in the public submissions to the inquiries, the study exposes an ideological battle over the public benefits of competition reform.

The identification of an ideological contest refutes explanations that the public interest referred to during the implementation of competition reforms was a pragmatic or procedural tool to evaluate the socio-economic impacts. The identification of an ideological contest further demonstrates that there was a variety of options available to policy makers, and that the one- size-fits-all approach to competition policy could not be pragmatic, but rather was framed by the predetermined outcomes of a neoliberal approach. The findings also indicate that ideas-centred explanations for the implementation of further-reaching market reforms are more complex than conceptions of total neoliberal hegemony and the private legitimisation of the public interest argued by the likes of McDonald (2007). The debate over competitive tendering very clearly indicates that the ideas underpinned by neoliberalism never achieved a form of hegemony, citing significant rural backlash, and particular framings of the public interest that highlight the detrimental nature of marketisation in areas unable to sustain competition. These competing views presented three distinct sub-themes which demonstrate that current explanations of how competition reform was legitimised do not properly explore how ideas were activated to support disparate interests in ensuring that their conception of the public interest was championed by the federal government and reflected in policy development processes.

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6.2.1 What does Value for Money mean?

The first sub-theme, depicting an ideological contest which disputes assumptions of pragmatism and neoliberal hegemony, considers whether competitive tendering would provide value for money. The study found that the neoliberal framing of market incentives through the introduction of more private competitors would provide greater value for money for rural ratepayers and local businesses. This framing helped advocates including the NCC, State Government and pro- business groups to form a shared agenda, explaining that by lowering the cost of producing local council services, local businesses would benefit from lower input costs, which would serve to stimulate the economy. This was challenged by rural critics through a social-liberal discourse which argued that competitive tendering would lead to higher costs, and a reduction in service quality because of the limited market in areas with smaller populations. The critics, which included rural advocacy groups, rural councils, and some state-based National Party members of parliament highlighted the burden of administrative costs and the effects that private monopolies have on local service provision without appropriate state regulation. In establishing this sub-theme from the data, the study illustrates that lowering prices for the provision of local council services through marketisation would directly benefit state and federal governments by reducing government expenditure, and support private vendors by expanding their businesses.

The public submissions to both inquiries investigating the impact of competition reform produced different conceptions of how competitive tendering would impact on the cost reduction and improvement of local council services. The advocates of competitive tendering, which included free-market think tanks, the NCC, and state governments, argued that the opportunity to choose a service provider provides an ongoing incentive for tenderers to lower their prices. A senior manager at Toowoomba City Council, Mike Seccombe, is quoted as saying “competitive neutrality has brought positive results to the consumers and I’ve seen that from a personal

159 perspective” (Sub no. 42 Appendix 2a). The advocates argue that the protection of local council services creates an artificial market which does not reveal the true cost of a service, and inflates prices. For example, Resource Consulting Services, in their submission to the Productivity

Commission's inquiry (Sub no. 101 Appendix 2a) highlighted that “the policy has increased efficiencies and I think cost reductions naturally because of the competitive element”. Further to this, the City of Grafton (Sub no. 104 Appendix 2a) noted that “competition more than any other single factor was crucial for the achievement of best value of money. Without competition, organisations, be they private or public sector entities, may not operate to full capacity”. The

Commonwealth Department of Transport and Regional Services (Sub no. 191 Appendix 2a) also argued that “local government users have benefited from lower costs of building and maintaining infrastructure and from the lower costs of local government services”. The advocates of competitive tendering championed greater private options for the delivery of local council services, detailing that in an open competitive environment firms would drive prices down while delivering value on services, and lowering the costs of operation.

The submissions also demonstrated how the advocates of competitive tendering championed the benefits of the marketisation of local council services to local business. Advocates articulated that by lowering the cost of producing local council services, local businesses would benefit from lower input costs, which would further stimulate the economy. The benefits of lower service costs would be directly passed on to local businesses through reduced council rates, and cheaper access to essential services such as water. In his submission to the Senate Select

Committee, Jeff Kennett argued that competitive tendering had “resulted in lower bills for 85 percent of properties, and fairer pricing through smaller cross-subsidies between commercial and non-commercial customers” (Sub no. 123, Appendix 1a). The NCC also argued that:

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Competitive tendering improves the quality of council governance by helping to identify

the true cost including community service obligations. The Council of Capital City Lord

Mayors has argued that this provides for a superior information base that can be

expected to lead to more focussed debates about community priorities and the best use

of council resources. It also encourages a shift away from artificial low prices for goods

such as water, which in the past has encouraged wasteful overconsumption,

environmental degradation, and investments that do not recover their costs (Sub No. 145

Appendix 1a).

This was reiterated by a local business owner in Bendigo who argued that “We have definitely seen efficiencies by outsourcing or external tendering of a number of our services, particularly in the areas of infrastructure, public open space and even in some of the community service areas” and that “as a result, a lot of my costs payable to council have dropped significantly, freeing me up to employ more staff and expand the business” (Sub no. DR234 Appendix 2). Importantly, the advocates of competitive tendering believed that state-based production of local services inflated the price of these services, which would ultimately be passed on to businesses through higher input costs. For these groups and individuals, the rising cost of services under local ownership harmed the potential for local businesses to prosper, further hurting community viability.

Through the use of CDA and a thematic method of interpretation, the study identified neoliberal signifiers from the proponents of competitive tendering. Neoliberal ideas were found to frame the benefits of the increasing marketisation of local services, arguing that competitive tendering reduces costs, and benefits the community through cheaper rates, and businesses through lower input prices. Through the submissions, a neoliberal conception of the public interest is evident, and appears to be driven by a range of stakeholders who considered the market to

161 have a greater ability to reduce the operating costs of local councils. Inherent in this conception of the public interest is the neoliberal view that “market prices accurately reflect the real (or social) costs of the products produced” (Hart-Landsberg, 2006, p. 2). Neoliberal discourse frames competition as a positive force which drives firms to “innovate and invest in order to increase the productivity of labour and develop new products” (Clarke, 2005, p. 55). Competition also forces providers to consistently lower operating costs, intensify output and constantly look for new product offerings to appeal to consumers. The evidence of a neoliberal framing of “value for money” detected within the public submissions confirms the existence of ideology, and refutes the view that the public interest was purely pragmatic.

The neoliberal signifiers found within the theme of “value for money” considered the traditional state-based operation of local council services as problematic, and argued that public monopolies with no forms of competition are incapable of lowering prices. The neoliberal ideology characterised this as a state-based monopoly, with the market having an important role in eliminating monopolies, including those created for and by the state (Van Horn, 2009).

Neoliberal ideas shaped the perception that state-based monopolies have the potential to deviate from a competition price which results in cost inflation through no real understanding of true market value (Von Mises, 1998). The discourse used by interest groups such as state governments including Victoria and New South Wales, pro-business think tanks and the NCC argued that only when there are more firms involved can incentives be created to drive down overhead costs and improve services to consumers. This group also re-framed state ownership as a form of monopoly, which when applied to neoliberal criticisms, argues that one vendor controlling prices is abnormal in the functioning marketplace. Throughout the debate, the state government, supported by pro-business groups, was in favour of reducing local government costs through competitive tendering, and considered the public interest through the lens of a neoliberal ideology. In doing so, this group championed the role of a competitive market in

162 breaking apart monopoly prices, deemed detrimental to local consumers who face rising costs, and businesses that rely on lower inputs to be viable.

In contrast to the neoliberal framing of “value for money”, the opponents of competitive tendering argued that its wider adoption would not result in lower prices, but that the introduction of private competition would lead to higher costs and lower service quality. Opponents, including the Local

Government Association, rural advocacy groups, rural councils, and state- based representation for the National Party, emphasise a counter view of the market, where local government is better positioned to provide a superior service, and can do so with a greater focus on value for money.

Many submissions made to the inquiries highlighted the additional administrative costs incurred as a result of competitive tendering, arguing that smaller councils did not have the appropriate skills or the financial resources required to run a tender appropriately. For these groups, it was in the public interest that the state remain the only provider of local council services, removing the administrative burden of competitive tendering.

The rural advocates argued that competitive tendering had been introduced without due consideration of the wider costs associated with effectively implementing it as a local council business activity. As small council worker J Saleeba argued in his submission to the Productivity

Commission, “The smaller local provider based in a small rural setting has difficulty in participating in the process” (Sub no. DR228 Appendix 2a). This is supported by the Local

Government Association, which stated in its submission to the Senate Select Committee that

“councils are generally not as resourced as metropolitan Councils and find it more difficult to adequately respond to NCP matters within timeframes required” (Sub no. 1 Appendix 1b). The

Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of Councils highlighted that “competitive tendering has resulted in reshuffling of costings internally which has resulted in improved services” (Sub no.

113 Appendix 1a), and council manager R Linger challenged the costs of competitive tendering

163 on small councils, arguing that “even little things like advertising of tenders, then the multiple costings of the same works. Then you have the administrations of the job and the nightmare of quality assurance and litigation etc.” (Sub no.100 Appendix 1a). Linda Margie from MacArthur

Home and Community Development stressed “That it is the most incredible waste of money and time we have ever seen” (Sub no. 106 Appendix 1b) with Neil Weller, a manager at Hervey Bay

Council lamenting that “under the NCP Hervey Bay City Council has been forced to create new corporations” and “Where are the savings? These corporations admit that our charges will increase by 20 percent. God help rural Australia – the politicians won’t” (Sub no. 15 Appendix

1a). These examples highlight the financial strain local rural councils were placed under as a direct result of the additional administration required in managing competitive tendering, which contradicts the prevailing notion that competitive tendering would reduce costs or represent value for money.

The opponents also challenged the notion that competitive tendering would present value for money by highlighting a lack of overall accountability when the service was being delivered by private firms outside the area. The underlying view was that private contractors from outside the town would not return to the area to repair, or in some instances finish, the required work when done poorly. As a result, work that would otherwise have been completed by local councils could remain incomplete or require remediation, creating an ongoing cost for local citizens and council administrators. Murrindindi Shire Council expressed concern that a lack of accountability led to increasing costs for local citizens, indicating that “after five months, the contractor would not or could not respond to request septic permits, after six months the contract was abandoned” (Sub

No. 5 Appendix 2a). Terry Packard from the Western Australian Broiler Growers Association argued that the “lack of accountability is often compounded by a reduction in the level and quality of service” and that tenderers from outside the area had resulted in “a radical drop in the standard of service” (Sub no. 44 Appendix 1a). This is reinforced by Anglicare Australia, who

164 stated in their submission that the “tendering out of services has meant that services are not always provided according to the needs of the client” (Sub no. 219 Appendix 1a). Opponents to competitive tendering argued that accountability for the delivery of local council services should rest with local government, and emphasised that when quality diminished, local citizens should be able to hold those responsible accountable. As competitive tendering introduced more private contractors from outside the area, they believed that they were losing control over the delivery of their local services resulting in additional costs, and considered that it was in the public interest to protect accountability, which was compromised when services were delivered by individuals or businesses from outside of the area.

Opponents to competitive tendering argued that only state-owned service provision would provide the quality needed, based on the belief that private service providers were only concerned with profit maximisation through each stage of the production chain. It was further assumed that private contractors would provide minimum levels of service to increase profit margins while still being able to meet contractual requirements. While private providers would still complete the required work, opponents argued that the quality would be diminished when compared with the quality of services provided by local councils. C Field from the Consumer Law

Centre Victoria stated that “not one participant felt that services had improved. The general criticism was in respect of both quality and reliability of service” (Sub No.155 Appendix 1a). A foreman from the Queensland Main Roads Department observed that competitive tendering had seen “a marked decrease in the number of people who actually do the work, consequently the overall quality has declined” (Sub no. 142 Appendix 1a). The Shire of York Council referenced the anger associated with private services not meeting the required quality standards, arguing that “the move to contract road building services has resulted in some of the worst road construction on the main east-west route, the Greater Eastern Highway that has experienced in

165 the last 50 years” (Sub No. 26 Appendix 2a). This profit taking, the submissions argued, come at a cost of quality that councils had previously been expected to deliver for their communities.

As private providers assumed greater responsibility for the production of local council services, opponents of competitive tendering argued that economic rationalism would become the motivating driver to cut levels of service, and provide only minimally viable products. This was posited by the Shire of Jerramungup in regional Western Australia, which argued that “there has been an assumption that a small locally based contract may benefit” but it has “had the effect of reducing the level of services and success to the services in this area” (Sub No. DR222

Appendix 2a). The Chairman of the Western Australian Regional Development Council was hesitant in supporting a one-size-fits-all approach to competitive tendering in local areas in his submission to the Senate Select Committee, stating that “usually, if local government does not provide the hall or the sporting facilities then they are not available, with the developmental consequences being felt by the whole community” (Sub No. 48 Appendix 1a). These examples demonstrate a strong mistrust that outsider companies would deliver quality services because of their strong focus on profit maximisation. The opponents of competitive tendering believed that

“value for money” represented more than just profit maximisation, but developed their local community, and the services that underpin social cohesion.

The submissions further argued that competitive markets are not achievable in small communities, which due to lack of scale, would result in private monopolies. The opponents asserted that areas of low population are structurally incapable of supporting competing firms which are positioned in economic theory to be the drivers for lowering prices. In their submission into the Productivity Commission’s inquiry, the Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of

Councils argued that “rural Australia is not a large enough marketplace to support multiple competitors” and “these are the markets that are not high yield they do not readily attract new

166 competitors and in fact, many of them are working hard just to retain the business they have”

(Sub No. 146 Appendix 2a). Rural critics of competitive tendering maintained that areas of low population should be protected by the state because of the wider socio-economic problems that exist when potentially only one firm is engaged through contract tendering. At a very practical level, they argued that you need several contractors in the town for competitive tendering to be effective. According to W Capana from the Local Government Association of South Australia, in their submission to the Productivity Commission, “Rural areas, even large provincial cities, invariably lack the resources to provide a whole range or optimum range of programs for their citizens” (Sub No. 1 Appendix 2b). Propelled by their concern over the market concentration of private monopolies, rural groups insisted that prices would invariably rise, to the detriment of local communities.

Rural critics of competitive tendering challenged the one-size-fits-all application of this policy initiative and argued that the introduction of tendering needed to be contingent on the ability of local councils to establish a competitive environment. This was supported by the Tasmanian

Ombudsman, who argued that “Rural & remote communities are low on population and high on distance are factors limiting effective competition” (Sub No. DR260 Appendix 2a). J Martin,

Manager of Corporate Services at Dorset Council, noted that markets are very difficult to achieve in local government due in part to the lack of local competition. As stated in his submission to the Senate Select Committee, “The very nature of Local Government services also creates problems with the limited ability of the market to supply competition and the consequent danger of private enterprise monopoly” (Sub No. 56 Appendix 1a). In these examples, a wide variety of stakeholders, from local councils to rural advocacy groups and members of parliament, argued that the emergence of private monopolies in the delivery of local services would ultimately lead to price rises because of the lack of available tenderers, and

167 further asserted that the broad application of competitive tendering would not provide value for money for all citizens.

Through the utilisation of CDA and a thematic method of interpretation, the study identified social-liberal signifiers from the submissions made by rural critics of competitive tendering. The case study highlighted the position held by a group of rural advocates who argued that rather than providing value for money, the introduction of competitive tendering would increase the cost of local council services while reducing the level of service quality. The submissions from these groups were based on a conception of the public interest underpinned by a social-liberal ideology, which framed the state as the best mechanism to provide greater egalitarian outcomes than marketisation. Inherent in this conception of the public interest is the social-liberal view that the marketisation of local services creates large firms, outside of democratically elected decision makers, who dictate pricing on behalf of private stakeholders rather than meeting local community needs. Rotemberg and Woodford (1996) argued that even a modest degree of imperfect competition “significantly increases the prices of both output and real wages” (p. 6).

Specifically, for rural communities, the social-liberal discourse frames market competition as harmful as it results in large firms owning the means of local production, with profit motives inevitably leading to increases in the cost of services. Kilkenny (2010) states that “scale issues and localised imperfect competition are arguably even more important for rural communities, where the population is low, the size of the market can be insufficient for more than one establishment in a sector which can lead to price gouging” (p. 458). In this instance, the social- liberal framing used by these rural advocates positioned the market as a poor mechanism for ensuring value for money for rural communities.

Rural opponents of competitive tendering used social liberalism to frame how the provision of local council services should be within the remit of local government, and should not be exposed

168 to market forces. This group framed the benefits of state-based protection of local council services from market competition to achieve value for money through cross-subsidisation.

Firstly, social liberalism was used to demonstrate that the state is best positioned to promote social good through the delivery of services that, under a market paradigm, would be loss making. In this sense, the social-liberal underpinning stresses that services should be offered universally, and the state can ensure the delivery of these services at accessible prices. Savas

(1978) indicated that the performance of public services is “to be determined to a large extent to the spatial distribution of facilities and resources that provide the service for all citizens” (p. 800) and so that “governments can assure that public services don’t discriminate against any particular group of citizens, they must be concerned with inputs, outputs, and effectiveness among all recipients” (p. 803). Second, social liberalism was used to describe how the costs associated with the provision of local services would reflect the state’s accountability to the local populace, while the market was only accountable to private owners. Shifting towards the concept of universal access, the social-liberal paradigm highlights the need for local councils to be working in the best interests of all citizens, and to ensure services are accessible through appropriate pricing. Dollery and Byrnes (2006) argue that “democratic process embodies full public participation, even where this may entail the provision of redundant additional services or more costly local services, then this is warranted under the local democracy approach since it expresses legitimate community preferences” (p. 7). The social-liberal conception of universal access shapes the argument that the state, rather than the market, is best placed to keep prices at accessible levels, and meet community service obligations.

Ideology was intrinsic to the debate over competitive tendering, and in particular, how the policy would best achieve value for money. Challenging views of both pragmatism, and complete neoliberal hegemony, the differing conceptions of what constitutes value for money presented viable alternatives to the marketisation of local council services. Importantly, ideas were found to

169 shape the importance of market and state mechanisms, with social-liberal concerns about market exploitation driving rural discontent. As a sub-theme of the public interest, the contestation over the ability of the market to provide “value for money” proves that the application of competitive tendering wasn’t pragmatic and was more a conception of neoliberal policy making.

6.2.2 How is Community Development framed?

The second sub-theme considers an ideological contest disputing pragmatism and neoliberal hegemony, and challenges whether competitive tendering was positioned to support community development. The study found that the neoliberal framing of allocative efficiency, through better market signals, asserts that the community is best served when the local production of services is aligned with consumer preferences. This framing helped advocates such as state governments, regional/metropolitan councils, and pro-business think tanks to form a shared agenda which argued that wider marketisation could assist local councils in targeting services that maximise access for the community, which is equal to the cost of producing and delivering that service. This was challenged by rural critics who presented their responses through a social-liberal discourse to argue that competitive tendering would contribute to the continued unravelling of the social fabric that underpins rural communities. The critics, which included rural council bureaucrats and local community groups, were concerned that without state protection, large private firms would source their labour from larger cities resulting in a rise in local unemployment levels, and the diminution of societal roles upon which rural centres depend. In constructing and exploring this theme, the study finds that the presumption that competitive tendering creates a level of allocative efficiency where resources are better directed to improve local services would directly benefit larger councils and state governments who were forced to improve services with reduced funding.

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The debate over the effectiveness of competitive tendering contested the importance of allocative efficiency and consumer preference compared with the importance of protecting the rural community development. Advocates of competitive tendering argued that the community was best served when local production of services was aligned with consumer preferences, and the market was positioned to assist local councils to target services that maximise material benefits to the community, which equal the cost of producing the service. Through a lens of allocative efficiency, advocates argued that by allowing the private sector to own more of the production of local services, the cost savings would provide local councils with more scope to invest in areas of greatest need.

The advocates of competitive tendering represented federal institutions, state governments, larger councils and business advocacy groups who championed the benefits of local councils operating in accordance with market allocative efficiency principles. In his submission to the

Senate Select Committee, Jeff Kennett asserted that “economic efficiency is something which benefits the community. In an efficient economy resources are used without waste. People get goods and services more cheaply, and at higher quality” (Sub 123, Appendix 1a). The NCC is quoted in their submission to the Productivity Commission’s review as saying that local government reform “can assist local government in reconciling the community’s expectations of improvements in welfare, recreation and community services in times of constrained revenue raising capacity” (Sub No. DR304 Appendix 2a). This was also supported by the Western

Australian State government in their submission to the Senate Select Committee where they argued that “it does not appear to be well understood that profit making by utilities is being introduced at the same time as prices are coming down, reflecting increased efficiency and providing dividends to government which can be used for social or regional support” (Sub

No.165 Appendix 1a). These examples emphasise the belief held by advocates of competitive tendering that it is the market, not local government, that is better positioned to establish

171 production chain cost savings, which can then be directed to areas of community need. The submissions are unified in the prevailing notion that competitive tendering reduces costs, and allows local councils to reinvest in services that improve the quality of service delivery.

Advocates of competitive tendering also believed that the process of competitive neutrality provided local administrators with greater visibility of the effectiveness of their services. South

Gippsland Shire argued that “the positive outcomes are that service delivery is more focused and being delivered at a competitive rate” and that “under competitive tendering council is able to better monitor service outcomes and accurately gauge the impact of changing services” (Sub

No. 80 Appendix 2a). In their submission to the Senate Select Committee, the NCC stated that

“Competitive tendering improves the quality of council governance by helping to identify the true cost including community service obligations” and that allowing private service provision

“provides for a superior information base that can be expected to lead to more focussed debates about community priorities and the best use of council resources” (Sub No. 145 Appendix 1a).

This line of argument was reiterated by Barry Secombe, then Director of the major regional city,

Bendigo who indicated that “the whole exercise has given a more detailed audit of what exactly has got to be done and in terms of what’s got to be done to meet the needs of the community”

(Sub No. 25 Appendix 2b).

The proponents of competitive tendering believed that transparent and accountable governance would improve local consumer sentiment. The National Farmers’ Federation, in their submission to the Senate Select Committee, argued that competitive tendering “provides a transparent and open basis on which to desegregate revenues and to separate various independent cost centres in local government functions” (Sub No. 175 Appendix 1a). Richard Wood, Director of the South-

West Regional Council of the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry stated, in the

Council’s submission to the Productivity Commission, that “the primary considerations for

172 national competition framework are best applied in ways which maximise effective and efficient consumer wellbeing” (Sub No. 37 Appendix 2b). These submissions exemplify how improved market access was framed to assist administrators to understand the true costs of providing a service and qualify its value to the community. This level of visibility and transparency of services and associated costs provides opportunity to redirect community services to areas where the need is considered greatest. In most examples provided, the discourse clearly depicts competitive tendering as being of benefit to the consumers of local council services.

The advocates of competitive tendering argued that greater marketisation of local services improves basic access for those from low socio-economic backgrounds, and delivers wider community infrastructure. The NSW State Chamber of Commerce explained in their submission that “social welfare, living standards and equity will be improved as competitive tendering reduces the cost of services” (Sub No. 131 Appendix 1a). They also reiterated that “those consumers who are on lower incomes will derive the benefit from National Competition Policy because they generally spend a larger proportion of their incomes on essential goods and services, such as council services” (Sub No. 131 Appendix 1a). M Tidey, Corporate Services

Manager for the Launceston City Council, expressed that through competitive tendering, local councils were better positioned to be “aware of instances where the service levels exceed the community expectations so we can redirect to other areas, because there’s always somewhere else we can spend the money” (Sub No. DR244 Appendix 2a). Further to this, the Australian

Council for Infrastructure Development stated that “all departures from competitive tendering will result in a less efficient resource allocation. This will have detrimental effects on employment, working conditions and other socio-economic parameters” (Sub No. 193 Appendix 1a).

These groups also highlighted the benefits of competitive tendering by arguing that the wider marketisation of council services would improve access to basic services which were previously

173 deemed to be cost prohibitive. The NCC argued that “the outcome of the reforms is likely to be cost savings in service delivery, providing scope for reduced user chargers, rates relief and a greater pool of funds for investment and other local priorities” (Sub No. 185 Appendix 2a). The

ACT Government was also seen to be advocating for competitive tendering, arguing in their submission to the Senate Select Committee that “by creating a level playing field between government and private sector business when they compete resources will be allocated to their most efficient use, reducing waste and duplication and contributing to overall community welfare”

(Sub No. 207 Appendix 1a). Through the marketisation of local council services, advocates argued that services would become more accessible for a larger subset of the population. These groups challenged the protection of local council services as they believed it would price out those from low socio-economic backgrounds as prices inevitably rise. Importantly, they also stressed that the redistribution of savings would be used to improve local services, and better support community wellbeing.

Through the use of CDA and a thematic method of interpretation, the study once again identified neoliberal signifiers from the inquiry submissions made by proponents of competitive tendering, and confirmed its alignment with community development. Neoliberalism was found as a framing device for proponents to explain that increasing competition for local services would allow for a greater form of allocative efficiency through which local decision makers could more precisely distribute funds to areas of greatest need. Major regional councils supported this argument by indicating that the involvement of the private sector increased transparency and allowed for more targeted resource allocation to meet consumer needs. This aligned with the neoliberal signifiers concerned with the market’s ability to allocate resources in an efficient and transparent manner. In particular, neoliberal ideas frame a profit motive that “pushes the enterprises towards the production of those commodities for which the demand for consumers is most urgent” (Von

Mises, 1998, p. 2). Importantly, neoliberal ideas also framed the allocative efficiency of the

174 market as being more democratic in nature, in that consumer preferences remain central as more enterprises enter the market (Rothenberg, 1962). Major regional councils were documented in the case study as arguing that competitive tendering places greater importance on what the community wants, and how public funding should be spent.

Groups such as major regional councils did not believe that the protected provision of local council services contained real market signals to clearly understand how public funding would be best allocated. This critique of state protection is a fundamental underpinning of the neoliberal ideology in that protectionism creates market distortions which translate to efficiency losses (Feenstra, 1992). In these examples, the discourse of administrators, or office holders, of councils believed that local councils lacked understanding of what consumers value and were unable to effectively allocate resources to meet those needs. As such, the councils that could sustain a competitive environment used a neoliberal ideology frame to promote the public benefits of allocative efficiency, and support increased transparency of the allocation and expenditure of public funds. For this group, the public interest relies upon the neoliberal conception of the consumer, and places them at the centre of the consideration of public funding, where the market signals where public funds should be spent.

In contrast, the opponents of competitive tendering argued that the wider adoption of competitive tendering would contribute to the continued unravelling of the social fabric underpinning rural communities. For critics such as rural councils and rural advocacy groups, there was concern that competitive tendering would result in the migration of individuals and families from rural towns to larger regional and metropolitan centres. Cootamundra Shire Council stated that

“competitive tendering has been horrific for rural areas. Loss of employment, loss of population to larger areas and greater social dislocation” (Sub No. 6 Appendix 2a). The submissions highlighted growing concerns regarding the tendering out of local services to national companies

175 not based in the town, the wider effects of ongoing unemployment, and the impact on the viability of local communities. In his submission to the Senate Select Committee, public policy expert Fred Argy stated that “on the face of it, this may indicate greater efficiency, but it also has the effect of reducing employment opportunities within the sector” (Sub No. 11 Appendix 1b).

Raising a similar concern, Circular Head Council argued that:

Loss of employment as a result of competitive neutrality, results in declining school

enrolments thereby jeopardising funding levels to schools; loss of banking services as

communities decline; loss of retail and commercial service opportunities as disposable

income declines; loss of medical and hospital services as population reduces and loss of

morale and spirit of the community so affected (Sub No. 24 Appendix 2a).

The ongoing impact of job losses through the adoption of competitive tendering was used by rural critics to describe how the marketisation of local councils does not contemplate the social costs of employment opportunities leaving local communities.

Far from directing resources to areas of most need to improve community services, rural councils and local advocacy groups argued that competitive tendering contributes to a diminution of community roles. Opponents argued that when tenders for the production and delivery of local services were awarded to private providers from outside the community, the labour needed to deliver the services was also likely to come from outside the town. As a result, employment and community roles linked to the traditional local government services would be lost. Many submissions to the inquiries highlighted the unsustainable job losses in rural towns. In their submission to the Productivity Commission, Barcaldine Shire Council, a local government area in central western Queensland, explained that:

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the Council is unable to employ them for long periods due to no contract work, they will

certainly leave town and migrate to the coast or to the mining area where work is

available. The loss of 50 or 60 jobs (families) in a town such as Barcaldine will start a

downward spiral which will affect the staffing of schools, shops, etc. from which the town

may never recover (Sub No. DR270 Appendix 2a).

Consequently, they argued that rural unemployment has wider impacts than just job losses, which are exacerbated by location and problems associated with increasing private ownership of local services.

Several examples taken from the submissions highlight that wide-ranging job losses have significant impacts on the local community, resulting in individuals and families leaving rural areas in search of work. The submission to the Senate Select Committee from the small Shire of

Carnamah instantiates this further:

Generally, it appears to the Council that if work was contracted out, particularly road

work, then outside contractors would come into town for a short time and then be gone.

That would not necessarily be a good thing for the town and the farmers who use town

services. All in all, this council can only see the negative side of the policy, naturally the

larger country centres and metropolitan area can cope with the impact of the policy (Sub

No. 24 Appendix 1a).

This submission to the Senate Select Committee details the cumulative issues of unemployment and competitive neutrality on the structure and identity of rural towns:

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It would have a population of almost 1,000, and it would not be far west and not be easily

accessible to Brisbane. It would have had to fight to retain the top of the school – the

years 11 and 12 – but would be likely to lose that after a long fight. It would have

invested in a hospital, an ambulance and a doctor’s residence. It would have attracted a

doctor but been unable to retain it. It would have lost the pharmacy and would be losing

banking facilities, but there are alternatives – a couple of mornings a week type model.

There would be a loss of key families, key families that make the difference between

whether or not there is a football team and whether or not there is somebody to chair the

P&C. That is the social capital attrition that is taking place (Sub No. 24 Appendix 1a).

The loss of community identified by senior managers in rural councils and advocacy groups illustrates that competitive tendering was problematic for the wellbeing of rural communities, creating untenable consequences, particularly in relation to increasing unemployment rates, for rural areas of low population.

The critics dispute that competitive tendering establishes a level of allocative efficiency through which resources are better directed to improve community wellbeing, because in practice that results in a hollowing out of community membership, and the societal roles individuals play in supporting their rural communities. They argued that the state has a responsibility to protect the local production of services, which support local employment with the primary aim of sustaining structures such as schools, hospitals, pubs, community groups and sporting teams which are characterised by their distinct rural identities. This is best summarised by WJ Hyne from

Brandon Engineers who argued that “we have a snowball effect where the contractors lose out then the good suppliers lose out, the subcontractors lose and shop keepers lose until it finally gets to the stage where the whole town is affected” (Submission No. 11 Appendix 1a). The discourse posits that compared with metropolitan areas, rural populations rely on the critical

178 mass of sustainable populations to uphold the structures that support the rural identity, and develop community roles.

Rural councils and advocacy groups countered that the state had a responsibility to ensure vibrant communities by subsidising loss-making local council activities. Inherent in this is the social-liberal idea of community service obligations, and rejection of the market’s capacity to deliver on wider social objectives such as full employment rates (Martin, 1996). Specifically, the study identified the use of a social-liberal frame to criticise the introduction of competitive tendering, under the guise that private vendors would not be able to provide the wider social good that has traditionally been the responsibility of local government. A social-liberal discourse was utilised to frame the importance of community service obligations, and noted that the market is unable to deliver on local needs that are not founded in a commercial enterprise. According to

Cook (1999) “it needs to be realised that the changes brought about by the corporatization process are, in effect, altering traditional definitions of ‘public goods’ and ‘community service’”

(p. 219) and that “If everything is measured in economic terms the outcome will be that if the basic resources cannot be paid for then they will not be provided by the enterprise” (p. 220). In this case, the social-liberal framing of the public interest suggests that community services should not be characterised in economic terms, but rather by the contribution they make to the social good. As such, the social-liberal framing used by opponents of competitive tendering stresses the need to view community service obligations as within the remit of local government to ensure the social wellbeing, not just economic wellbeing, of the community.

Social-liberal ideas were also found to support the need for local councils to secure local employment as a measure for ensuring vibrant, sustainable communities. The opponents of competitive tendering argued that by allowing the market to administer local services, labour groups would be brought into the community rather than being sourced from the local area.

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Framed by social liberalism, groups such as rural councils and local advocacy groups argued that local governments have a social responsibility to ensure the development of resilient communities through full employment. According to Sawer (2003), the state has the power to give or refuse the employment necessary to the maintenance not only of physical wellbeing but of personal integrity and community roles. Sawer (2003) describes the social-liberal view of the state as a vehicle for “collective purpose and promotes the common good of maximising the potential of its citizens” (p. 67). The public interest used here frames the market as detrimental to small town labour forces, and acknowledges the flow of effects to the wider community when jobs are no longer available. The social-liberal discourse noted within the submissions to the inquiries argued that only the state has the ability to ensure that communities prosper, both through the local ownership of council services, and sustaining employment levels. This group argued that the development of the community and the ability for all citizens to prosper should be prioritised over any perceived benefits of marketisation.

Ideology was again present in the debate over competitive tendering, with particular consideration of how this policy initiative would best serve the community. In this sub-theme of the public interest, competing groups argued over the fairness of the debate, focusing on the neoliberal conceptions of allocative efficiency to direct scant funding to areas most in need, demonstrating how consumer demand can provide community services and reduce waste.

Conversely, social-liberal ideas shaped the opponents’ framing of community development, which argued that the state should cross-subsidise local council services to ensure stable employment, and support services which bolster social cohesion. As a sub-theme of the public interest, the contestation over the market’s capacity to develop local communities again proves that the application of competitive tendering was not pragmatic, but was underpinned by a neoliberal discourse to ensure local councils were focused on cost saving.

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6.2.3 Are Open Markets Fair?

The final sub-theme depicts an ideological contest on whether competitive tendering represented fairness for private vendors and the outcomes they produce. The study found that the neoliberal framing of market fairness, through the implementation of competitive tendering, allowed the private sector to compete on a level playing field for the betterment of the community. The framing helped advocates such as free-market think tanks, business lobby groups, and commercial operators to form a shared agenda arguing that the public sector benefited from inequitable government subsidies, which distorted the market and made it difficult for private providers, resulting in inflated costs for local council services. Rural critics challenged this framing through a social-liberal discourse, which argued that wider marketisation creates a series of winners and losers favouring those living in rural areas. This sub-theme of market fairness is once again represented by local councils, but also includes a number of rural advocacy groups and local community groups. These opponents contest the capacity of the market to produce equitable outcomes, and believe that competitive tendering only favours those living in areas with larger populations. The study found that by allowing more private vendors into areas usually reserved for the state, multinational companies would be in a position to grow their business revenues.

The final theme that emerged in the debate is best characterised by how fair the process of competitive tendering was between private and state-based providers, including equal distribution of the outcomes. In this specific debate, it was clear that those living in major regional and metropolitan areas considered the concept of fairness quite differently to those living in rural communities. The different characteristics of fairness emerged in relation to both the process of competition, and the equity of the outcomes. The advocates of the reforms argued that competitive tendering increased fairness because it allowed the private sector to

181 compete on a level playing field with the public sector. As Resources Consulting Services commented in their submission to the Productivity Commission, the competitive tendering reforms removed the “grossly unfair competition” its business faced when compared to government business enterprises (Sub No. 101 Appendix 2a). Likewise, the Victorian Minister for Local Government, Roger Hallam, stated that the benefits of competitive tendering were that councils “will be compelled to review and specify just what it is they do, and to test those specifications in the marketplace” and that “If in-house staff fail to measure up to the competition, those who can provide better service should take over” (Sub No. DR276 Appendix

2a). The NCC is present in this theme, claiming that “if competitive neutrality is applied, any advantages and disadvantages enjoyed by ‘in house’ bidders are made transparent and factored into the selection process to ensure that all tenders are considered on their merits” (Sub No.

DR304 Appendix 2a). In these examples, it was considered fair for private providers of similar services to be able to compete for the benefit of consumers.

Proponents of competitive tendering argued that it was unfair that private providers were locked out of competition, believing the local council protection resulted in unnecessary financial waste.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry argued in their submission to the Senate

Select Committee that “while local governments have moved progressively to eliminate or neutralise these advantages, governments in all jurisdictions should more fully embrace the corporatisation larger government business enterprises and the commercialisation of other significant undertakings and the wider and deeper use of privatisation” (Sub No. 191 Appendix

1a). Goulburn-Murray Water, in their pursuit of greater access to tendering for the provision of local government services, reiterated this by arguing that “the contribution – and this is what is being put to us, particularly by the citizens of Woorinen – is that that money is just going straight back to the government. Why can’t we have our share of it? It’s an argument that we haven’t been able to refute, because it seems fair to us” (Sub No. 30 Appendix 2a). Finally, the Director,

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Finance and Corporate Services, for the Greater Shepparton City Council told the Senate Select

Committee that “competitive tendering is something that we have embraced favourably. We see benefits for it as much as it does place a level playing field out there” and that “I think a lot of the businesses in Shepparton that are competing against in-house business units of council expect that council is playing on a level playing field” (Sub No. 75 Appendix 1b). For groups located in major regional and metropolitan areas the application of competitive tendering was considered fair, because it allowed private firms to actively engage in business that they had been traditionally obstructed from.

Advocates of competitive tendering also believed that the public sector benefited from unfair and inequitable government subsidies, which distorted the market and made it difficult for private providers to compete fairly. The Chief Executive Officer of the Municipal Association of Victoria questioned, in the Senate Select Committee, “can councils apply universal subsidies to council services where they run at a loss and where there are private sector competitors?” (Sub No. 82

Appendix 1b). Richard Wood, a Director of the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and

Industry, stated that “separating the monopoly from the competitive functions, commerce and industry considers this is essential to ensure there is no unfair advantage arising or cross- dividends flowing from the monopoly to the competition exposed activities.” Wood also argued that under cross-subsidies it was “totally inappropriate for local councils to be both a player and a referee in the marketplace” (Sub No. 37 Appendix 2b). Here, the advocates of competitive tendering argued that the traditional state-based provision of local council services represented a public-based monopoly which distorted a functional marketplace.

The market distortion created by state-based public monopolies was contested by business groups that relied on effective local council services, as detrimental to local economic growth.

John Beaton, a small business owner in Western Australia, asserted that competition meant that

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“there is a level playing field” and that the funds available to council services “should be made to go into partnership with private industry or there should be some sort of compensation” (Sub No.

67 Appendix 1b). Tim Gordon, the Land and Water Coordinator for the Australian Conservation

Foundation, stated that “inevitably when you do start cross-subsidising by way of cheaper water, you get the sorts of problems that have already been referred to. You get overproduction in some areas and underproduction in others” (Sub No. 74 Appendix 1b). Finally, Judith Sloan from the Productivity Commission highlighted the frustration with the cross-subsidisation of local council services by claiming that “they cleaned this up in Adelaide, because we had the ridiculous situation where, you know, car parks would be levied for water and sewerage when in fact they had no water and sewerage” (Productivity Commission, 1999). These advocates of competition reform argued that the subsidisation of local council services established an uneven playing field where private providers were priced out of entering the market, adversely impacting wider productivity.

Neoliberal ideas were found to underpin the discourse of the opponents by framing competition reform as a fair way of establishing equal opportunities for private and public providers. From the submissions, the study identified a range of business interests advancing competitive tendering by championing private vendors to compete with local councils to provide the same services. For groups such as business owners, chambers of commerce and think tanks like the Institute of

Public Affairs, competition for the provision of local government services allows firms to enter and exit freely without any artificial barriers. This “fairness of opportunity” (Graham &

Richardson, 1997, p. 9) is evident in the public debate over competitive tendering, whereby these business interests argued that it was fair for both the local community and private providers to openly compete for local tendered works. Comparatively, the neoliberal discourse used by a range of businesses, and pro-business advocates, challenged the unfair nature of the state serving as the only vendor allowed to provide local services. In this sense, business

184 interests used neoliberalism to frame how a lack of competition is detrimental to community prosperity, and they positioned local councils as holding an artificial advantage over similar providers of the required services, due only to their relationship to the state (Lemieux, 2018). In these examples, the study demonstrates how a range of business interests used neoliberal ideology to frame open markets as a fair and just policy direction. In doing so, they also used neoliberalism to frame the monopolisation of local services by the state as detrimental to communities and private providers.

In contrast, the opponents of competitive tendering argued that the outcomes of this policy initiative created a series of winners and losers which were unevenly distributed towards those living in rural areas. This theme is once again represented by local councils, but also includes some rural advocacy groups, rural businesses and social groups. These opponents contest the ability of the market to produce equitable outcomes and believe that competitive tendering only favours those living in areas with larger populations. Inherent in this argument is the notion that companies in these areas were typically larger in size, and because of their greater market control, could provide the same service at a lower cost than local providers. Larger businesses that would normally be based in areas with greater populations have advantages over local providers because of their scale. Based on quantity, larger providers are able to find efficiencies in their supply and production chains that can be passed on through cheaper tenders, supported by a labour force outside of the local rural area.

The opponents argued that providers from metropolitan and large regional areas were more likely to win contracts when they went into competition with local providers based on the availability of competitive markets. WJ Hyne, the Manager of Brandon Engineering in rural

Queensland, reinforced the unfair advantage larger companies had when tendering for the provision of services in their submission to the Senate Select Committee. Hyne stated that “I find

185 that in each instance when the local persons are being overlooked this has a devastating effect on our community, where the attitude is fast becoming fact and that the people don’t want to be bothered submitting a tender because they have no chance against larger companies” (Sub No.

11 Appendix 1a). Far from creating an even playing field between public and private providers, the opponents argue that the process of competitive tendering is structured so that only areas with larger markets will be successful. Through this system, the opponents of competitive tendering believe that larger companies will take advantage of their market size and win most of the viable tenders. As argued by the Local Government Association of Australia, “there is a belief amongst country Australia that it suffers from State and Commonwealth Government policy which favours the large metropolitan base or is centrally driven” (Sub No. 127 Appendix

1b). The opponents believed that rural Australia needed to be protected from deregulated competition because it doesn’t create an equitable process for rural communities to engage with.

The opponents of competitive tendering also argued that by shifting towards private production of local services the outcomes would be unfairly distributed to those living in major regional and metropolitan areas. In this view, competitive tendering would arguably improve the services in areas of larger populations but those in rural areas would not experience the same improvements. Ian Bodil, the Chief Executive Officer of the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale, stated in their submission to the Senate Select Committee that “council is concerned that decisions on policy making are made on economic rationalism at the expense of social responsibility” (Sub No. 21 Appendix 1a). The Rural Women’s Advisory Group also argued to the

Productivity Commission that “despite a rigid adherence to competition being good for the economy there are many communities that do not survive or prosper” (Sub No. DR260 Appendix

2a). This was supported by Nexus Australia, an infrastructure consultancy who, during their submission to the Senate Select Committee, argued that “government agencies have a social justice obligation to make services accessible to all citizens” and that “economic rationalism

186 must not be allowed to reign over social justice obligations” (Sub No. 3 Appendix 1a). This argument was also stressed by Cabonne Council, who stated that there should be a full review into the NCP so that “the full implications of the effects on the social aspects of life in these areas can be taken into account together with the simple bottom line economic assessments”

(Sub No. 206 Appendix 1a). The uneven socio-economic benefits of competitive tendering were viewed by many in rural Australia as an indication of the state and federal governments’ diminishing interest in the regions no longer providing a springboard for the national economy.

The opponents of competitive tendering also viewed the increasing market ownership of local service production as detrimental to social activities, or services with no commercial value but of significant importance to the rural way of life. The chair of the Strategic Liaison Committee for the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads is quoted as saying “those that are very small, with a population of 100 or less, nothing is going to hurt them anymore. They are right down to the bare basics. They have accepted that, they live with it and they make do” (Sub

No. 142 Appendix 1a). Furthermore, the Western Australian Municipal Association also argued that competitive tendering contributed to the “the gradual move away from cross-subsidisation of essential community infrastructure and services by corporatised and privatised entities [which] has left our rural and remote areas isolated and feeling very victimised” (Sub No. 43 Appendix

43). The overriding value within this sub-theme is that representatives of rural areas felt that they had been left behind while areas with larger markets received the benefits of open competition.

The opponents argued that as an outcome, the continual marketisation of community services removed access for the most disadvantaged members of the community, further exacerbating rural decline.

The opponents of competitive tendering used a social-liberal discourse to frame the important role the state has in ensuring universal access to local services. For this group of rural

187 advocates, which included lobby groups such as state-based farmers’ federations, state-based

National Party members and individuals, the framing of fairness was underpinned by a traditional policy discourse that believed state-owned service provision in rural areas ensured citizens have equality of access regardless of their location or economic status. Within this discourse the study identified social-liberal signifiers positing that the state could engage in financial loss-making activities to ensure each citizen has fair and equitable access to community services (Buckler &

Dolowitz, 2004). Anttonen (2002) positions the social-liberal benefits of universal access as the state ensuring that “irrespective of their socio-economic position and status in the labour market, communities are entitled to social insurance benefits through accessible access to local services” (p. 71). According to Esping-Andersen (1990), “the social-liberal regime is solidaristic, universalistic and de-commodifying” meaning that “basic social services are designed for all citizens, and in practice a large majority of citizens also use these benefits and services” (p. 28).

The universal access championed by this group emanates from the social-liberal conception of fairness and centres the state, not the market, as holding responsibility for ensuring that communities are not impacted because of their location, socio-economic situation or cultural background. The social-liberal discourse frames the market-owned operation of local services as only serving private interest groups and larger, more populated councils, meaning that services are not equally distributed.

The use of CDA in the debate over the introduction of competitive tendering found that ideology played a role in shaping how competing sides viewed the fairness of marketisation. Again, challenging perspectives of both pragmatism and complete neoliberal hegemony, the differing conceptions of the application of fair competition between public and private vendors, and the fairness of policy outcomes between those living in rural areas and those living in larger more populous areas was apparent. Like the sub-themes of value for money, and community development, ideas were found to frame differing conceptions of fairness, with neoliberal

188 conceptions of fairness aligned with greater private access to previously protected markets, and social-liberal conceptions of fairness aligned with universal access for those in rural Australia.

The sub-theme of fairness contributes to the main argument that competition reforms were not pragmatic, and were more closely aligned with the neoliberal view of the public interest which promotes the beneficial outcomes of the market over state-based protection.

6.3 The Role of Ideology within the Rural Debate over the Public Interest

The first finding of this study is significant for researchers seeking to move beyond the pragmatic perspectives of market reform, providing a unique lens through which to examine how ideas have shaped the fortunes of those living in rural Australia. Specifically, the findings of this study refute the work of Kelly (1992), Wanna and Weller (2003), Goldfinch and Hart (1997), and

Hollander and Patapan (2001), which argued that the market reforms were the result of adaptive, flexible policy settings based on the cascading nature of trade liberalisation. The findings of this study determine that these reforms were not pragmatic or adaptive to the material environment of the time, but rather part of a predetermined set of policies underpinned by neoliberal outcomes. The study shows that throughout the implementation of competition reform, state and federal governments were given strong policy alternatives that would ensure egalitarian outcomes for those in areas where market forces would be detrimental, but applied them regardless. The first finding of this study contributes to a wider body of literature that described the neoliberal turn in rural Australian policy making. Importantly, the findings prove that neoliberal ideas shaped the public interest in favour of outcomes focusing on economic growth over the concerns that increasing competition results in uneven social prosperity. The study supports the work of Hess and Adams (1999), Margetts (2011) and McDonald (2007) who have previously argued that the public interest within the NCP was an economic construct used to evaluate a series of non-economic considerations, which was evident in the rural debate over competitive tendering.

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The findings support the literature regarding the neoliberal turn, and consideration of how ideas shaped the public interest over viewpoints of pragmatic and adaptive policy settings. However, the findings refute the assertion that neoliberal ideas had established a hegemony over the public interest, which is core to the neoliberal turn in comparative politics. McDonald’s (2007) work had previously claimed that the policy language and public discourse of the public interest found within the NCP had been used to secure hegemonic control to legitimate the interests of dominant groups. While the study supports the economic framing of the public interest over social benefits, the strong backlash from those in rural Australia shows that neoliberal ideas had not reached a level of hegemony. Through an ideas-centred approach, McDonald references early contestation over the implementation of the public interest, but pays little to no attention to the political impact of the reforms, including how rural Australian’s used the NCP as a political weapon to revolt against twenty-five years of market reforms. As a limitation to this work,

McDonald (2007) acknowledges that the study could not conclude whether neoliberal ideas had been internalised across all dominant and subordinate groups in society.

The findings refute the existence of a neoliberal hegemony, by advancing official discourses by dominant groups who have claimed total acceptance of the NCP and its outcomes. Through discourse analysis of the rural debate over competition reform, the findings have identified what

McDonald (2007) calls “the experiences and knowledge of those groups who dissent, resist or are invisible and silenced” (p. 363). Specifically, the findings have identified a series of winners and losers from the implementation of competition reform, and have mapped the unequal outcomes to those living in rural Australia, while detailing experiences of dissent towards the marketisation of their communities. This represents a complex ideological contest between dominant and subordinate groups, conceptualising the neoliberal turn away from its depiction as a monolithic, hegemonic force (Larner, 2000) to one of ongoing political struggles. Rejecting

190 both perspectives of pragmatism and neoliberal hegemony, the study finds that the public interest found within the implementation of competitive tendering was shaped by powerful groups using neoliberalism to legitimise the reforms in favour of economic growth over the social concerns of those from rural Australia. The significance of this first finding invites further research into the pragmatic nature of political discourse in Australia, citing the need to explore the ideological framings at the centre of policies which claim to only be “doing what works”.

6.4 Conclusion

This chapter presented the first finding of the study, which refuted the commonly held view that the public interest found within competition policy was a pragmatic and procedural tool, arguing that it was underpinned by a neoliberal discourse. Through the identification of competitive discourses found within the establishment of sub-themes, the study found that the neoliberal ideology had captured the public interest, and was enforced by a dominant group of business interests, state governments and federal regulators. The neoliberal discourse was challenged by a group of rural advocates and local councils who argued that the public interest in competition policy paid little attention to the social and community impacts of widening marketisation of rural communities. The findings provide a practical example which refutes the prevalence of political discourse claiming that market reform in Australia was the result of practical decision making based on the cascading nature of trade liberalisation. The establishment of themes from the reviews into the socio-economic impacts of competition reform show that the key decision makers had clear options that would benefit rural Australia but took an alternative policy path based on a set of predetermined economic outcomes. The chapter concluded by arguing that research which attempts to explain the public interest as producing practical outcomes or “doing what works” fails to recognise the potential for ideology to shape and decontest political discourse in favour of determinant or predetermined policy outcomes.

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Chapter 7 Finding Two: The Ideational Power of Actually Existing

Neoliberalism

Chapter Summary

In contributing to the study, this chapter:

● Presents the second finding of the study, which identifies the ideational power of an

actually existing form of neoliberalism as key to the dominant narrative that competitive

tendering was in the public interest.

● Positions neoliberal ideas as a series of discursive frames that formed a shared agenda

between disparate business and government interest groups.

● Describes how rural opponents used social-liberal ideas to protest the changes taking

place in their communities with little institutional or political support.

● Examines actually existing neoliberalism within the debate, situating the importance of

economic crises, the roles of vested interests, federal regulators and ideas to explain

how competitive tendering was seen to be in the public interest.

● Contributes to the current theoretical understanding of the power of ideology, and details

this study’s contribution to current theories of the neoliberal turn in rural Australia.

7.1 Introduction

This study found that the public interest was neither a pragmatic nor a procedural tool to evaluate the benefits of competition reform, but was underpinned by neoliberal discourse. The ideological dominance of neoliberalism over the public interest establishes the second major finding of the study, which theorised the power of ideology within the context of rural political transformation. Unique to this study was the identification of an actually existing form of neoliberalism providing explanation for why competition reform was deemed to be in the public

192 interest. As a structurationist conception, actually existing neoliberalism rejects the notion that the neoliberal turn in Australia was strictly the removal of the state in favour of deregulated market competition. Instead, this study posits that the neoliberal turn in Australia was not a removal of the state, but rather a reorganisation of statist development incorporating market values. The chapter challenges the current ideas-centred conception of neoliberalism and explains the role that ideology played in establishing a form of “re-regulation” of rural governance to further expose agriculture to international markets, while supporting self-reliance, consumer preference and individualisation of rural communities.

Through the analysis of government reviews into the impact of competition reform, this chapter explains how an actually existing form of neoliberalism won the ideological contestation over the public interest. Specifically, the findings demonstrate that economic crises, coupled with the presence of new ideological discourses through which actors collectively define and interpret solutions in new ways, are essential conditions for the political success of particular policy ideas.

To showcase these findings, the chapter once again compares the opponents and proponents of competitive tendering to analyse how ideas were constructed and used within the debate. For the proponents of competition reform, neoliberal ideology served as a coordinating mechanism that gave a diverse range of vested interests a shared agenda in relation to the public benefit of competitive tendering. Conversely, the study found that rural opponents of competition reform utilised social-liberal discourse to protest the perceived inequity of the material outcomes of competitive tendering. Through more detailed analysis, the proponents of competitive reform were found to be a politically powerful coalition of business interests and governments who used neoliberal ideology to frame solutions to their economic problems. The coalition was found to have strong institutional support from federal regulators such as the NCC which effectively legitimised this position.

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After establishing how ideology was used within the rural debate over competitive tendering, the chapter argues for future research to acknowledge the power of ideology through the conception of an actually existing form of neoliberalism. The existence of an actually existing form of neoliberalism was defined through its interplay of material conditions, and the roles of institutions and interest groups found within the debate. Expanding on the work of authors such as Cahill

(2010 & 2013), Edwards (2017 & 2012), Campbell (2012 & 1999), Blyth (2003) and Bell (2012), the chapter concludes by highlighting the significance of the findings and detailing, in particular, how the ideational power of actually existing neoliberalism in rural debates provides a unique explanation for the neoliberal turn in rural communities.

7.2 Proponents of Competitive Tendering and the role of the Market

Through the use of critical discourse analysis of the competing views over the public interest described in the implementation of competitive tendering, the study found that neoliberal ideology served as a coordinating mechanism providing a diverse and dispersed range of interests with a shared narrative and agenda. Specifically, the study found that the neoliberal ideology provided powerful political actors with a series of discursive frames providing solutions to their economic problems. Through the identification of ideologically aligned actors participating in the two public review processes, the study found a range of interests championing the material outcomes of competition reform because it would benefit them directly.

The study identified leading groups such as state bureaucrats, business advocates, and private providers of local services who used the neoliberal benefits of competition reform to further their own economic agenda. Importantly, this group was supported by the federal government and the NCC, which were found to use similar discourses which promoted the benefits of competition reform. The study posits that the wider adoption of competition tendering would specifically benefit federal and state governments, and the business community, to the detriment of those living in rural communities. Acting together under a unifying ideological discourse, these diverse

194 interests had the power to override local objections, and to implement unpopular reforms that harmed local regions.

Competitive tendering was legitimised as being in the public interest because the neoliberal discourse framing of the material outcomes provided an effective solution to the economic problems facing state governments. This was particularly pertinent as the study found that successive state governments, such as that of Victoria, were facing ongoing economic decline because of the perception that governments had taken on too much debt to address revenue constraints. English and Guthrie (2001) argued that the majority of states experienced “decades of government borrowing to cover the difference between spending and revenue” (p. 46). Panet and Trebilcock (1998) indicated that by the mid-1990s, the options of continual government borrowing, raising taxes or reductions in public services had come to be viewed as unacceptable by politicians and citizens. At the advent of competition reform, state governments were effectively wedged into having to deliver the same (or improved) levels of service, but without following traditional policy routes because they were deemed too costly. The economic benefits of competitive tendering were framed as a new approach by state governments to ensure quality local services by shifting the cost to private providers.

The economic challenges of sustaining council services were passed onto local government as a reduction in income derived from federal and state grants resulted in a constrained fiscal environment, and a growing dependency on independent sources of revenue (Daly, 2000).

Throughout the rural debate, state governments and councils in metropolitan and major regional areas used neoliberal discourse to frame a conception of the public interest focused on identifying and implementing ways to deliver services for local communities, while ensuring governments reduced their financial debts. Through their support for competition reforms, state governments and larger councils argued that maintaining traditional policy settings would

195 exacerbate their reliance on government borrowing, and that the market rather than the state would provide greater value for money. In this instance, state-based administrators adopted the neoliberal discourse and framed the introduction of competitive neutrality and competitive tendering as an effective way to deliver services, but to do so with less reliance on state and federal income. The neoliberal discourse championed by state governments effectively called for local governments to be more entrepreneurial in their approach and less reliant on state funding to be effective service providers. They called for the marketisation of local councils and the introduction of private vendors as they framed the competition to naturally drive down prices while improving services. As a result, the study found that the framing of competitive tendering to reduce government spending provided governments with a material solution to the view that government debt was too high.

The neoliberal discourse was also used by major regional councils to frame competitive tendering as a mechanism to improve their operational efficiency, and reverse public perceptions of government waste. In a constrained fiscal environment, larger councils needed to establish an evidence-based approach to their expenditure. Marshall, Witherby and Dollery (1999) characterised the introduction of competitive tendering as a significant time of local government reform, citing the need to improve organisational productivity, reduce costs and allocate expenditure more effectively. The study found that larger regional councils used neoliberal discourse to describe the traditional state-based approach as inefficient, claiming that in a more globalised economy, the state couldn’t provide the right incentives to improve council productivity, or establish market signals for local council administrators to direct funding to areas of need. The neoliberal discourse was also utilised to encourage local government to embrace a more corporate management and governance approach to create stronger community engagement. The neoliberal discourse, used by regional councils, positioned the marketisation of local services and the establishment of clear market signals as ways to ensure greater

196 responsiveness to consumer needs. Neoliberal ideas framed the benefits of the competition reforms, while characterising the state as a public burden preventing entrepreneurship and civic renewal.

The study also found that a neoliberal discourse was utilised by a range of business advocacy groups, and private providers of similar council services, to describe state-based protection as unjust and unfair on the consumers of local services. These groups argued that their exclusion from local contracts was unfair to them and by extension, harmed local business and the local community because they would not benefit from a stronger local economy. Fairness, in this sense, was used by business groups to argue for flexibility for private providers to enter and exit the market without barriers, which would ensure a competitive playing field, drive down costs, increase innovation, and establish greater levels of allocative efficiency of benefit to local consumers. Inherent in this finding was the use of neoliberal ideas to solve the economic limitations of private providers locked out of lucrative government contracts. Through the application of competitive tendering, business groups recognised an opportunity to increase profit margins by expanding into areas in which they had previously been prohibited from operating. In doing so, they were more likely to win larger tenders, increase their market share and provide greater returns to their investors. For a diverse range of business interests, neoliberalism provided a discursive lens through which to contemplate the benefits of marketisation as a solution to the problems facing private providers restricted from widening their market capitalisation.

Integral to the political success of the proponents of competitive tendering was the strong support by federal governments, regulators such as the NCC, and free-market think tanks that utilised the same neoliberal constructs to further legitimise the use of the market in the public interest. The analysis of the public submissions to the two inquiries depicted that the neoliberal

197 conception of the public interest was further legitimised by the strong political support of federal groups employing a similar discursive narrative of the wider national benefits of market reform.

Specifically, the data confirms that the NCC, and free-market think tanks such as the IPA, provided overarching reinforcement of the positive outcomes of competitive tendering, using congruent discursive frames to underpin their arguments while aggressively countering alternative views from those in rural areas. These groups were found to validate the introduction of competition reforms, arguing that those who sought to maintain the traditional state-based provision of local services were harming the economy’s ability to succeed in a global marketplace. The support of federal regulators and free-market think tanks created established a greater political power base for the proponents of competition reform, sharing similar discourses and aligning themselves to the actions of key decision makers.

Through analysis of the submissions into the inquiries that shaped the rural debate over competitive tendering, the study found a range of powerful interests using neoliberalism to contextualise the conception of the public interest in line with solutions to their specific material problems. Of importance was the neoliberal positioning of the public interest, and recognition of the market as a superior mechanism for delivering community services, reducing costs, and ensuring greater fairness between private and public operators. The study illustrates that despite disparate motives, these groups were united by their desire for the material outcomes provided by competition reform, and used neoliberal ideology as the basis for their shared agenda to delegitimise competing views of competitive tendering. The findings confirm that ideology became a coordinating mechanism to link a group of similar conceptions of what was in public interest, while also framing solutions that benefited the various interest groups directly. The material benefits of increasing the marketisation of local services, while characterising the state- based delivery of these services as detrimental to widening economic growth, were also established within the construct of this shared agenda. Importantly, the ideological discourse

198 that unified these disparate interests were aligned to powerful federal regulators and think tanks which validated the neoliberal conception of the public interest. As a result, the wider marketisation of local council services was politically successful, in part because powerful actors were able to impose the belief that their own conceptual definition of the public interest supported continued economic growth, and was therefore correct.

7.3 Opponents to Competitive Tendering and a return to Statist Development

Competitive tendering was perceived to be in the public interest because the neoliberal ideology coordinated powerful groups to form a shared agenda to override rural concerns about detrimental outcomes to communities. Rural critics used a traditional social-liberal conception of the public interest, espousing the benefits of state protection of local services to ensure an egalitarian approach to service delivery. The social-liberal ideology framed the outcomes of competition reforms as unequal and only benefiting those from larger metropolitan areas, and rural centres. Despite this, the study found that rural critics of competitive tendering lacked a new set of ideas that could galvanise the disparate rural actors, nor could they provide the same material benefits as the more powerful political actors who championed wider marketisation.

Further to this, the analysis determined that the rural opponents participating in the debate lacked a coordinated agenda, were out of step with general sentiment on the effectiveness of the public service, and could not provide an alternative policy direction with appropriate solutions to the perceived economic challenges when compared with those provided by the neoliberal proponents of competition reform.

While the neoliberal proponents were identified as the dominant group in the debate, they were challenged by a rural group of opponents who called for a return to the state-based ownership of local council services. The study found several other conceptions of the public interest presented by opponents of competitive tendering, which routinely supported the ongoing state

199 ownership of local council services as they believed it would keep prices low, ensure the viability of community service obligations, and maintain a strong rural community through job growth.

However, the findings indicate that the opponents of competition reform, unlike the proponents, were not unified by a clear ideological discourse; rather their discursive frames were fragmented and overly reliant on loose traditional discourses shaped by social liberalism. Furthermore, the fragmented framing could not provide wider solutions to the material problems, and were not supported by powerful federal actors. The study demonstrates that the opponents of competitive tendering were only able to use a social-liberal discourse to frame solutions to issues directly related to the socio-economic decline of rural Australia.

The study found that the rural opponents of competitive tendering used social liberalism to frame the advantages of universal public access to services as a response to rising prices and lack of access under competitive tendering. While not explicitly articulating the social-liberal critique of the marketisation of local councils, the opponents reacted emotively to the declining material conditions under competitive tendering. Specifically, competition reform was generally conceived by rural communities to be unfair, with a key argument highlighting that the pace of change was unsustainable and costly. The group adopted a fragmented discourse that was linked to their way of life, and argued that state-based service provision would assist in maintaining a local sense of community. The social-liberal framing, made by a range of rural advocacy groups, was more of a protest about the changes required by the introduction of competitive tendering, including concern that the policy and the tendering processes would lead to local price rises.

The call for a return to state-based provision of local council services, for those in rural areas, couldn’t provide the same economic outcomes as competitive tendering. The study found that actors, including local councils and rural advocacy groups, rallied around the specific material impacts of competitive tendering that were most likely to directly impact their way of life. In consideration of this, social-liberal discourse framed the protest to change, rather than proposing

200 a new set of ideas which would solve the wider problems faced by state governments and business interests.

The submissions to the public inquiries into the impact of competition reform articulated that the viability of rural communities, and promotion of social wellbeing, should be considered before economic rationalism, and that not doing so would be of detriment to the public interest. The study found that social liberalism was used by rural advocacy groups to argue that the marketisation of local councils would lead to the diminution of community service obligations which were previously the responsibility of the state. Through this discursive frame, the opponents of competitive tendering argued that social considerations and equitable local service delivery should be given the same level of importance as ongoing economic growth. However, the study found that those who championed the marketisation of local councils considered community services to be financially wasteful. Through traditional state-based cross- subsidisation of services, the community responsibilities of local councils which had no commercial value were still deemed to be in the public interest. The opponents were again found to be reverting to a traditional policy prescription, and were not introducing any new policy ideas which would assist governments to manage their financial challenges. By comparing the submissions made to the inquiries, the study confirmed that the social-liberal conception of the public interest centred on the importance of community services, but these were considered loss-making activities by neoliberal proponents.

The rural opponents of competitive tendering could not provide an alternative policy solution to protect local council services from private competition, because increasing competition would expand the market concentration of powerful business interests. Rural advocates used the social-liberal discourse to frame the outcomes of competitive tendering as favouring those from metropolitan and major regional areas. This group argued that only the state could ensure an

201 egalitarian approach to service provision, so that regardless of location or population size, citizens would receive a similar level of service quality for equivalent costs. However, the study found that rural opponents to competitive tendering could not offer a new set of policy ideas; rather, the social-liberal discourse was used to protest the changes taking place in rural communities. This group could not provide an effective counter argument to protect local council services from private competition, nor could social-liberal ideas galvanise wider decision makers to place the collective needs of rural citizens before private interests.

This study posits that the introduction of competitive tendering was seen to be in the public interest because the neoliberal ideology provided material policy solutions to the economic problems facing decision makers. Rural communities no longer had any form of political power, and were removed from powerful groups who championed the wider marketisation of local government. The study finds that the fragmented social-liberal discourse was used in protest, and gained very little traction outside those in rural areas. Very small communities became a vanguard against market reform, but were unable to rally more interest groups to their cause.

Importantly, this relatively small protest discourse could not provide a viable solution to the material problems faced by state governments who needed to improve their budgetary position, and private vendors who had been prohibited from tendering for the same services. Their inability to ensure these decision makers adopted the social-liberal outcomes were key to the legitimation, through neoliberalism, of the public interest.

7.4 Actually existing Neoliberalism and the re-regulation of Rural Communities.

Structuration theory is a useful and pertinent conceptual lens through which to examine and explain how competitive tendering was considered to be in the public interest despite the view that it was detrimental to those in rural Australia. Reflecting on the rural debate over competition reform, the study found that ideology held a powerful position in a series of reforms that

202 contributed to the socio-economic decline of rural Australia. Shifting away from ideas-centred explanations of political change, the study found that ideas were a primary factor in the legitimisation of competitive tendering but need to be viewed in the context of the actions of vested interests, and in consideration of the material environment. Specifically, the study identified that neoliberal ideology played a coordinating function to shape a shared agenda, and legitimised a view of the public interest in which the market produces greater community outcomes than traditional state-based services. An actually existing form of neoliberalism was found to coordinate a range of diverse economic interests to establish a shared agenda closely aligned to the motivations, and required outcomes, of key decision makers. This conception of neoliberalism shifts from the normative versions and presents an ideological discourse that highlights the role of the state in supporting the freedom of capital, and embeds market competition into previously protected areas, to the detriment of rural Australia. Through a form of market-based re-regulation, the study rejects common rhetoric around deregulation and complete privatisation, and presents a construction of neoliberalism that shifted statist development away from the principles of egalitarianism towards the benefits of market competition.

The rural debate over competition reform presented a complex mix of ideas, material conditions and vested interests, which explored how policy platforms are introduced, sustained and – in the example of competitive tendering – extended. The study found that ideas, vested interests and the material environment were significantly interlinked whereby neoliberal ideas were activated by a range of dominant institutions and business interests to establish a unified discourse positioning the public interest to promote ongoing economic growth. Neoliberalism was adopted by state governments, large councils and business interests to advocate the benefits of both competitive tendering, and the wider competitive neutrality principles found within the NCP.

These groups were heavily supported by the federal government, regulators such as the NCC

203 and the Productivity Commission, and think tanks including the IPA. The study posits that without the institutional adoption of neoliberalism, reforms like competitive tendering would not have been as politically successful.

In contrast, the lack of institutional support for those in rural areas resulted in a lack of political agency to shape the public interest in favour of their communities. This study found that as rural

Australia no longer held a level of economic importance, institutions and powerful business interests effectively abandoned the traditional statist development approach to one that believed in market solutions to achieve community growth. Reverting from an egalitarian approach to service provision, the state, under an actually existing form of neoliberalism, re-regulated the function of local governance to embrace consumer-driven forms of entrepreneurialism and rural self-reliance. While rural groups argued in favour of state-owned services, it is clear that their decoupling from the agriculture industry meant that they no longer had the political power which underpinned their importance for the first fifty years of federation. Importantly, the study found that the public interest still rested with state regulation, but under the constructs of neoliberalism the state shifted from supporting rural areas to attempting to make them self-reliant, and less burdensome on government expenditure. The study found a different form of neoliberal rhetoric which didn’t champion deregulation, but rather attempted to re-regulate rural economies to access greater market opportunities.

7.4.1 Elements of Actually Existing Neoliberalism within the Rural Debate

Through the contestation over the notion of the public interest, the study found a more dynamic understanding of neoliberalism incorporating its relationship to the national, regional and local context, and defined by legacies of inherited institutional and geographical frameworks. Through a structurationist conceptualisation, the study progressed the understanding of neoliberalism from a system of free markets to one that is “actually existing” (Peck, Brenner & Theodore,

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2018) or “embedded” (Cahill, 2010), highlighting the centrality of the state to the development of neoliberalism, and contrasting between theory and practice. The case study showcases a variant of neoliberalism driven by federal and state governments with strong support from a coalition of business interests. Far from reducing the influence of the state, neoliberalism emboldened the state to advance the interests of the market, and implement policies like competitive tendering in the public interest.

Governments, regulatory bodies and business groups played a significant role in the dissemination and enforcement of the NCP and competitive neutrality. Through the establishment of the NCC and competitive payments to the state governments, the state is seen as the architect and facilitator of a neoliberalism which positions the market as the most effective mechanism to address the faults in the economy. This conceptualisation of neoliberalism supports the work of Cahill (2013 & 2014), Bell (2005 & 2011), Edwards (2007 & 2012), and

Brenner and Theodore (2020) which situates policy change as a combination of structural, material and ideational factors. Specifically, the neoliberalism identified in the study heavily depends on the contextual circumstances from which it has been deployed, including the material conditions of the time combined with new policy ideas to combat economic decline.

Rather than viewing neoliberalism through a theoretical ideas-centred approach, the following key elements show its practical application is predicated on existing socio-political structures, power configurations, and the material circumstances from which it is deployed.

7.4.2 Actually Existing Neoliberalism and Economic Crises

In the first instance, the study found that actually existing neoliberalism perpetuates recurring economic crises. Neoliberalism mobilised key decision makers to uniformly drive the benefits of competitive neutrality and competitive tendering because it provided material solutions to

205 widespread economic problems originating in the late 1970s. In many instances, competitive neutrality and competitive tendering would ensure greater economic performance of local councils resulting in financial savings for state governments, improved community services through allocative efficiency and lower input costs for businesses aligned to local councils. In particular, the drive for competitive neutrality came from states where economic reform was needed to combat increasing government debt and rising unemployment. Agents aligned with the neoliberal discourse argued that the market, rather than the state, was best placed to improve the state-based economies and improve Australia’s international competitiveness. The emergence and ongoing endurance of neoliberalism is situated in material crises but has also been modified throughout the past forty years as a set of contemporary market configurations regulated by state institutions (Chester, 2010) to fix issues with the economy.

The identification of actually existing neoliberalism and its relationship to economic crises supports the work of Cahill, Edwards and Stilwell (2012), Campbell and Pedersen (2001), Blyth

(2002) and Bell (2012). Demonstrating that neoliberal ideas were introduced because of a decline in the material environment exemplifies how actually existing neoliberalism was able to deliver “concrete policy recommendations deemed necessary to fix a variety of social and economic problems, notably economic stagnation and dilemmas posed by the forces of economic globalisation” (Campbell & Pedersen, 2001, p. 1). Within the Australian context, Cahill

(2007) indicated that neoliberalism didn’t just rise “organically” out of the perceived failures of the social-liberal state, but rather provided the right material context for the “mobilisation by capital to impose its will upon state policymaking” (p. 222), and to overturn many key policy prescriptions that characterised the Australian welfare state. The rural debate over competitive tendering showed that opponents of the reforms were unable to provide policy solutions that could alleviate the economic issues faced. The findings from the case study provide an example of how neoliberalism did not just progress from policy think tanks, but found its basis in a

206 material crisis to mobilise key decision makers. The neoliberal discourse that underpinned the introduction of competitive tendering primarily utilised the economic imperatives of increasing marketisation as a material solution to cascading economic problems associated with the initial market reforms of the 1980s.

7.4.3 Actually Existing Neoliberalism and Business Interests

In the second instance, the study found that the re-regulation of the state towards market outcomes would specifically benefit the rising power of business interests. The study shows that a significant group of decision makers, regulators and business interests established a unified bloc to introduce, lobby and ultimately regulate competition reforms that would increase the economic importance of business in Australia. The majority of advocates of competitive neutrality and competitive tendering were found to come from groups that would either benefit economically from the reforms, or would be responsible for regulating the roll out of the reforms on behalf of governments. In particular, the study identified the appearance of free-market think tanks such as the Institute of Public of Affairs, and business lobby groups including the Business

Council of Australia, who championed the market reform of local councils. Arguably, the support from these vested interests expanded the economic performance of private businesses who were previously locked out of a vast market of local services.

The interplay between business interests and ideology reiterates the work of Cahill (2007), Blyth

(2003) and McDonald (2007) who demonstrate the power of business interests in the success and extension of neoliberal ideas. The case study shows that business interests used “their discursive arsenal as weapons against those advocating restrictions to business prerogatives and those opposed to neoliberal measures more generally” (Cahill, 2014, p. 53). Blyth (2003) argued that the neoliberal view of organising the economy had persisted because it provided far

207 more asymmetrical distribution toward those that control more of the capitalist system than the former social-liberal policy paradigm. This understanding also supports the works of Campbell

(1998) and Schmidt (2008) who explained that neoliberal ideas have been used to frame new ways of solving material problems but also argued that when entrenched, ideology can be used by groups to extend their political interests. Overbeek and Van Apeldoorn (2012) highlight that the success of neoliberalism required political support from the sections of corporate Australia that influenced decision makers “because their interests were served by the promotion of neoliberal ideas” (Cahill, 2002, p. 21). The neoliberalism identified in the study shifted the regulation of the economy away from the equitable provision of community services to the increased market concentration of business interests on the understanding that greater access to competitive contracted services by private providers was in the public interest.

7.4.3 Actually Existing Neoliberalism and State Institutions

The neoliberal discourse was used to legitimise the power of business interests over rural groups through the support of federal regulators such as the NCC, the ACCC and the

Productivity Commission. The study found that federal regulators were key neoliberal institutions which constrained the debate over the socio-economic impacts in rural areas, while legitimising the implementation of competitive tendering as the only way to deliver economic growth. These groups were vital in establishing a “political rationality” (Beeson & Firth, 2008) which radically restructured the notion of rural citizenship, and promoted new strategies of market governance.

Through the neoliberal lens of rural self-governance, these regulators enforced the restructuring of public services to become consumer-driven commodities based on choice, commercialisation and market signals. The application of competition payments, within the scope of the NCP, to achieve competitive neutrality demonstrated that these institutions held considerable power to incentivise the expansion of business interests, and re-regulate the economy towards the accumulation of capital.

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The restructuring of state institutions towards market outcomes shows that, under an actually existing neoliberalism, the state increases its regulatory power. Moving away from the “minimal state” thesis inherent in the ideas-centred conception of neoliberalism, this study supports the work of Cahill (2012), Chester (2012) and Berg (2008), arguing that regulation under neoliberalism has expanded the role of the state in Australia. Berg (2008) referenced the NCC and the ACCC as “mega-regulators” which have progressively grown in importance in line with wider market reforms, and argues that “the consolidation of regulatory responsibility into ‘mega- regulators’ raises a number of political governance questions—as regulators hold increasing power over the economy, their activity takes on a political dimension” (p. 80). According to Cahill

(2008), the political dimensions of neoliberal re-regulation “enforce the freedoms of certain classes of individuals over others” (p. 308). In this case, the study finds that state-based institutions played a leading role in the reorganisation of the economy in favour of business interests, while delegitimising the views of rural Australians and the social impacts on their communities.

7.5 The Ideational Power of Actually Existing Neoliberalism and the Public Interest in

Competition Reform

Reflecting on the ideological contest within the rural debate over competitive tendering, this study provides a unique rural perspective on political and economic change in Australia.

Through the adoption of structuration theory as a conceptual framework, the study used the case of competitive tendering in rural councils under the competition reforms to identify the differences between neoliberalism in theory and in practice. In practice, the ideational power of neoliberalism was not found to minimise the state, but was rather a form of state re-regulation towards the accumulation of capital in favour of those in metropolitan and major regional areas.

Unlike normative ideas-centred approaches that explain the rise of market reform in Australia,

209 this study found that statist development has remained a central feature in Australian policy making but through neoliberalism, the state has been reorganised to promote the freedom of capital over egalitarian service provision. The concept of an actually existing neoliberalism is a more apt explanation for how policies such as competitive tendering were seen to be in the public interest despite being part of wider reforms considered to be detrimental to those in rural

Australia.

The ideational power of actually existing neoliberalism in rural debates is new to Australian comparative political theory. This study demonstrates Edwards’ (2012) assertion that ideology has a central place in Australian politics, and rejects the perspective that policies are guided by pragmatist or utilitarian principles. The study has shown that in the context of rural competition reform, ideas were crucial to what Edwards describes as “shaping what we think might lead to the greatest good, and who we might include in the greatest number” (p. 1). Ideas, as depicted in the study, were found to shape the public interest against the interests of those in rural

Australia, which was significant given the political importance of these communities for the first fifty years of federation. Importantly, the findings of this case study can be extrapolated to demonstrate that this significant turning point in the fortunes of rural Australia can be better attributed to the adoption of actually existing neoliberalism which decoupled rural communities from their economic base. The study shows how ideational power was central to the declining importance of agrarian sentiment in favour of new forms of rural governance, which allowed for commercially viable agriculture industries to be successful in the global market, while at the same time introducing the commercialisation of local communities.

Actually existing neoliberalism provides a useful heuristic to explain why the public interest in competition reform was legitimised against the interests of those in rural Australia. The explanatory power of this case study is unable to explain the entire neoliberal turn in Australia,

210 but can unveil the large-scale ideological complexities that took place during this period.

Importantly, the study attests that no one explanatory variable can be attributed to the adoption of market reform in Australia, and future research needs to identify the practical effects of interests, ideas and the material environment to explain how some policy ideas are successful, while others fail. The rural debate over the implementation of competitive tendering provides an application of existing neoliberalism in which economic crises coupled with the presence of new ideological discourses, through which actors define, interpret and propose new solutions, are essential conditions to the development of policy and associated change (Campbell & Pedersen,

2001).

Importantly, this study is the first to apply the rhetoric and practical outcomes of the theory of existing neoliberalism to explain rural socio-economic decline. The study has progressed beyond the ideas-centred explanation of neoliberalism and presented an overarching narrative that the cross-subsidisation of community services became a material problem for successive governments with the decline of the economic importance of rural Australia. The traditional bipartisan statist form of development, which ensured the egalitarian provision of community services between cities and rural areas, was no longer seen to be in the public interest. Instead, a coalition of business interests, including peak agricultural bodies and governments, embraced a new set of policy ideas which would reorganise state development toward greater market incentives to ensure economic growth. Despite the view that market outcomes would distribute economic gains towards those in metropolitan and major regional areas, the study found that conceptions of what was in the public interest shifted from supporting rural communities to promoting self-reliant policy mechanisms. Legitimised by federal regulators, policies such as competitive tendering were part of a wide-ranging neoliberal project that began in the 1980s, and exacerbated the socio-economic decline of rural Australia. This study found that the

211 ideational power of an actually existing form of neoliberalism explains why these policies were introduced to the detriment of those in rural areas.

7.6 Conclusion

This chapter presented the final finding of the study, which highlighted the power of ideas within the political transformation of rural Australia over the past forty years. Through the use of CDA of the public submissions into the rural debate over competition reform, the findings progressed the ideas-centred explanation of the neoliberal turn which has hastened the socio-economic decline of rural Australia. Specifically, the findings refute the popular assertion that normative neoliberalism effectively deregulated the state-based functions of local government in favour of privatisation. Instead, the case study identified the ideological power of an actually existing form of neoliberalism which was a production of the state to enact a form of re-regulation of local rural economies. The chapter posited that actually existing neoliberalism is restructuring of state institutions towards market outcomes by increasing (rather than decreasing) their regulatory power. Ultimately, the finding showed that neoliberal ideas of wider marketisation of rural communities were successful because they galvanised a group of disparate but powerful actors to frame policy solutions to their material problems. The chapter concluded by highlighting how the findings have contributed to the theory of actually existing neoliberalism and that policy change should not be explained through a dichotomy of the ideational and the material but rather through the interplay of ideas, the material conditions of the time and the institutional power of vested interests.

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Chapter 8 Conclusion and Recommendations

Chapter Summary

In contributing to the study, this chapter:

● Concludes the study, which has identified the relative importance of ideas, materialism

and vested interests in the rural debate over competition reform.

● Provides an overview of the key findings of the study, and refutes the pragmatic

explanations for the implementation of competition reform, and the role of neoliberal

ideas to legitimise a conception of the public interest in favour of market outcomes.

● Identifies the need for further research into the importance of the public interest in rural

politics, and discusses the role of economic crises in predicting when new forms of

ideological discourses will be introduced.

● Discusses the explanatory power of an actually existing form of neoliberalism in rural

Australia.

● Discusses the uniqueness of the study’s findings, including how future research should

explore the ideational power of actually existing neoliberalism and its impact on rural

communities.

8.1 Introduction

The past fifty years has witnessed a significant shift in the economic and cultural importance of rural Australia. Almost twenty five years on from the implementation National Competition Policy, rural Australia still holds significant economic power, but that power now rests with large-scale agri-business and mining companies at the expense of small, family owned operators and local rural towns (Newsome, 2020). Neoliberal policy during this time has shaped the dominant policy conceptions of the public interest towards one of economic growth and the provision of local

213 services through the lens of cost-recovery, consumer choice and fees for service, which has eroded the level of services provided particularly to small rural communities. While the

Australian economy has continued to grow over this time, there has been systematic decoupling of ordinary rural Australians from the economic wealth and political influence that defined the formative years of federation. As traditional country-voice continues to dwindle (McManus,

2008), vocal dissent towards the impact of globalisation and the marketization of the countryside continues to dominate political discourse over what is the public interest and who does it serve.

Rural discontent has been a defining feature of the shift to free-market policies in Australian politics. The political literature argues that the pro-market changes to the Australian economy have resulted in a series of winners and losers with rural communities bearing the brunt of these reforms. As the economy became less reliant on the agricultural industry and the traditional cross-subsidisation of rural towns became a costly activity against the reality of growing inflation and economic stagnation, new policies were introduced that shifted the policy paradigm of wider egalitarianism and what Sawer (2003) labels the “ethical state” to the perceived benefits of a global marketplace. In attempting to protect rural viability, the literature has shown that rural voters have presented ongoing challenges for governments wishing to progress economic reform at both the national and state levels. By completing an extensive literature review on the neoliberal turn and its effects on rural Australia this study has shown that rural communities revolted against their demotion and the perception that wider adoption of wider marketisation has eroded their access to services, contributed to rising unemployment, and hollowed out of populations of country towns.

The study found that the marketisation of rural Australia was implemented under the view that it was in the public interest. However, the literature that attempts to explain how the public interest

214 is defined is contested, with some labelling these as pragmatic and procedural reforms due to the cascading nature of liberating the economy, and others claiming it was a form of total hegemonic neoliberal ideology. The most prominent of these theories was the ideational conception of the “neoliberal turn”, which argued that normative neoliberal ideas of deregulation and privatisation were used primarily by policy makers to remove the power of the state in favour of market outcomes. This study argued that current explanations of the rise of these reforms are based on weak standards of evidence, and that for political theorists to fully understand why these reforms were legitimised in the public interest, they need to look past ideational explanations of the neoliberal turn. Through an examination of the rural debate over the implementation of competitive tendering, the study shows that the public interest was shaped by neoliberalism, and informed by the material environment, the power of vested interests and ideas as discursive frames.

An iconic policy of these pro-market reforms, the National Competition Policy, implemented a suite of reforms seeking to improve the economic output of rural communities in favour of free- market principles. Among these reforms, the application of competitive neutrality of local government services became the lightning rod that embodied the free-market ethos of the reforms, and highlighted rural communities’ resistance to them. This group rejected the views that these reforms were pragmatic, questioning how they could be conceived to be in the public interest when they have been disastrously applied to areas with low market activity. The anger over competition reform peaked with two inquiries, and subsequent reports, into the socio- economic impacts of the National Competition Policy by the Productivity Commission and a

Senate Select Committee canvassing views on the perceived impacts of competitive tendering of local council services. The study articulated a significant research question of how these supposed pragmatic reforms were accepted to be in the public interest when they were so

215 detrimental to rural areas. This initial question provided a foundation from which the study could consider wider questions related to the theoretical understanding of the power of ideas and its impact on political debates.

This concluding chapter draws together the major themes addressed in this study, including the importance of the findings for future research. In the following sections, the chapter takes the reader through the analytical steps completed to reach the key findings and their contribution to the theoretical understanding of ideology and the role it played in legitimising the public interest to the detriment of those in rural Australia. The first section provides an overview of the findings, which situates the declining economic importance of rural communities and wider economic crises as a catalyst for change, calling for a significant shift in policy direction by successive governments. This section shows how the study challenged the commonly held explanations that these changes were pragmatic, by explaining how neoliberal ideas provided powerful vested interests with new policy solutions to their economic problems. The findings conceptualised neoliberal ideas as a coordinating mechanism to galvanise disparate political actors into a shared agenda to legitimise the public interest for the benefit of the market. The final section considers the implications of this research, including the unique contribution the study has made towards understanding the ideational power of an actually existing form of neoliberalism as an explanation for how competitive tendering was perceived to be in the public interest despite the policy exacerbating the socio-economic decline of rural Australia.

8.2 Overview of Key Findings

This study examined the events leading up to, and during, the public inquiries into competition reform to understand how the policy came to be accepted as being in the public interest. The thesis finds that the application of competition reforms was not a pragmatic and procedural tool

216 as claimed, but that its adoption was underpinned by an ideological discourse. Furthermore, the study examined the role of material events, vested interests and ideas in the political success of that discourse, and found that ideology acted as a coordinating mechanism enabling a number of disparate but powerful interests to mobilise under a shared agenda, which ultimately triumphed over rural concerns about the impact the reforms would have on their communities.

The breakdown of these findings progresses the theoretical understanding of ideational power to explain why, in the context of rural Australia, some ideas come to be accepted while others fail.

8.2.1 Finding one: The Public Interest within Competition Reform was shaped by

Neoliberal ideas

The critical discourse analysis of submissions to the public inquiries, from participants in the debate over competitive tendering of local council services, demonstrated that these reforms were not a pragmatic or procedural tool as often claimed but were underpinned by a neoliberal discourse. The study also found that total neoliberal hegemony was not present in the ongoing contestation of the reforms as previously claimed. Importantly, the findings highlighted an ideological contest over the public interest with neoliberal and social-liberal ideas providing discursive frames for a range of advocates and proponents of competition reform. The case study shows that neoliberal ideas served as a coordinating mechanism that gave a diverse and dispersed range of interests a shared narrative and agenda. Ideology framed the policy challenges and the material solutions available to powerful vested interests, which quashed concerns from rural Australia that the outcomes of competition reform would disproportionately favour those in areas able to support competitive markets.

In the first instance, the study found that the neoliberal framing of market incentives, through the introduction of more private competitors, provides greater value for money, and decreases prices for rural ratepayers and local businesses. The “cost” or “price” of a particular service was

217 a predominant theme throughout the codification of the data. Those aligned to neoliberalism believed the public interest was linked to any mechanism that drove the cost of local services down. This framing helped advocates, including the NCC, State Government and pro-business groups, to form a shared agenda whereby market incentives would produce cost reductions.

This grouping effectively argued that by increasing competition, vendors would be forced to provide incentives, including lower costs. For these actors, lowering the cost of producing local council services would result in lower input costs, creating savings for governments while further stimulating the economy for local businesses.

The marketisation of local communities to provide value for money was, through a social-liberal discourse, challenged by rural critics who argued that because of the limited market in areas of smaller populations, competitive tendering would lead to higher costs and a reduction in service quality. The critics, which included rural advocacy groups, rural councils and some state-based

National ministers of parliament highlighted the effects of burdensome administrative costs and private monopolies on local service provision without appropriate state regulation. For this group, the public interest firmly aligned with the state providing the service through a regular pricing structure. By identifying the actors within each competing framing of this theme, the study found that lowering prices for local council service provision through wider marketisation would directly benefit state and federal governments by reducing government expenditure and supporting private vendors to expand their businesses.

In the second instance, the study found that the neoliberal framing of allocative efficiency, through better market signals, argued that the community was best served when local production of services aligned with consumer preferences. The framing helped advocates such as state governments, regional and metropolitan councils and pro-business think tanks to form a shared agenda, which argued that wider marketisation could assist local councils to target

218 services that maximise service access to the community equal to the cost associated with producing the service. The codification of “market signals” and “efficiency” was found to be prevalent through the responses from this group, signalling how effective local councils could be for the local community in meeting consumer needs. Inherent in these themes is the neoliberal reshaping of community members as consumers of products rather than as part of a social collective. In this frame, traditional state-based services block signals of quality and consumer preference, which ultimately leads to waste and poor levels of service.

This was once again challenged by rural critics who framed their responses through the social- liberal discourse to argue that competitive tendering would contribute to the continued unravelling of the social fabric underpinning their rural communities. The critics, which included rural council bureaucrats and local community groups, highlighted that without state protection, large private firms would source their labour from larger cities, resulting in a rise in local unemployment, and the loss of societal roles on which rural centres depend. In this theme, the study found that the presumption that competitive tendering creates a level of allocative efficiency in which resources are better directed to improve local services would directly benefit larger councils and state governments who were forced to improve services with reduced funding.

In the third and final instance, the study found that the neoliberal framing of market fairness through the flexibility of competitive tendering allowed the private sector to compete on a level playing field for the betterment of the community. The framing helped advocates such as free- market think tanks, business lobby groups and commercial operators to form a shared agenda, which argued that the public sector benefited from unfair government subsidies that distorted the market and made it difficult for private providers, resulting in inflated costs for the provision of local council services. The framing of fairness was aligned to the conceptions of “freedom” and

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“choice” that traditional state-based services were argued to hinder. For these groups, the neoliberal framing essentially claims that any policy that restricts the freedom of capital or holds the ability to reduce choice presents the same challenges as a private monopoly, which is effectively unfair for public consumers.

Rural critics challenged this framing through a social-liberal discourse, which argued that wider marketisation creates a series of winners and losers unevenly distributed from the perspective of those living in rural areas. This theme was once again represented by local councils, but also includes some rural advocacy groups. These opponents contested the ability of the market to produce equitable outcomes, and believed that competitive tendering only favoured those living in areas with larger populations. In this theme, the study found that by allowing more private vendors into areas usually reserved for the state, multinational companies would be in a position to grow their business revenues.

The establishment of these three major themes and their alignment to different ideological framings shows that the reforms were not pragmatic, but heavily geared towards the predisposition that increasing market forces were in the public interest. The codification and establishment of themes from the reviews into the socio-economic impacts of competition reform show that the key decision makers had clear options that would benefit rural Australia but took another policy path based on a set of predetermined outcomes. The supposed practical outcomes of these reforms were clearly shaped by a neoliberal rhetoric in which transferring the production of local services from the state to the market would produce results inherent to the core conceptualisation of neoliberalism including elements such as allocative efficiency, consumer preference and incentivisation. Research explaining the public interest as producing practical outcomes or “doing what works” fails to recognise the way ideology can shape and decontest political discourse in favour of determinant or predetermined policy outcomes.

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The study also found that policy outcomes were based neither on normative neoliberal ideas nor on a total neoliberal hegemony, as others have claimed. The data shows a unique rhetoric whereby competition reform is situated within a growing form of federal regulatory governance.

Proponents of competition reform did not indicate a total removal of the state or deregulation of the economy, but rather the shared narrative called for a re-regulation (Konings, 2009) of the economy in favour of the values of economic liberalism. When reflecting on how neoliberalism shaped the public interest against those from rural Australia, a more embedded or “actually” existing form of ideological discourse is evident. This contributes to emerging political literature that shows political theory needs to move past the ideational theory of reforms and effects and embrace a conception of ideology that is malleable to the context in which it is applied.

8.2.2 Finding two: The Power of Neoliberal Ideas in the Rural Debate

Through the use of a structurationist framework, this study found that an actually existing form of neoliberalism established shared discursive frames for business interests and state-based decision makers to actively support the wider legitimation of competition reform by federal governments and the NCC. The power of neoliberal ideas was found to establish a shared agenda to effectively situate the application of competitive neutrality by local councils as a solution to a series of material problems facing a range of vested interests. In contrast, the study found that rural critics of competitive neutrality lacked an ideological frame to galvanise the disparate rural actors, or provide the same material benefits for the more powerful political actors. By aligning the key themes to the discourse used in the public submissions, the study found that the rural critics utilised a social-liberal frame to argue that increasing marketisation would create a series of winners and losers, disproportionately hurting those living in rural areas.

Under the social-liberal framing, the unfair outcomes of competitive neutrality would increase prices, drive unemployment, reduce the quality of service, and contribute to the hollowing out of

221 rural centres. However, because the traditional social-liberal framing situated the state as a primary provider of local council services, it could not provide the same material outcomes as those framed by advocates of wider marketisation, and therefore gained very little political support.

In the first instance, the analysis identified successive federal governments and regulators utilising the neoliberal discourse as a purported means to reverse the economic decline, and to position a globally focused economy as an important pillar for community growth. While the research background of this study situates the economic decline of the 1970s as the catalyst for wide-ranging reforms, the findings show that competition reform was introduced as a continuation of the initial reforms in an attempt to keep pace with the demands of economic liberalism. The neoliberal framing of the benefits of competition reform provided further solutions for federal governments by increasing the economic efficiency of state governments and reducing the costs of government provision of local services. The result was the continued move towards economic growth under the view that a protected economy was incompatible with previous microeconomic policies embracing marketisation. This study finds that, as a result, the neoliberal promotion of competition as a tool for economic growth and an efficient mode of service delivery assisted federal governments to progress a policy program that had commenced 20 years earlier.

Importantly, this economic intent was reinforced through federal regulators such as the NCC and the ACCC, which had a significant presence in the two reviews into the socio-economic impacts of competition reform. The study shows how federal regulators reinforced and legitimised competition reform through the implementation of tactical incentives such as payment schemes to states, which were enshrined in the Competition Principles Agreement, and the ongoing need for states to report on their ability to reach competitive neutrality targets. The study found that

222 federal regulators used neoliberal discourse to achieve the goals of the federal governments, and to encourage state governments to strengthen their economic output and reduce their reliance on local government expenditure. The study found the role of federal regulators in the rural debate over competition reform to be significant because of their ongoing enforcement of neoliberal outcomes, and control over state-based implementation to achieve competitive neutrality on behalf of federal governments.

In the second instance, the analysis identified that state and major regional governments adopted the neoliberal discourse because of the perceived benefits of reducing input costs and increasing service quality as a result of implementing competitive tendering. The study shows that these two groups championed the outcomes of competitive tendering because it would provide a new mechanism to shift the costs of local service provision to the private sector, while also driving their own internal costs lower. As a result, these governments were able to lower their local rates and taxes while stimulating localised business activity, further reducing reliance on state governments. Further to this, by implementing market competition for these services, the study found that local councils sought to improve service delivery while reducing their budget allocation through the use of competitive tendering, and the suite of incentives provided to private firms. For this group, the promise of greater economic activity through the implementation of wider marketisation was a strong incentive to support competition reform.

Similar to the motivations of the federal government, the neoliberal framing of the material benefits of increasing competition for basic council services would shift the perceived perceptions of local governments as overly bureaucratic and costly. In doing so, there would be reduced costs throughout the supply chain of local services, spurring economic growth and empowering local businesses.

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In the final instance, the study found that a grouping of business interests utilised the neoliberal discourse to champion competition reform because of its ability to shift funding from the state to the private sector. The analysis identified a similar neoliberal discourse used by a range of pro- business advocates including free-market think tanks, national and state-based business councils, local chambers of commerce and private business owners who provided a service similar to local councils. The neoliberal discourse supported the ongoing claim that the protection from market forces enjoyed by local governments was essentially unfair, and that for wider economic growth, private vendors should be able to tender for services that would be provided under commercial arrangements. Key to this was the profit maximisation incentive, which pushed for competition reform, and the ability to increase private market share through access to public monopolies. The study posits that by pushing for wider competitive neutrality, the business community was strengthened in terms of market capitalisation, as was the ability of large national service providers to gain more ownership of the production chain underpinning the delivery of local council services. This created strong material motivations for this group to adopt the neoliberal discourse and align with governments and federal regulators in shifting the ownership of council services to private vendors. Neoliberalism can be seen to frame a material solution to expose services, previously closed to business interests, to a competitive market.

In contrast, the study found that rural critics of competitive tendering lacked an ideological frame that could provide the same material benefits for the more powerful political actors. The findings show that the social-liberal framing of markets in rural communities was focused primarily on the social and community impacts of competition reform. The analysis of the discourse used by rural advocates showed that they had no real links to power, key decision makers or lobby groups.

The study identified that rural actors, including localised community groups, rural councils, state- based representatives of the National Party, and local government council associations,

224 predominantly called for reinvestment in state-based services to protect local communities, and the roles local councils played in the development of rural centres.

At the centre of this critique of competition reform was the view that the outcomes of competitive tendering broaden inequality between rural Australia and larger population areas. For these political actors, it was imperative that the unique identity and social roles of rural communities be supported through mechanisms such as cross-subsidisation and state intervention. The study showed that rural critics lamented the lack of consideration for support outside of the economic sphere, such as the protection of social relations that underpin rural communities, and the role of individuals in the production of cooperative spaces. In doing so, the study identified that the passionate criticism of competition reform could not provide policy solutions to the economic problems of powerful interests, and was framed more as a protest to market reform and a call to return to the traditional protection of rural communities.

Neoliberal ideas were found to be a powerful force in the rural debate over competition reform because they provided a range of political actors with new discursive frames to interpret solutions to their policy problems. These groups used a neoliberal discourse that matched the ongoing public sentiment that governments had become bloated bureaucracies, incapable of reducing costs or improving the quality of service. Collectively, these disparate actors used a highly unified discourse to make a case that the introduction of competitive neutrality would reduce costs, improve services to the community, and be fairer for private firms delivering similar functions. In comparison, traditional social-liberal ideas had lost their public importance and were no longer deemed viable as an effective way to continue Australia’s economic growth. With reference to the work of Gramsci (Bates, 1975), neoliberal ideas were found to have almost established a form of culture hegemony, whereby traditional social-liberal ideas were considered defunct and illegitimate. In this, the study showed how neoliberal ideas captured what was

225 accepted to be in the public interest by effectively positioning these ideas as the only option available.

The findings show that advocates of state-based protection of rural communities had shifted considerably over a period of thirty years as the declining economic importance of the agriculture industry also resulted in traditional conceptions of the public interest shifting away from rural communities. Through the powerful dissemination of neoliberal ideas, rural communities were forced to implement new forms of governance to transform these communities with increased values of self-reliance, economic rationalisation, and local forms of consumer choice.

8.3 The Importance of the Study’s Findings

The thesis found that the application of competition reforms was not a pragmatic and procedural tool as claimed, but that its adoption was underpinned by ideological discourse. Furthermore, it examined the role of material events, interests and ideas in the political success of that discourse. The study finds that ideology coordinated disparate, but powerful, vested interests to mobilise together to support competitive tendering, which ultimately triumphed over rural concerns about the impact the reforms would have on their communities. The findings of this study have strong implications for future political researchers who wish to understand how political change took place, and conceptualise the relative importance of ideas in the policy transformation of rural communities. The applicability of an actually existing form of neoliberalism in the case study provides a powerful framework from which to better understand how ideas function in the greater interplay between the material environment and the role of vested interests. Importantly, this study advances the role of ideology while again stressing the need to view neoliberalism and its effects within the context in which they have been applied. In doing so, the study also advances the current understanding of how neoliberalism presents itself

226 differently from popular normative conceptions of deregulation and a reduction in the role of the state.

The findings of this study provide fresh evidence of the neoliberal turn in rural Australia, and uniquely, provide new research into the role of actually existing ideology in the context of rural change and the series of reforms that contributed to the socio-economic decline of rural

Australia. Progressing the foundational work of Brenner and Theodore, Blyth, Campbell and

Freeden, and the local work of Cahill, Chester, Bell and Edwards, the study explored the power of ideas as a coordinating function to weave the economic benefits of restructuring the state towards the values of market competition and consumer choice. In many ways, the study also progresses the work of Cheshire, Botterill, Tonts and Haslam-McKenzie, which explained how neoliberalism has assisted in decoupling rural communities from their economic base, and restructuring rural communities towards a discourse of self-reliance. Importantly, this study is one of the first to fully identify discourses of self-reliance, providing a fuller account of neoliberalism, and positioning it away from the normative version, presenting an ideological rhetoric that highlights the role of the state towards the freedom of capital, and the embeddedness of market re-regulation as opposed to the traditional view of deregulation and the removal of the state.

8.3.1 Actually Existing Neoliberalism, the Public Interest and Rural Australia

This study refutes ideas-centred conceptions of the neoliberal transformation of rural Australia, and argues that future research into the neoliberal turn in Australia must recognise that neoliberal ideas are dynamic and shaped by the geographical and material contexts from which they’re activated. The study establishes a striking difference between neoliberalism in theory and the practical outcomes identified in the rural debate over competition reform. Specifically,

227 the neoliberalism evident in the debate does not situate the market and the state as diametrically opposed to each other, but rather through the particular legitimisation of the public interest, neoliberal ideas were able to reorganise the state toward new forms of economic relations

(Brenner & Theodore, 2002). The role of the market, as conceived by proponents of competitive tendering, was not intended to function autonomously or become a natural state of being for citizens (Cahill, 2013), but rather positioned as a function of the state to develop and reproduce the components of capitalism. Importantly, the study describes the presence of an actually existing neoliberalism which did not require the removal of the state, but rather an expansion of the state to drive the values and outcomes of private competition. The study calls for further research into how a more embedded form of neoliberalism has shaped the state as a mechanism for expanding capital, perceived to be to the detriment of rural communities that were built on egalitarian values.

The study highlights that the rhetoric and discourse established by actually existing neoliberalism differ greatly from the normative neoliberal discourse predominant in political theory. The study shows that the rhetoric of neoliberal discourse was less about the deregulation of the economy to free capital, and more about the re-regulation of the economy in favour of marketisation. The study highlights how a form of expansionist federalism through regulators such as the NCC effectively shaped the rollout of competition reform through state-based interventions. This conception of re-regulation shifts the understanding of the neoliberal turn in rural politics, and establishes a new form of political discourse which rejects policy programs like deregulation and the total privatisation of government services. In this instance, the study found that neoliberal ideas produced discourses that empowered the state to restructure the economy rather than minimising its importance. The identification of new forms of neoliberal discourses that frame the public interest in favour of the re-regulation of local economies warrants further investigation. The findings of this study provide future researchers with an important case study

228 on the neoliberal turn in rural politics, which forms a basis for exploring how the re-regulation of local communities has led to declining socio-economic outcomes for rural Australians, and shifted away from the view that rural Australia is in the public interest.

This study identified that the practical outcomes of neoliberalism in the rural debate varied considerably compared to the popular conception of normative neoliberal ideas. In the context of rural Australia, the outcomes of neoliberal reform have not been static, but rather have undergone an ongoing process of neoliberalisation, through the uneven “creative destruction”

(Brenner & Theodore, 2002) of traditional industry and community protectionism. Specifically, the study does not articulate a “one-size fits all” application of neoliberal ideas, but identifies that policies like competitive tendering created a series of winners and losers which were inequitably distributed towards those living in rural areas. The outcomes of actually existing neoliberalism are described as geographically uneven, with findings of this study arguing that neoliberal ideas have been activated unilaterally, which has contributed to the restructuring of political and economic power between those in rural areas and metropolitan areas. In the context of how the public interest was legitimised in favour of competition reform, despite being detrimental to those in rural areas, the study shows that rural communities have undergone a form of “market-driven sociospational transformation” (Brenner & Theodore, 2002, p. 353).The study finds that despite the rhetoric of competitive tendering being in the public interest, the practical outcomes of actually existing neoliberalism are purposeful uneven economic distribution.

This study posits that there is little research available to support theories of rural political change through the lens of actually existing neoliberalism. While the neoliberal turn has been well established as the predominant explanation of how competition reform is accepted to be in the public interest, the version of neoliberalism that exists in the case study shows new forms of political discourse. Future researchers seeking to better understand how neoliberal ideas have

229 shaped the fortunes of those in rural areas need to explore how ideology has been used to frame the re-regulation of communities to embrace forms of consumer competition, market fairness and self-sufficiency.

8.3.2 Ideational power in shaping the Public Interest

The use of structuration theory and the concept of an actually existing form of neoliberalism provides a valuable framework to explain the power of ideas in political and economic transformation. The study progresses emerging literature that examines a resurgence in the role of ideas to shape the beliefs of individuals and groups in inciting action, while also legitimising political events against counter forces (Freeden, 2003; Carstensen, 2010; Carstensen &

Schmidt, 2016). The study presents a practical example of the work of Edwards (2018), who argues that ideology can “sort through competing claims of stakeholders and set a course for governing” (p. 753). Edwards maintains that to be successful in a political debate, and remain protected against pressure from the opposition, actors need to establish a shared view of material problems and appropriate solutions. Ideology was found to establish what Campbell calls “systems of symbolic meaning codified in language that influences how actors observe, interpret and reason in particular social settings” (p. 11). However, the study’s findings show a need to progress the ideas-centred explanation for the power of ideas, and provide more practical examples of how ideas coordinate actors in political debates.

In the context of ideational power within Australian politics, this study agrees with the central position of Cahill (2013), Edwards (2012) and Blyth (2002), who argued that researchers wanting to better explain the rise of neoliberal reforms must also address the material context from which ideas arise, and the roles of vested interests who seek to benefit from them. In a uniquely rural context, the study posits that competitive tendering was implemented because it

230 advanced the material interests of powerful stakeholders using ideology to form a shared agenda for change. Reflecting on the work of Edwards (2018) and Campbell and Pedersen

(2001), these actors used a neoliberal discourse to create a shared view of the economic problems inherent with the protection of local community services, and position private competition as the appropriate solution. In this conception of ideational power, economic problems, coupled with a new ideological discourse through which powerful business interests were able to frame problems and solutions, were essential conditions for the political success of neoliberal reforms in rural areas. The study provides a unique example of how ideas shaped the public interest, to the detriment of those in rural communities, through ideology’s ability to coordinate collective action.

This study situated the importance of ideology in the political success of competition reform and progresses beyond merely acknowledging the existence of ideas in politics, but shows how ideology plays a coordinating function. The case study clearly shows a practical example of

Campbell and Pedersen (2001), Freeden (2003) and Edwards’ (2012) conceptions of ideation coordination, which argues that ideas provide actors with symbols and concepts with which to frame solutions to policy problems in acceptable language that can be translated into everyday language. Campbell has consistently argued that actors adopt new frames from which to propose new solutions that are integral to political and economic change (Campbell & Pedersen,

2001, p. 11). Through a structrutionalist conceptual lens, the study identifies how ideas can legitimise new policy directions, while at the same time, de-legitimising policy alternatives.

The case study reflects the theory of ideas as a powerful coordinating mechanism, as the findings show that neoliberal ideas galvanised a coalition of business interests, state governments and think tanks to frame competitive reform as an effective way to bolster

231 economic productivity, and reduce the financial burden on local governments. Evidently, these discursive frames were adopted by state and federal decision makers, and reinforced by regulators such as the NCC as the public interest became strongly aligned to the benefits of material growth for the nation, rejecting the concerns of those living in rural Australia. Ideology affords flexibility to create a consistent frame through which to provide decision makers with new policy alternatives, with the study adding value by identifying how ideas can coordinate disparate groups under a shared agenda, forming formidable power blocs to overcome community opposition.

The coordinating function of ideology is also understood through the work of Blyth (2002) who contended that ideology plays the role of discursive weapons that facilitate collective action to attack and restructure existing institutions. The study found a consistent agenda for neoliberal actors seeking to transform the role of local councils and restructure them through a program of increased marketisation. The case study shows how neoliberal ideology legitimised the new intent of local councils, while framing their traditional form as bloated, inefficient and expensive. As Blyth

(2002) contends, “by challenging the accepted view of the economic world upon which existing institutions and the distributional outcomes they make, such ideas delegitimise those institutions”

(p. 40). Neoliberal ideas were used by a range of political actors to restructure the traditional functions of local government, paving the way to introduce new interpretations of local government, and positioning local citizens as consumers. The study shows that the decline of the economy was used as a catalyst to review the economic viability of local councils, and restructure the role of local government towards marketisation. Neoliberal ideas were found to delegitimise the importance of the social or community aspects of service delivery because they were considered to contribute to economic decline.

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Ideas played a powerful role in the rural debate over competition reform because of the role they played in coordinating powerful interests, and drawing into question the legitimacy of traditional institutions. Progressing the ideas-centred explanation of political and economic transformations in rural Australia, this study has shown how, and under what circumstances, ideas are powerful.

Ideational power, in the context of the rural debate over the implementation of competition reform, is theorised to be contingent on a decline in the material environment allowing for new ideas, and the coordination of a range of interests who will benefit economically from the adoption of new policy ideas. Specifically, this study found that the declining economic importance of rural communities was a major contributor to the transition to the marketisation of their communities. As governments and businesses relied much less on agriculture as the country’s primary source of income, they adopted new ideas which resulted in the removal of protection and the introduction of new forms of rural governance. The adoption of actually existing neoliberal ideas to shift the notion of the public interest away from rural Australia and traditional forms of protection were deemed powerful because of the coordination of disparate economic interests in adopting the benefits of competition reform. These findings present new ways of exploring rural change by addressing how ideas are able to permeate political debates, and frame new policy solutions to solve economic problems.

8.3.3 The Importance of the Public Interest in Rural Transformation

The concept of the public interest has been used to legitimise the political and economic transformations of Australia for the past forty years. However, there is little research available to provide sufficient detail about what shapes the conceptions of the public interest, and if there are competing views, how one conception of the public interest can dominate over the others. The case study on the implementation of competitive tendering in rural areas focused on a large range of discourses which considered how the increase in private vendors to service local communities could be conceived to be in the public interest. The findings indicated that while

233 few argued about what the public interest is (a fundamental principle used by decision makers to evaluate benefits), there were divergent views on what was in the public interest and who ultimately benefited. The study’s findings agreed with authors such as Hess and Adams (2003) and McDonald (2007) who stated that the public interest, in the context of competition reform, was shaped by the needs of private interests and became a tool to legitimise the radical marketisation of local communities. However, this study is the first to trace how this took place, and demonstrate that structuration theory provides a useful conceptual framework to progress early ideational and material perspectives of what is in the public interest.

This study highlighted that future research on the public interest within comparative politics must address the material conditions that precede new policy ideas. The fortunes of rural Australians were seen to be in the public interest because of the economic importance of the agriculture industry to the national economy. For the majority of the twentieth century, successive governments tackled the high cost of servicing sparse rural areas through cross-subsidisation and policies focused on the wellbeing of rural communities, explained to be in the nation’s interest. The study situated a range of policies that championed the developmental role of the state, and promoted the belief that the market needed to be regulated to constrain power concentration and market excesses, which at the time was deemed necessary to ensure vibrant rural communities. This study posited that for most of the twentieth century, rural Australia held a considerable amount of political power because of its economic importance, resulting in a uniform approach to the public interest, aligned with the regulation of the market to ensure equitable policy outcomes to meet the needs of those outside of metropolitan areas.

Statist development of rural communities shifted when material conditions began to decline. The study argues that the declining terms of trade for the agricultural industry, and the emergence of a stagnant economy mixed with inflationary pressures, represented a point in time when

234 powerful interests questioned the traditional policy programs. At the forefront of these new reforms were large pastoralist groups such as the National Farmers’ Federation, and the

Australian Labor Party, who pivoted in their approach from state development through protectionism to being committed to market outcomes. As a result of the economic conditions of the time, the role of the state was fundamentally altered through vast intergovernmental agreements and mechanisms such as the accord and the NCP. Using the economic decline as a catalyst for change, the study showed that key decision makers perceived it to be in the public interest to shift from being one of the most protected economies in the OECD to being the most liberalised. As the study shows, market reform increased the economic productivity of the country but resulted in the decoupling of agricultural communities from their economic base. No longer seen as being in the public interest, rural communities have progressively been considered to be the policy losers of continued market reform.

Despite the vocal outcry from rural Australia, market reforms such as the introduction of the NCP have been legitimised as in the public interest. The findings provide future research with an explanatory framework to consider how ideas shape policy solutions once traditional paradigms are no longer economically viable. In the case of competitive tendering, neoliberal ideology rose to dominance because of its ability to frame the economic benefits of allowing private vendors to deliver local council services. Moving past traditional explanations of how the public interest was shaped during Australian political transformations, the study calls for the political literature to explore structuration theory to explain the relative importance of new ideas, the material environment of the time and how political actors use ideology to further restructure existing institutions to reflect their interests. This explanatory framework moves past a dichotomy of the ideational or the material to focus on what Bell (2011), Campbell and Pedersen (2001) and Blyth

(2002) attest is the significance of wider structural variables which signify the need for change and shape political outcomes. While authors such as Cahill (2013) have taken this approach in

235 explaining the neoliberal turn in wider Australian politics, this study argued that there is very little application in rural politics. The study has theorised the power of actually existing neoliberal ideas to account for the political transformation of rural communities in the public interest.

8.4 Conclusion

An actually existing form of neoliberalism has been identified as the primary explanation for why competitive tendering was seen to be in the public interest, despite exacerbating socio-economic decline in rural areas. Rejecting assumptions of pragmatism, and applying critical discourse analysis of the competing arguments in key public documents, this study identified ideological contestation over the public benefits of competition reform. Comprehensive analysis presents two unique findings which contribute to wider research regarding the power of ideas as a useful heuristic to explain how the neoliberal turn has shaped rural policy settings over the past 40 years. This unique research shows how, within the context of competing ideological discourses, the neoliberal ideology framed the public interest in favour of re-regulation of rural communities towards market outcomes. The study also contributes to a wider body of political thought that challenges the ideas-centred theory of the neoliberal turn by highlighting the significance of more contextualised and embedded forms of neoliberalism that rely on structural variables, seeking the emergence of new ideas, and confirming the roles of vested interests that would gain economically from the re-regulation of the state towards the liberalisation of capital.

This chapter concludes the study by presenting the main findings of the thesis, and the implications for further research into the power of ideas to explain the political transformations of rural communities. The conclusion summarised the first finding of the study which argued that the public interest found within the implementation of competitive tendering was not a pragmatic or procedural tool, but was underpinned by neoliberal discourse. Through the identification of a series of themes found within public submissions into reviews of the socio-economic impacts of

236 competition reform, the study articulates that neoliberal discourses were able to frame components of the public interest such as value for money, community development and market fairness in favour of competitive tendering. The findings show that despite having alternative policy options, governments progressed the marketisation of local governments. The second finding of the study argued that neoliberal ideas were successful because they provided a disparate group of interests with a shared policy agenda, providing solutions to their economic issues. Neoliberal ideas were able to form a powerful pro-market bloc which triumphed over concerns about the impact the reforms would have on rural communities.

The study concluded by presenting the uniqueness of the research, and the implications of the findings. Specifically, this chapter has discussed the need for further research into rural impacts of an actually existing form of neoliberalism. The version of neoliberalism found within the study differed greatly from its normative, ideas-centred conception, which was focused on the removal of the state in favour of deregulation and privatisation. The ideational power of actually existing neoliberalism was found to restructure the state and government institutions to reorganise the economy in favour of market outcomes. Through a conception of re-regulation, the study shifts the current understanding of the neoliberal turn in rural Australia to establish a new form of political theory which identifies that the decline in the economic importance of rural communities, coupled with the presence of new ideological discourse through which actors were able to frame new forms of state intervention, were essential conditions for the rise of policies which were detrimental to those in rural communities. The findings invite future political theorists to explore the dynamic role ideas have played in rural communities no longer considered to be in the public interest.

237

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280

Appendix 1a Submissions to the Senate Select Committee on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy

No. Individual/Organisation

1 Holroyd City Council

2 Mr K.G. Goodman

2A Mr K. G. Goodman

2B Mr K. G. Goodman

2C Mr K. G. Goodman

3 Nexus Australia

4 Mr Geoff Taylor

5 Mr Robert Hewett

6 Mr Greg Hoy

7 Australian Finance Conference

8 National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia

8A National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia

9 Mr David McDonald

10 Mr Robert Draper

11 Brandon Engineering Hyne

12 Mr C.D. Young

13 Mr Hugh Kingsley

14 Mr Ian Westoby

15 Mr Neil Weller

16 Ms Carol O’Donnell

16A Ms Carol O'Donnell

17 Shire of Jerramungup

281

18 Mrs S Edwards

19 The Brands Coalition

20 Southern Region Women in Dairying Group

21 Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale

22 Australian Cane Farmers Association (ACFA)

23 National Civic Council

24 Shire of Carnamah

25 Professor Philip Laird

25A Professor Philip Laird

26 Ms Fay Conroy

27 Institute of Public Affairs Ltd

28 Ms Vera Raymer

29 Remote & Isolated Pharmacists Association Australia Inc

30 Ms Astrid Herlihy

31 Mr Timothy Fisher

31A Mr Timothy Fisher

32 M/- Pat Kerlin

33 REAMP ACT Inc

34 BEST Publicity & Liaison Volunteer

34A BEST Publicity & Liaison Volunteer

35 Murrumbidgee Irrigation

35A Murrumbidgee Irrigation

36 Mr Ian P Boileau

37 Ms S. G. Greentree

38 Mr Arthur Watson

39 People Together Project

40 Mr & Mrs Williams

282

41 Caloundra Community Centre Inc.

42 Freedom From Violence Australia Inc.

43 Mr J.W. Liesker

44 The Western Australian Broiler Growers Association

Inc.

45 Mr N.A. Birch

46 Insurance Council of Australia Ltd

47 Mr Dennis Clarke

48 Youth Coalition of the ACT

49 Australian Dental Association Inc

50 Australian Labor Party

51 Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation

52 Mr K.R. Collyer

52A Mr K.R. Collyer

53 Mr Jock Douglas AO

54 National Tertiary Education Industry Union (NTEU)

55 Hastings River Water users’ Association

56 Dorset Council

57 The City of Newcastle

58 Queensland Nurses’ Union

59 Palumbo Holdings Pty Ltd

59A Palumbo Holdings Pty Ltd

60 Walcha Council

61 Tenants’ Union of Queensland

62 The Association of Independent Retirees Inc.

63 Good Shepherd

64 District Council of Grant

283

65 Mrs. M Lawler

66 Bombala Council

67 Australian Doctors’ Fund

68 Queensland Farmers’ Federation

69 Australian Council of Professions Ltd

70 Ms Lyndsay Brooker

71 Macarthur Community Care Forum

72 Perry Shire Council

73 Mr Michael Bryan

74 Medical & Surgical Referral Directory

75 Sunshine Coast Community Services Council Inc

76 The Royal Australian Institute of Architects

77 Earth Sanctuaries Ltd

78* Grains Council of Australia

79 Cootamundra Shire Council

80 Ms Carr & Smethurst

80A Ms Jan Carr and Lillian Smethurst

81 Dr Alan Williams

82 The Western Australian Farmers Federation (Inc)

83 Rural Doctors Association of Australia Ltd

84 Dr Phil Toner

85 Progressive Labour Party

86 Potato Growers Association of WA

87 Australian Education Union

88 Australian Conservation Foundation

89 A Group of Concerned Dairy Women

90 Chicken Meat Group

284

91 Professor John Quiggin

92 Howie & Maher

93 Mrs June Ayres

94 Mid North Coast Regional Council Social Development

95 United Firefighters Union of Australia

96 Co-operative Federation of Victoria Ltd

97 Canegrowers

98 Coles Supermarkets

98A Coles Supermarkets

99 NSW Minerals Council Ltd

100 Social Action Office

101 Australian Capital Territory Totalisator Agency Board (ACTTAB)

102 Australian Justice For All

103 Australian Dental Prosthetists & Dental Technicians Society

104 Richard Sanders

105 Mr Stewart MacDonald

106 Economic Reform Australia (SA Division) & The Conservation Council of SA

107 Dr Christopher Clay

108 Mr Ian Battle

109 Wauchope Branch, Dairy Farmers Association

110 Cullen & Couper Pty Ltd

111 Medical Defence Conspiracy (MDC)

112 Mr Hal Pritchard

113 Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of Councils

114 Mr Peter S MacPhillamy

115 Australian Physiotherapy Association

116 Peagrowers Co-operative Ltd

285

117 South Sydney Community Transport

118 Australian Chicken Growers’ Council Ltd

119 Mr & Mrs A.N. Campbell

120 Mr G.L. Smith

121 South Australia Community Health Research Unit

122 Redfern Legal Centre

123 Premier of Victoria

124 Australian Grain Industry Taskforce

125 ACT Churches Council

126 Community Development Office

127 Tasmanian Chicken Growers

128 Mid NorthCoast Regional Neighbourhood Forum

129 Australian Association of Surgeons

130 Victorian National Parks Association Inc.

131 State Chamber of Commerce

132 The New South Wales Council of Professions

133 CoachTrans Australia

134 Western Australian Water Users Coalition

134A Western Australian Water Users Coalition (Inc)

134B Western Australian Water Users Coalition (Inc).

135 Riverina Regional Development Board

136 Western Australian Municipal Association

137 Community Futures Network

138 The Institution of Engineers, Australia

139 QLD Chicken Growers Association Inc

140 Australian Association of Surgeons

141 Australian Council of Building Design Professions Ltd

286

142 QLD Department of Transport & Main Roads, Strategic Liaison Committee

143 Australian Medical Association (AMA)

145 National Competition Council

145A National Competition Council

146 NSW Dairy Farmers Association, Wagga Wagga & Tumut Branches

147 Motor Trades Association of Australia

147A Motor Trades Association of Australia

148 Shire of York

149 M/- W.A. Edwards

150 Municipal Association of Victoria

151 M/- N. Taylor

152 Conservation Council of the South-East Region

153 Shire of Kondinin

154 Australian Association of Social Workers

155 Consumer Law Centre VIC

155A Consumer Law Centre of Victoria Limited

156 Australian Plaintiff Lawyers Association

157 Public Sector Research Centre, UNSW

157A Public Sector Research Centre

158 Townsville City Council

159 Shire of Dandaragan

160 Public Interest Advocacy Centre

160A Public Interest Advocacy Centre

161 QLD Produce, Seed & Grain Merchants’ Association

162 The Treasury

163 Australian Services Union

164 Federation of Community Legal Centres (Vic) Inc

287

165 WA Government

166 Brotherhood of St Laurence

167 Royal Australian Planning Institute

168 Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission

169 Australian Medical Council Incorporated

170 National Trust

171 New South Wales Teachers Federation

172 Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations Incorporated

173 The Concerned Farmers Group

174 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

175 National Farmers’ Federation

176 Queensland Dairy Farmers Organisation & The Dairy Farmers Association of NSW

177 Ms De-Anne Kelly, M.P.

178 Rail Tram and Bus Industry Union

179 Animal Liberation Act

180 Animals Australia

181 NSW Young Lawyers

181A NSW Young Lawyers

182 The Newsagents Association of South Australia Ltd

183 Family Planning Western Australia

184 Dr. Chris Sotiropoulos

185 The Pharmacy Guild of Australia

186 Buoyant Economies

187 Maroochy Shire Council

188 Great Southern Area Consultative Committee

189 Upper Murrumbidgee Catchment Coordinating Committee

288

190 Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry – Australia

191 Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry

192 Rural Committee Liberal Party of Australia WA Division

193 Australian Council for Infrastructure Development Limited

194 United Energy

195 Council for the National Interest

196 WA Dairy Industry

197 Committee of Presidents of Medical Colleges

198 Balanced State Development Working Group

199 Department of Premier and Cabinet

200 Transport and Regional Services

201 Goldfields Esperance Development Commission

202 Queensland Rural Women's Network Inc.

203 Environment Australia

204 Kalgoorlie-Boulder Chamber of Commerce

205 Ad-A-Cab Australia Ltd Freehill Hollingdale & Page

206 Cabonne Council

207 ACT Government

208 Australian Greenhouse Office

209 Norma Flint & Morgan Graham

210 Normandy Mining Limited

211 South Australian Government

212 ACT Taxi Drivers Association

213 City of Port Lincoln

214 City of Bunbury

215 Nambucca Shire Council

216 Copmanhurst Shire Council

289

217 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission

218 Royal Australasian College of Surgeons

219 Anglicare Australia

219A Anglicare Australia

220 Water Corporation

221 Mr Frank Harman of Murdoch University

222 Wollongong Youth Accommodation and Support Association

223 Weddin Shire Council

224 Department of Treasury WA

225 Queensland Government

225A Queensland Government

290

Appendix 1b Public Hearings to the Senate Select Committee on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy

No Individual/Organisation Location/Date

1 Mr Christopher Mark Bell, Policy Manager, Canberra, 26 March 1999 Finance and Microeconomic Reform, Australian Local Government Association

2 Ms Deborah Cope, Deputy Executive Director, Canberra, 26 March 1999 National Competition Council

3 Mr Neil Fisher, Executive Director, Grains Council Canberra, 26 March 1999 of Australia

4 Mr Peter Greagg, Manager, Market Structure Unit, Canberra, 26 March 1999 Structural Reform Division, The Treasury

5 Mr Donald Hunter, Executive Director, Australian Canberra, 26 March 1999 Council of Professions

6 Mr Erich Janssen, Acting Secretary General, Canberra, 26 March 1999 Australian Medical Association

7 Ms Nicole Masters, Acting General Manager, Canberra, 26 March 1999 Structural Reform Division, The Treasury

8 Mr Adam McKissack, Manager, Communications Canberra, 26 March 1999 and Energy Markets Unit, Structural Reform Division, The Treasury

9 Mr Gary Potts, Executive Director, Market Groups, Canberra, 26 March 1999 The Treasury

10 Mr Graeme Samuel, President, National Canberra, 26 March 1999 Competition Council

11 Mr Fred Argy, Visiting Fellow, Public Policy, Canberra, 30 March 1999 Australian National University

12 Mr Ross Jones, Economic Consultant, Australian Canberra, 30 March 1999 Competition and Consumer Commission

291

13 Mr Hank Spier, General Manager, Australian Canberra, 30 March 1999 Competition and Consumer Commission

14 Mr John Bradley, Ministerial Policy Adviser, Office Brisbane, 7 April 1999 of Treasurer, Queensland Government

15 Professor Arthur Brownlea, AM, Chairman, Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Strategic Liaison Committee, Queensland Departments of Transport and Main Roads

16 Miss Jacqueline Gittins, Research Officer, Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Strategic Liaison Committee, Queensland Departments of Transport and Main Roads

17 Mr Ralph Leutton, Chief Executive Officer, Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Queensland Dairyfarmers Organisation & New South Wales Dairy Farmers Association

18 Mr Bruce McCallum, Director, Performance Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Division, Queensland Treasury

19 Ms Beth Mohle, Project Officer, Queensland Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Nurses Union

20 Mr Anthony Parsons OAM, Executive Officer, Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Queensland Produce, Seed and Grain Merchants Association Inc

21 Ms Louise Peach, Chairperson, Sunshine Coast Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Community Services Council Inc and Community Developer/Manager, Caloundra Community Centre Inc

22 Professor John Quiggin Brisbane, 7 April 1999

23 Ms Amanda Richards, Occupational Health and Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Safety Officer, Queensland Nurses Union

24 Ms Catherine Taylor, Director, Economic Policy Brisbane, 7 April 1999 and Projects, Policy Coordination Division, Department of Premier and Cabinet, Queensland Government

25 Mr Rodney Wolski, Member, Management Brisbane, 7 April 1999 Committee, Queensland Produce, Seed and Grain Merchants Association Inc

26 Mr Peter Borrows, Works Manager, Ipswich City Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Council

27 Mrs Jean Bray, Mayor, Esk Shire Council Brisbane, 8 April 1999

292

28 Mr Graham Laurence, Executive Director, Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Queensland Farmers Federation

29 Mr Brett de Chastel, Acting Chief Executive Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Officer, Ipswich City Council

30 Mr Harry Gauvin, Finance Manager, Esk Shire Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Council

31 Mr Charles Hamilton, Executive Officer, Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Queensland Chicken Growers Association

32 Ms Sue Mihovilovich, Manager, Economic and Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Public Policy, Local Government Association of Queensland

33 Mr Danny Mullins, Chief Executive Officer, Esk Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Shire Council

34 Mr Ian Robinson, Economist and Research Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Officer, Queensland Farmers Federation

35 Mr David Spearritt, Finance Manager, Ipswich City Brisbane, 8 April 1999 Council

36 Mr Lennard Brajkovich, President, Western Perth, 17 May 1999 Australian Broiler Growers Association

37 Mr Murray Brown, Chief Executive Officer, Shire of Perth, 17 May 1999 Jerramungup

38 Mr Thomas Carstairs, Executive Officer, Potato Perth, 17 May 1999 Growers Association of WA

39 Mr Paul Carter, Economics Executive Officer, Perth, 17 May 1999 Western Australian Farmers Federation

40 Dr Christopher Clay, Fellow of the Australasian Perth, 17 May 1999 College of Dermatologists

41 Ms Nicola Cusworth, Chief Economist, Chamber Perth, 17 May 1999 of Commerce and Industry of WA

42 Mr Robert Da Prato, President, Poultry Farmers Perth, 17 May 1999 Association of Western Australia

43 Miss Shaheen De Souza, Policy Manager Finance Perth, 17 May 1999 and Taxation, Western Australian Municipal Association

44 Mr Colin Mann, Executive Officer, Poultry Farmers Perth, 17 May 1999 Association of Western Australia

293

45 Mr Gary Mannion, Project Leader, Regional Perth, 17 May 1999 Development Division, Department of Commerce and Trade

46 Mr John Martin, Director Strategy, Western Perth, 17 May 1999 Australian Municipal Association

47 Mr Ian Mickel, Vice-President, Western Australian Perth, 17 May 1999 Municipal Association

48 Mr Stuart Morgan, Chairman, WA Perth, 17 May 1999 Government/Regional Development Council,

49 Mr Terry Packard, Vice President, Western Perth, 17 May 1999 Australian Broiler Growers Association

50 Mr Domenick Palumbo, Palumbo Holdings Pty Ltd Perth, 17 May 1999

51 Mr Lyndon Rowe, Chief Executive, Chamber of Perth, 17 May 1999 Commerce and Industry of WA

52 Mr Gregory Weller, Chairman, Rural Committee of Perth, 17 May 1999 the Liberal Party of Western Australia

53 Mr David Wren, Secretary/Treasurer, Western Perth, 17 May 1999 Australia Water Uers Coalition

54 Mr Paul Ausburn, Board Member, Pilbara Perth, 18 May 1999 Development Commission

55 Mr Colin Bosustow, Perth, 18 May 1999

56 Mr Franco Camarri, Senior Vice-President, Dairy Perth, 18 May 1999 Section, WA Farmers Federation

57 Mr Eliot Fisher, Chief Executive Officer, Shire of Perth, 18 May 1999 York

58 Mr Arthur Green, Perth, 18 May 1999

59 Mr Dennis Martin, Projects and Infrastructure, Perth, 18 May 1999 Pilbara Development Commission

60 Ms Anne Sinclair, Principal Policy Officer, Pilbara Perth, 18 May 1999 Development Commission

61 Dr David Mildenhall, Rural Doctors Association of Perth, 18 May 1999 Australia Ltd

62 Mr Graeme Waugh, Western Australian Water Perth, 18 May 1999 Users Coalition

294

63 Mayor Alison Goode, Mayor, City of Albany Perth, 18 May 1999

64 Mr Jim Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, City of Perth, 18 May 1999 Albany

65 Mr Pell House, Chairman, Great Southern Area Perth, 18 May 1999 Consultative Committee

66 Mr Ian Wilson, Deputy Chair, Great Southern Area Perth, 18 May 1999 Consultative Committee&, Executive Director, Albany Chamber of Commerce and Industry

67 Mr John Beaton, Project Manager, Geo Task Perth, 18 May 1999 (Australia)

68 Ms Annette McGready, Member, Great Southern Perth, 18 May 1999 Area Consultative Committee

69 Mr Robert Stockdale, Director, Regional Training Perth, 18 May 1999 Services, Partner Skill Hire

70 Mr Duane Schouten, Senior Development Officer, Perth, 18 May 1999 Great Southern Development Commission

71 Mr Christopher Clark, Contracts Officer, Greater Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Shepparton City Council

72 Mr Paul Fearon, General Manager, Regulation Melbourne, 16 July 1999 and Strategy, CitiPower Pty Ltd

73 Mr Christopher Field, Executive Director, Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Consumer Law Centre, Melbourne Victoria

74 Mr Timothy Fisher, Natural Resources Campaign Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Coordinator, Australian Conservation Foundation

75 Mr John Francis, Director, Finance and Corporate Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Services, Greater Shepparton City Council

76 Mr Hugh Gleeson, General Manager, Planning Melbourne, 16 July 1999 and Regulation, United Energy Ltd

77 Ms Deborah Hollingworth, Senior Legal Policy Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Adviser, Municipal Association of Victoria

78 Mr Timothy Lee, Assistant National Secretary, Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Australian Services Union

79 Mr Trevor Lee, Economic and Regulatory Adviser, Melbourne, 16 July 1999 United Energy Ltd

80 Mrs Catriona Lowe, Legal Policy officer, Melbourne, 16 July 1999

295

Consumer Law Centre, Melbourne, Victoria

81 Mr Donald Siemon, Social Policy Coordinator, Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Brotherhood of St Laurence

82 Mr Robert Spence, CEO, Municipal Association of Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Victoria

83 Mr Andrew Stephens, Executive Officer, Economic Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Development, Latrobe Shire Council

84 Mr Paul Caica, National Secretary, United Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Firefighters Union of Australia

85 Ms Gweneth Jolley, Senior Research Officer, Melbourne, 16 July 1999 South Australian Community Health Research Unit

86 Mr Russell Peate, Chief Executive Officer, District Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Council of Grant

87 Mr Donald Pegler, Chairman, District Council of Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Grant

88 Mr Christopher Rankin, Executive Officer, Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Newsagents Association of South Australia

89 Dr John Wamsley, Managing Director, Earth Melbourne, 16 July 1999 Sanctuaries Ltd.

90 Mr Ernest Bridge, President, Watering Australia Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Foundation

91 Mr Andrew Caulton, Executive Committee Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Member, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc.

92 Mr Douglas Daws, Chairman, Goldfields Utilities Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Ltd.

93 Mr Hugh Gallagher, Chief Executive Director, Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Kalgoorlie-Boulder Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc.

94 Mr Douglas Krepp Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999

95 Ms Annemarie McAuliffe, Member of Executive, Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Kalgoorlie-Boulder Chamber of Commerce and Industry

96 Mr Kerry McAuliffe Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999

97 Mr Edwin Piper, Director, Corporate Services, City Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999

296

of Kalgoorlie-Boulder

98 Mr Colin Purcell, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Goldfields Esperance Development Commission

99 Mr Richard Scanlan, Chairman, Eastern Regional Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Council, Chamber of Minerals and Energy

100 Mr Graham Thomson, Project Director, Goldfields Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Utilities Ltd.

101 Mr Ziggy Wilk, Executive Member, Kalgoorlie- Kalgoorlie, 17 August 1999 Boulder Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc.

102 Mr Graeme Brazenor, Federal President, Sydney, 9 September 1999 Australian Association of Surgeons

103 Mr Kenn Clacher, Coordinator, Hunter Rail Access Sydney, 9 September 1999 Task Force, New South Wales Minerals Council

104 Mr Phillip Frost, Director, Policy, Australian Sydney, 9 September 1999 Council for Infrastructure Development

105 Professor Ralph Hall, Director, Public Sector Sydney, 9 September 1999 Research Centre, University of New South Wales

106 Mr Murray Kidnie, Secretary, Local Government Sydney, 9 September 1999 and Shires Association of New South Wales

107 Professor Phillip Laird Sydney, 9 September 1999

108 Dr Craig Lilienthal, President, New South Wales Sydney, 9 September 1999 Council of Professions

109 Ms Linda Margrie, Macarthur Home and Sydney, 9 September 1999 Community Care Development Worker, Macarthur Community Care Forum

110 Mr Shaun McBride, Policy Officer, Local Sydney, 9 September 1999 Government and Shires Association of New South Wales

111 Mr Dennis O’Neill, Chief Executive Officer, Sydney, 9 September 1999 Australian Council for Infrastructure Development

112 Mr Denis Porter, Executive Director, New South Sydney, 9 September 1999 Wales Minerals Council

113 Mr Stephen Rix, Principal Policy Officer Sydney, 9 September 1999 (Resigned), Public Interest Advocacy Centre

114 Ms Raileen Small, Researcher and Policy Analyst, Sydney, 9 September 1999

297

Public Sector Research Centre, University of New South Wales

115 Mr Theophilus Taylor, Treasurer, Australian Sydney, 9 September 1999 Association of Surgeons

116 Mr Ross Campbell, Director, National Competition Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Council

117 Mr Simon Cohen, Project Manager, National Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Competition Council

118 Mr Robert Davis, Director, Trade and International Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Affairs, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry

119 Professor Allan Fels, Chairman, Australian Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Competition and Consumer Commission

120 Mr Timothy Fisher, Land and Water Coordinator, Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Australian Conservation Foundation

121 Mr Michael Fitzpatrick, Director, Australian Council Melbourne, 1 November 1999 for Infrastructure Development

122 Mr Philip Frost, Director, Policy, Australian Council Melbourne, 1 November 1999 for Infrastructure Development

123 Ms Michelle Groves, Director, National Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Competition Council

124 Mr Ross Jones, Commissioner, Australian Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Competition and Consumer Commission

125 Mr Robert Kerr, Head of Office, Productivity Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Commission

126 Associate Professor Jennifer McKay, Water Law Melbourne, 1 November 1999 and Policy Group, University of South Australia

127 Mr Rodney Nettle, Chief Executive Officer, Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Australian Local Government Association

128 Mr Brendan O’Connor, Assistant National Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Secretary, Australian Services Union

129 Professor Robert Officer, University of Melbourne Melbourne, 1 November 1999

130 Mr Herbert Plunkett, Assistant Commissioner, Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Productivity Commission

131 Mr Todd Ritchie, Director, Economic Policy, Melbourne, 1 November 1999

298

National Farmers’ Federation

132 Mr Russell Rollason, Anglicare Australia Melbourne, 1 November 1999

133 Mr Graeme Samuel, President, National Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Competition Council

134 Mr Donald Siemon, Australian Council of Social Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Service

135 Mr Hank Spier, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Competition and Consumer Commission

136 Miss Margaret Starrs Melbourne, 1 November 1999

137 Mr Peter Taylor, National Policy Manager, Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission

138 Ms Judith Tyers, General Manager, Business Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Council of Australia

139 Mr Michael Waller Melbourne, 1 November 1999

140 Mr Edward Willett, Executive Director, National Melbourne, 1 November 1999 Competition Council

141 Mr David Eiszele, Managing Director, Western Perth, 19 November 1999 Power Corporation

142 Dr James Gill, Managing Director, Water Perth, 19 November 1999 Corporation

143 Dr Frank Harman, Senior Lecturer, Economics, Perth, 19 November 1999 Murdoch University

144 Ms Diane Margetts Perth, 19 November 1999

145 Mr Nenad Ninkov, General Manager, Corporate Perth, 19 November 1999 Strategy, Western Power Corporation

146 Mr Lloyd Werner, Manager, Pricing and Perth, 19 November 1999 Agreements, Water Corporation

147 Mr Peter Williams, General Manager, Commercial, Perth, 19 November 1999 Water Corporation

299

Appendix 2a Submissions to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia

No. Individual / Organisation Date Pages

1 Shire of Jerramungup 14/09/1998 5

2 Jock Douglas AO % 16/09/1998 9

3 Gold Coast City Council % 18/09/1998 2

4 Baxter Co Pty Ltd % 23/09/1998 1

5 Murrindindi Shire Council 21/09/1999 3

6 Cootamundra Shire Council % 23/09/1998 2

7 Harden Shire Council % 28/09/1998 3

300

8 National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia 6/10/1998 10 (NARGA) %

9 Caneland Pharmacy % 14/10/1998 2

10 Capricornia Training Company Ltd % 15/10/1998 11

11 Queensland Dairyfarmers Organisation Eungella 6/10/1998 29 Branch %

12 Professor John Quiggin % 21/10/1998 36

13 Reef Pilots Association Inc. * % 25/10/1998 8

14 Citizens of Affordable Water % 19/10/1998 8

15 Mike Horan MLA 20/10/1998 3

16 Post Office Agents Association Ltd – Qld Branch % 21/10/1998 2

301

17 Mallee Family Care % 13/10/1998 25

18 Whyalla Economic Development Board Inc. % 13/10/1998 27

19 Joe White Maltings Limited % 24/10/1998 5

20 Eyre Regional Development Board % 21/10/1998 7

21 Murray Valley Winegrape Industry Development 19/10/1998 21 Committee %

22 Victorian Wine Grape Growers Council Incorporated 19/10/1998 43 %

23 Snowy-Monaro Business Enterprise Centre Inc. % 25/10/1999 4

24 Circular Head Council % 26/10/1998 2

25 Atherton Chamber of Commerce % 27/10/1998 2

302

26 Shire of York % 27/10/1998 3

27 Chinchilla Chamber of Commerce % 28/10/1998 2

28 Mackay Electricity Corporation Limited (MEB) % 30/10/1998 3

29 The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western 30/10/1998 4 Australia Inc %

30 Canegrowers Burdekin % 31/10/1998 2

31 The South West Development Commission % 29/10/1998 11

32 Western Australian Municipal Association % 26/10/1998 3

37 M J Davis 1/11/1998 2

38 The Australian Gas Association % 4/11/1998 7

303

39 Grains Council of Australia * 2/11/1998 27

40 Tweed Shire Council % 5/11/1998 3

41 Wheatbelt Area Consultative Committee Inc 4/11/1998 10

42 K.W. and J.D. Allison % 5/11/1998 7

43 Tumut Shire Council % 4/11/1998 7

44 Devonport City Council 6/11/1998 13

45 Tasmania's West North West Councils % 6/11/1998 12

46 Canegrowers 9/11/1998 16

47 De-Anne Kelly MP % 6/11/1998 9

304

48 Cooma-Monaro Shire Council % 6/11/1998 4

49 Toowoomba and Golden West Regional Tourist 6/11/1998 2 Association Ltd %

50 Shire of Dandaragan % 5/11/1998 2

51 Council of the Shire of Eacham % 6/11/1998 1

52 Goulburn-Murray Water % 6/11/1998 6

53 Southern Regional Women in Dairying Group % 9/11/1998 2

56 Cabonne Council % 6/11/1998 7

57 Tamworth City Council % 6/11/1998 6

58 Associate Professor Tony Sorensen (on behalf of 9/11/1998 13 Several Members of the Rural Social Science Network, Uni of New England)

59 District Council of Grant % 29/10/1998 5

305

60 Mallee Catchment Management Authority % 6/11/1998 4

61 NSW Grains Board 6/11/1998 20

62 NSW Minerals Council % 4/11/1998 24

64 Maureen Webb % 6/11/1998 3

65 Mildura Rural City Council % 6/11/1998 3

66 Buloke Shire Council % 4/11/1998 7

67 Great Southern Energy % 5/11/1998 4

68 Dr Neil Argent and Dr Frances Rolley % 5/11/1998 8

69 Victorian Water Industry Association Inc. % 6/11/1998 2

306

70 Victorian Farmers Federation – Southern Mallee 6/11/1998 7 District Council

71 Council for the Shire of Murray # % 28/10/1998 119

Attachment 1 %

Attachment 2 Part A %

Attachment 2 Part B %

Attachment 3 Part C %

Attachment 2 Part D %

Attachment 2 Part E %

Attachment 3 %

72 The Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA 9/11/1998 3 (Inc.)

73 D.J. and H.M. McDonald % 9/11/1998 9

74 Bruce F.H. Ingle 9/11/1998 1

75 La Trobe Shire Council % 9/11/1998 20

76 Post Office Agents Association Limited – Tas % 5/11/1998 4

307

77 Merriwa Shire Council 4/11/1998 5

78 United Dairyfarmers of Victoria % 11/11/1998 11

79 CAPELEC 5/11/1998 4

80 South Gippsland Shire Council 11/11/1998 6

81 South West Irrigation % 6/11/1998 6

82 Association of Rural Water Authorities % 6/11/1998 7

83 Grampians Region Water Authority % 5/11/1998 2

84 Sorell Council % 9/11/1998 3

85 Mr W.E. Goodchild 9/11/1998 1

308

86 Manilla Shire Council 4/11/1998 75

Part A %

Part B %

87 Susan Davies MLA Part A % 11/11/1998 87

Part B %

Part C %

Part D %

Part E %

Part F %

88 Bass Coast Shire Council % 11/11/1998 2

89 The Cattlemen's Union of Australia Inc. * % 12/11/1998 6

90 Queensland Farmers' Federation % 10/11/1998 12

91 Burke and Baker % 13/11/1998 4

309

92 Dorset Council % 12/11/1998 11

99 National Institute of Accountants 17/11/1998 19

100 Mr R.M. Linger 5/11/1998 5

101 Resource Consulting Services * 17/11/1998 2

102 Australian Justice For All % 8/11/1998 8

103 Mrs Susan Stribling 17/11/1998 3

104 The Council of the City of Grafton 18/11/1998 21

105 Australian Doctors' Fund % 20/11/1998 13

106 The Queensland Produce, Seed & Grain Merchants' 20/11/1998 4 Association Incorporated %

107 Colly Cotton Group of Companies % 20/11/1998 4

310

108 Crestfield Orchards * 20/11/2003 4

109 Murray Regional Development Board and Riverina 20/11/1998 9 Regional Development Board

110 Telstra * % 9/11/1998 70

111 Federal Member for Gilmore, Sjoanna Gash MP % 9/11/1998 7

112 Australian Grain Exporters Association % 20/11/1998 4

113 Braddon Business Centre Limited % 20/11/1998 3

114 Gwydir Valley Irrigators Association Inc. % 17/11/1998 4

115 Bangerang Farm Pty Ltd 18/11/1998 1

116 Professor Jim Walmsley % 20/11/1998 20

311

117 Mr N King % 24/11/1998 1

118 M & C Winzer % 24/11/1998 2

119 Mr L King % 24/11/1998 1

120 Broken Hill Rural Lands Protection Board % 25/11/1998 7

121 The Pastoralist's Association of West Darling % 25/11/1998 2

122 Small Business Advisory Council (SA) % 25/11/1998 2

123 Surf Coast Shire % 30/11/1998 3

124 Murrumbidgee River Management Board 30/11/1998 6

125 Murrumbidgee Irrigation 2/12/1998 4

312

126 Gordonvale Chamber of Commerce % 2/12/1998 5

127 Public Interest Advocacy Centre % 1/12/1998 23

128 Northern Territory Government % 30/12/1998 23

129 Australian Beef Association % 1/12/1998 3

130 National Party of Australia Women's Federal Council 7/11/1998 7

131 Bowmont Park % 27/11/1998 2

132 South Australian Dairyfarmers Association, South 25/11/1998 4 East Branch %

133 Withdrawn

134 Townsville City Council % 30/11/1998 26

135 Mrs Susan Stribling % 2/12/1998 7

313

136 Public Sector Research Centre, Uni of NSW % 1/12/1998 30

137 Telstra % 20/11/1998 28

138 The Western Australian Farmers Federation (Inc) % 7/12/1998 21

139 NARGA Australia Pty Limited % 7/12/1998 192

140 Glenridge Park % 8/12/1998 1

141 Danny Perks 7/12/1998 5

142 Rosemary Langford % 7/12/1998 40

143 Libby Cooney Part A % 7/12/1998 31

314

Part B %

144 National Farmers' Federation % 8/12/1998 31

145 Ulmarra Shire Council 10/12/1998 1

146 Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of Councils 8/12/1998 11 %

147 Goodman Fielder Ltd 11/12/1998 3

148 Stewart Henry 9/12/1998 1

149 Drouin Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc % 14/12/1998 2

150 Vin Kane % 14/12/1998 2

151 Keith Harris 15/12/1998 1

315

152 J S and J A East 15/12/1998 2

153 J R and C P Cole 15/12/1998 1

154 Elsie Bryce 10/12/1998 1

155 W K Hayes & Son 13/12/1998 1

156 South Australian Government % 14/12/1998 19

157 Western Australian Water Users Coalition 11/12/1998 9 (WAWUC) %

158 The Poultry Farmers Association of WA (Inc) 11/12/1998 63

159 Ray Steinwall % 17/12/1998 7

160 Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission 18/12/1998 43

316

161 P G and M M Raison % 18/12/1998 1

162 Shoalhaven City Council % 18/12/1998 1

163 E T Clout 9/12/1998 2

164 Queensland Dairyfarmers Organisation and the 10/12/1998 14 NSW Dairy Farmers Association %

165 The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade % 20/12/1998 7

166 Australian Chicken Growers' Council Ltd % 23/11/1998 18

167 Ricegrowers' Association of Australia % 22/12/1998 4

168 South Burdekin Water Board % 18/12/1998 36

169 Leeton Shire Council % 20/12/1998 2

317

179 Mr Max Lamond % 8/12/1998 3

180 G A and D H Downes % 8/01/1999 2

181 David Mackay * % 17/12/1998 1

182 Shire of Yarra Ranges % 11/01/1999 5

183 Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Western 15/01/1999 30 Australia

185 Katherine Town Council % 13/01/1999 22

186 The Queensland Tobacco Marketing Co-operative 15/01/1999 7 Association Limited %

187 Salvatore Scevola % 15/01/1999 7

188 Graeme and Val Wicks % 15/01/1999 2

189 Chamber of Commerce Industry – Western Australia 20/01/1999 20

318

190 The Pharmacy Guild of Australia % 20/01/1999 23

191 Commonwealth Department of Transport and 19/01/1999 8 Regional Services %

192 Australian Capital Regional Leaders' Forum % 22/01/1999 10

193 Southern Grampians Shire Council % 22/01/1999 4

194 Mrs A M McGready % 21/01/1999 2

195 Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry % 20/01/1999 17

196 Narrandera Shire Council % 2/02/1999 5

197 Local Government and Shires Associations of NSW 8/02/1999 14

198 Tasmanian Government Part A % 8/02/1999 79

319

Part B %

Part C %

Part D %

Part E %

199 Murray Valley Voice 8/02/1999 6

200 Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry – 8/02/1999 51 Australia Part A %

Part B %

Part C %

201 Mount Isa City Council % 2/02/1999 1

202 Queensland Government % 16/02/1999 24

203 Greater Taree City Council % 17/02/1999 7

204 BP Australia % 24/02/1999 6

320

205 Balanced State Development Working Group % 25/02/1999 38

206 Civil Contractors Federation – SA and Qld Branches 1/03/1999 32

207 Commonwealth Department of Transport and 5/03/1999 35 Regional Services %

208 The Concerned Farmers Group of Gympie 10/03/1999 11 Queensland %

209 Kenneally, D % 11/03/1999 1

210 Balanced State Development Working Group % 10/03/1999 12

211 NSW Irrigators' Council % 22/03/1999 4

212 Gloucester Shire Council % 24/03/1999 1

213 Woolworths Limited * Part A % 8/04/1999 164

Part B %

321

214 Caldwell, R and MacPhillamy, P % 22/04/1999 9

DR215 Quiggin, Professor John 25/05/1999 2

DR216 Citizens for Affordable Water 5/06/1999 2

DR217 United Energy 18/06/1999 6

DR218 Colly Cotton Group of Companies % 23/06/1999 3

DR219 Hunter Economic Development Corporation 24/06/1999 4

DR220 Minerals Council of Australia 24/06/1999 3

DR221 Coles Part A % 17/06/1999 156

Part B %

Part C %

Part D %

322

Part E %

Part F %

DR222 Shire of Jerramungup 21/06/1999 5

DR223 Carrathool Shire Council % 24/06/1999 24

DR224 Local Government Association of South Australia 24/06/1999 64

DR225 South West Regional Council Queensland 26/06/1999 10

DR226 The Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA 23/06/1999 2 (Inc.)

DR227 Member for Toowoomba South, Hon Mike Horan, 29/06/1999 3 MLA

DR228 Saleeba, Jim and Anita 30/06/1999 2

DR229 Goldfields Esperance Development Commission 24/06/1999 16

323

DR230 Towong Shire Council 30/06/1999 2

DR231 City of Greater Bendigo 30/06/1999 8

DR232 Visitor's Information Centre Bendigo 30/06/1999 4

DR233 Greg McRae Fine Furniture 30/06/1999 1

DR234 Bendigo Trust 30/06/1999 1

DR235 Sandhurst Trustees Ltd 30/06/1999 1

DR236 North West Pharmacists Association % 29/06/1999 4

DR237 Hunter Economic Development Corporation 29/06/1999 85

DR238 Jones, Bruce % 29/06/1999 8

324

DR239 Roger Epps, University of New England % 29/06/1999 17

DR240 Linger, R M 1/07/1999 41

DR241 Goulburn-Murray Water % 1/07/1999 2

DR242 MIA Council of Horticultural Associations Inc. % 29/06/1999 3

DR243 Southern Mallee District Council of the VFF % 1/07/1999 3

DR244 Launceston City Council 1/07/1999 17

DR245 Watering Australia Foundation % 1/07/1999 23

DR246 Murray Irrigation Limited % 1/07/1999 17

DR247 Murrumbidgee Valley Water User's Association % 1/07/1999 15

325

DR248 Berrigan Shire Council % 30/06/1999 3

DR249 Murray Regional Development Board and Riverina 1/07/1999 5 Regional Development Board %

DR250 Southern Riverina Irrigation Districts' Council * 30/06/1999

DR251 Country Women's Association of NSW % 2/07/1999 5

DR252 Toowoomba City Council % 8/07/1999 3

DR253 Glenelg Shire % 7/07/1999 17

DR254 Tasmanian Independent Wholesalers % 5/07/1999 34

DR255 Federal Member for Lyons, Dick Adams MP % 30/06/1999 1

DR256 Motor Trades Association of Australia % 13/07/1999 4

326

DR257 Kyogle Council Part A % 7/07/1999 45

Part B %

DR258 Queensland Farmers' Federation % 7/07/1999 9

DR259 Linger, R M 7/07/1999 41

DR260 Tasmanian Rural Women's Advisory Group 2/07/1999 4

DR261 Hydro-Electric Corporation % 9/07/1999 4

DR262 Regional Development Council % 7/07/1999 3

DR263 Hughes, Anne and Robin % 7/07/1999 17

DR264 Lloyd, Associate Professor Doug % 7/07/1999 1

DR265 La Trobe Shire Council % 7/07/1999 43

327

DR266 McClymont, Alex % 13/07/1999 2

DR267 Crowther, John 13/07/1999 2

DR268 Regional Women's Alliance Inc % 12/07/1999 13

DR269 Blackall Shire Council % 8/07/1999 2

DR270 Barcaldine Shire Council % 23/06/1999 2

DR271 Toowoomba Golden West Tourist Association % 12/07/1999 13

DR272 Murrumbidgee Irrigation Limited % 15/07/1999 17

DR273 Balanced State Development Working Group % 16/07/1999 47

DR274 Burke and Baker % 19/07/1999 4

328

DR276 Municipal Association of Victoria % 14/07/1999 9

DR277 Murraylands Regional Development Board Inc % 18/07/1999 5

DR278 Telstra 19/07/1999 84

Attachment 1 %

Attachment 2 %

DR279 Hon Rob Borbidge, MLA 21/07/1999 11

DR280 NSW Irrigators' Council 21/07/1999 34

DR281 Tasmanian Rural Women's Advisory Group 16/07/1999 4

DR282 Western Australian Treasury 21/07/1999 5

DR283 New South Wales Cabinet Office 20/07/1999 4

329

DR284 The Technology Group Pty Limited % 24/07/1999 12

DR285 Canegrowers 28/07/1999 10

DR286 Ann Hughes 26/07/1999 1

DR287 Local Government Association of South Australia 26/07/1999 27

DR288 Murray Irrigation Limited 30/07/1999 3

DR289 National Rural Health Alliance 31/07/1999 17

DR290 Goldfields – Esperance Development Commission 30/06/1999 17

DR291 C.C. Halton 31/07/1999 5

DR292 Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission 3/08/1999 3

330

DR293 Great Southern Energy 30/07/1999 7

DR294 David Crean, Treasurer, Tasmanian Government 2/08/1999 5

DR295 Southern Riverina Irrigation Districts Council 7/08/1999 12

DR296 Association of Rural Water Authorities 4/08/1999 2

DR297 Bob Lim and Company Pty Ltd 6/08/1999 30

DR298 South Australian Government % 8/08/1999 24

DR299 Northern Territory Department of Local Government 4/08/1999 3 %

DR300 R. Caldwell 6/08/1999 39

Part A %

Part B %

DR301 Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry – 6/08/1999 27

331

Australia %

DR302 Queensland Government % 6/08/1999 18

DR303 Northern Territory Government % 28/08/1999 19

DR304 National Competition Council 30/01/1999 50

184 Dr Bill Pritchard % 15/01/1999 30

332

Appendix 2b Public Hearings to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia

No Individual/Organisation Location/Date

1 Local Government Association of South Australia Adelaide 22 June 1999 (Wendy Campana, Ken Coventry)

2 South Australian Farmers Federation (Marie O’Dea, Adelaide 22 June 1999 Dale Perskins, Anne-Marie Smart)

3 Wheatbelt Development Committee (Damien Martin) Perth 23 June 1999

4 Pastoralists and Graziers Association (Lynne Perth 23 June 1999 Johnston)

5 Shire of Jerramungup (Murray Brown) Perth 23 June 1999

6 Goldfields Esperance Development Commission Perth 23 June 1999 (Colin Purcell)

7 Tamworth City Council (Genevieve Harrison, Peter Tamworth 29 June 1999 Roberts, David Mcintyre)

8 Hunter Economic Development Corporation (Bruce Tamworth 29 June 1999 Jones)

9 University of England (Roger Epps) Tamworth 29 June 1999

10 Colly Cotton Ltd (John Cameron) Tamworth 29 June 1999

11 North and North-West Pharmacists Association (Sel Tamworth 29 June 1999 Brown)

12 Country Women’s Association (Barbara Vance, Carol Tamworth 29 June 1999 Connelll)

13 New South Wales Farmers Association (Keith Perret, Tamworth 29 June 1999 Angus Gidley-Baird, Beverley Jordan)

14 New South Wales Farmers Chicken Meat Group (Ted Tamworth 29 June 1999 Hebblewhite)

333

15 University of New England (Tony Sorenson) Tamworth 29 June 1999

16 Watering Australia Foundation (Ernie Bridge, Laurie Albury 1 July 1999 Arthur, Bill Hetherington, Jenny McLeod, Jim McGann, Athol Roberts, Des O’Shea, Brian Sharp, Norm Brennan, Terry Brady, John Lane)

17 Towong Shire Council (Mary Fraser, Lyndon Webb) Albury 1 July 1999

18 Murray Regional Development Board (Dennis Toohey, Albury 1 July 1999 Andrew Wynn, Herb Plunkett)

19 Circular Head Council (Ross Hine, Paul Arnold, Launceston 5 July 1999 Michael Weldon)

20 Launceston City Council (Robert Groenewegan) Launceston 5 July 1999

21 Rod Linger Launceston 5 July 1999

22 Dick Adams, MP Launceston 5 July 1999

23 Anne Taylor Launceston 5 July 1999

24 National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia and Launceston 5 July 1999 Tasmanian Independent Wholesalers (Lionel James Richardson, Alex Graeme-Evans)

25 City of Greater Bendigo (Barry Secombe) Bendigo 7 July 1999

26 Visitor’s Information Centre, Bendigo (Kathryn Bendigo 7 July 1999 Mackenzie)

27 Greg Mcrae Fine Furniture (Greg Mcrae) Bendigo 7 July 1999

28 Bendigo Trust (James Thompson) Bendigo 7 July 1999

29 Sandhurst Trustees (Neil Athorn) Bendigo 7 July 1999

30 Goulburn-Murray Water (Chris Scriven) Bendigo 7 July 1999

31 Glenelg Shire Council (Frank Zeigler, Bill Braithwaite) Bendigo 7 July 1999

32 Latrobe Shire Council (Penny Holloway, Lorraine Bendigo 7 July 1999 Bartling, Andrew Stephens)

33 Anne Hughes and Robin Hughes Bendigo 7 July 1999

34 Doug Lloyd Bendigo 7 July 1999

35 Queensland Farmers Federation (Richard Armstrong) Toowoomba 12 July 1999

36 Queensland Opposition (Lawrence Springborg, Toowoomba 12 July 1999 Russell Cooper)

334

37 South-West Regional Council of The Queensland Toowoomba 12 July 1999 Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Richard Wood)

38 Civil Contractors Federation – Queensland Branch Toowoomba 12 July 1999 (Graham Dodd)

39 Rural Policy Institute (Mark McGovern, Ben Rees, Ted Toowoomba 12 July 1999 Kolsen, Rod Jensen)

40 Toowoomba City Council (Tony Bourke Peter Taylor, Toowoomba 12 July 1999 Mike Stalley)

41 Business Success Group (Irene Dewsberry) Toowoomba 12 July 1999

42 Shadow Minister for Police and Corrective Services Toowoomba 12 July 1999 (Mike Horan)

43 Canegrowers (Bernard Milford) Toowoomba 12 July 1999

44 Toowoomba and Golden West Regional Tourist Toowoomba 12 July 1999 Authority (Deborah Ralston, Peter Rice, Maryanne Anderson)

45 Boonah Shire Council (John Brent) Toowoomba 12 July 1999

46 Watering Australia Foundation (Ernie Bridge, Noel Townsville 14 July 1999 Robertson, John Wharton, Peter Hoey, Bill Ballinger, Bob Katter, Steve Brimblecombe)

47 Townsville City Council (Graham King, Julie Walters) Townsville 14 July 1999

48 Burdekin Shire Council (John Woods, Graham Webb) Townsville 14 July 1999

49 National Farmers’ Federation (Todd Ritchie, Bob Lim, Canberra 20 July 1999 Terry Dwyer)

50 Grains Council of Australia (John Kreitals, Leigh Canberra 20 July 1999 Spencer)

51 Australian Gas Association (Greg Evans) Canberra 20 July 1999

52 Australian Pipeline Industry Association (Allen Canberra 20 July 1999 Beasley)

53 Council of Small Business Organisations Of Australia Canberra 20 July 1999 (Robert Bastian, Kym Houghton)

54 Robert Caldwell Canberra 20 July 1999

55 Brian Button Canberra 20 July 1999

56 Murrumbidgee Irrigation Limited (John Chant, Dick Canberra 21 July 1999

335

Thompson, Cedric Hoare)

57 Bob Borbridge MLA Canberra 21 July 1999

58 Junee Shire Council (Tony Hayward, Jill Macaulay) Canberra 21 July 1999

59 New South Wales Irrigators Council (Gary Donovan, Canberra 21 July 1999 Greg Cutbush)

60 One Nation Party (Heather Hill) Canberra 21 July 1999

61 Balanced State Development Working Group (Charles Canberra 21 July 1999 Halton)

62 Macquarie Food and Fibre (Susan Benedyka) Canberra 21 July 1999

336