In the 1990s, Paul Keating’s Labor government kicked off one of the most aggressive waves of privatization seen in the developed world. The resulting fire sale transferred a vast amount of public wealth to the private sector while alienating Labor from millions of working-class voters.

Keating’s sale of Qantas, the national airline, and the Commonwealth Bank are the two most notorious examples. However, the damage cut deeper and wider than many people realize. Keating’s sweeping reforms laid the groundwork for two decades of privatization, outsourcing, and corporatization at both federal and state levels.

Privatization in Australia was a bipartisan affair. Keating’s neoliberalization of the Australian economy paved the way for his Liberal successor John Howard, who went on to accelerate the transformation Labor had initiated after taking office in 1996. More than two decades after the great sale of public assets began, we can now draw up a damning balance sheet of the whole experiment.