atw: Re: National Broadband Network and empathy
- From: "Terry Dowling" <Terrence.Dowling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:22:38 +0800
You haven't seen 'inefficient' until you've seen the 'lazy giants' in
the mining industry. And in addition to the inefficiencies, you have
companies like BHP who don't even run their own mines, preferring
instead to put profit-making enterprises between themselves and their
product. BHP are so inept at managing these companies who are busy
cutting corners to make profits, that their mines have one of the worst
records for workplace deaths in the country. I think it's something like
eight of the last ten deaths have been on BHP mines.
I know a fencing contractor who figured out that there were 10 layers of
profit-makers when he did some fencing work for a new mine (I think it
was Rio Tinto's). Imagine 15-20% mark-up for each profit maker when
passing the bill upwards. Even at 15%, they paid 3 times the cost.
There was a good 4 Corners a few years ago with a concreting contractor
whinging about having to do non-minesite work in Port Hedland 'cos for
work in town he got $6k and the same work on the mine he got $50k. This
is obviously the reason the big mining companies have their huge
procurement departments who honestly believe they saved the company
money because they negotiated the contractors down from $60k or $70k. I
edited docs in 2006 stating 'Coloured River' was paying $114/hr for
people to count stock. Plus, the company paid all the accommodation,
meals and transport costs for the workers. Notice, I didn't say that was
how much the people received. There was at least one profit-making
enterprise in the middle.
Don't start me about the folk the mining companies pay huge sums to
review our documents when I get comments like today's "You left out
these 3 pages of drawings" when the given list is complete and the three
pages referred to aren't even for the same machine/manual, and "insert
photo of machine in-situ" when the machine is still in China (and we
have a written agreement that the photo is not required)... Or 200 page
documents being rejected 'cos on the fourth review someone deicdes they
no longer like the term "brake liner" and want it changed to "brake pad"
for a sum total of one change (and it wasn't to match other references;
the term was used once). I'm led to believe half the things they're now
requesting be changed are things they wanted in the first place.
The problem we have with utilities being privatised is less about the
monopoly environment (though, that has a large role) and more about the
supply and demand curve. They know that if they increase supply with the
demand remaining the same, the price goes down. So it's in their
interests to restrict supply, and this is why there are so often
problems with systems failing, as with water in the UK, power in the US,
NZ and Australia... And that's why such services cannot be privatised
without concomitant strong government regulation & control - which sort
of defeats the purpose of privatisation.
Terry
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark Nebauer
Sent: Friday, 20 August 2010 10:44 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: National Broadband Network and empathy
Hi Geoffrey,
Interesting thoughts on private/public sectors Geoffrey but I'm still
inclined to think that the private sector is at least subject to the
laws of evolution - it's all about survival of the fittest. This is what
should keep the private sector lean and mean. If private enterprises are
getting sluggish then something is wrong - they are not operating in the
real world, probably because of monopoly-type environments and I think
electricity, transport and water suppliers could fit into this category.
There is no such dynamic in the public sector which makes me surprised
to hear your observations - surely you have also seen a lot of sloth in
the hidden recesses of government departments?
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