The Sydney Cross-Harbour Tunnel opened yesterday with all the usual nonsense including advertorial vomiturition in the fishwrappers. What was missing, unfortunately, was a Captain De Groot to upstage the latest example of privatising the right to tax.

Then again, De Groot, an Irish fascist, might have approved of the way Australian infrastructure and taxation has been handed over to the private sector. The process arguably reached it nadir with the privatisation of Sydney Airport whereby Macquarie Bank proved you really can’t pay too much for the right to levy tax on a captive market – something the original robber barons realised.

Every parrot in the shop, myself included, got it wrong when the Macquarie syndicate paid what seemed to be too much for Sydney Airport. We didn’t comprehend how comprehensive the rent seeking could be once you have unfettered control of a monopoly essential service.

Hence Sydney Airport’s owners are luxuriating in profit margins of some 80% while forever seeking new avenues for gouging. The next, starting in November, is the now-common taxi tax of $2-and-rising for passengers catching a cab. A surcharge for standing in an air-conditioned environment can’t be far away, along with pay-operated toilets.

(As an aside, Sydney Airport is none too popular with the other privatised airports around the nation as Macquarie’s greed goes just that little too far in attracting attention to their racket. The others will be quite happy when CEO Max The Axe moves on.)

The cross-harbour tunnel is the usual conspiracy between weak government and strong capitalism. This ensures the government effectively guarantees the private sector’s profits by making alternative routes untenable, forcing drivers to pay the ever-increasing toll. The egregious road closures and narrowings make the tunnel the only viable route for anyone who wants to cross the city in less than half an hour.

With the revenue stream thus a sure thing, the risk for the private investors is pretty much removed. That’s why we have such a rich recent history of infrastructure companies’ prospects being rated much more highly by the stock market than by the various state governments that abrogate their infrastructure responsibilities to limit the debt they could comfortably carry on their AAA balance sheets.

The market woke up after Macquarie’s Sydney Airport lesson. The state governments remain asleep, taking the easy short-term option of privatising taxation and trusting that the voters won’t notice.