State-owned enterprises of Australia

In Australia, the predominant term used for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is government business enterprise (GBE). Various Australian states and territories also have GBEs, especially with respect to the provision of municipal water and sewerage, and many GBEs were privatized in some states during the last decade of the 20th century. Former Commonwealth SOEs include Telstra, established in the 1970s as Telecom Australia and now Australia's largest telecommunications company, was privatised in 1997 by the conservative Howard government. As of June 2010, Telstra owned a majority of the copper wire infrastructure in Australia (while the rest is owned by Optus, formerly the government-owned AUSSAT and now a subsidiary of SingTel) and is pending sale to its former parent, the Australian government, for a non-binding amount of 11 billion Australian dollars, as ducts in the copper wire tunnels are needed to install the fibre optic cable. The Commonwealth Bank, as its name indicates, was also founded as public company before later being privatized.

In Victoria, many GBEs were sold in the 1990s by the Kennett ministry to reduce the level of state debt. The State Electricity Commission of Victoria and the Gas & Fuel Corporation were the best-known government enterprises to be disaggregated and sold.