The last decade has delivered rapid structural change to the Australian electricity sector. The common conceptualisation of the sector's restructuring has been narrowly based around sector-specific regulatory change and the creation of a national electricity market. This thesis argues that such a focus provides an incomplete and inaccurate explanation of the transformation. Three closely interrelated layers of policies and actions embodying the precepts of neoliberalism, and implemented by the state, have driven the sector's transformation. These policies and actions transcend 'electricity-centric' policies and encompass policies which have become systemic to the Australian public sector as well as a third layer which has transformed the prevailing industrial paradigm across all industry sectors. The drivers of the electricity sector's restructuring -- and the outcomes and beneficiaries arising -- form the core research focus of this thesis. The research task is addressed by using the analytical framework of the French theory of r??gulation. The analysis reveals that the electricity sector has been Australia's second largest contributor of privatisation proceeds, remains dominated by government ownership and has falling levels of foreign ownership. Higher relative wage levels and union membership are also evident as have been job losses and substantial real price increases for households whereas those for business have generally fallen. The purported 'reform' centrepiece, the national electricity market, was found to be increasingly uncompetitive due to its own regulatory regime and market manipulation by government-owned companies. In addition, the sector exhibits a heightened precariousness: an unprecedented financial vulnerability arising from a strong appetite for debt and derivatives and exacerbated by payments to government owners not by new investment in generation capacity; increasing tensions between the nation-state and local-state concerning the national electricity market and compromises with labour; and an exposure to political and financial risks from the sector's global integration. The clear winners from the sector's restructuring are the owners of capital and the state, particularly the local-state, although the sustainability of this situation is questionable. The analysis also generates a number of propositions about the application of r??gulation theory to sector-based research.

The last decade has delivered rapid structural change to the Australian electricity sector. The common conceptualisation of the sector's restructuring has been narrowly based around sector-specific regulatory change and the creation of a national electricity market. This thesis argues that such a focus provides an incomplete and inaccurate explanation of the transformation. Three closely interrelated layers of policies and actions embodying the precepts of neoliberalism, and implemented by the state, have driven the sector's transformation. These policies and actions transcend 'electricity-centric' policies and encompass policies which have become systemic to the Australian public sector as well as a third layer which has transformed the prevailing industrial paradigm across all industry sectors. The drivers of the electricity sector's restructuring -- and the outcomes and beneficiaries arising -- form the core research focus of this thesis. The research task is addressed by using the analytical framework of the French theory of r??gulation. The analysis reveals that the electricity sector has been Australia's second largest contributor of privatisation proceeds, remains dominated by government ownership and has falling levels of foreign ownership. Higher relative wage levels and union membership are also evident as have been job losses and substantial real price increases for households whereas those for business have generally fallen. The purported 'reform' centrepiece, the national electricity market, was found to be increasingly uncompetitive due to its own regulatory regime and market manipulation by government-owned companies. In addition, the sector exhibits a heightened precariousness: an unprecedented financial vulnerability arising from a strong appetite for debt and derivatives and exacerbated by payments to government owners not by new investment in generation capacity; increasing tensions between the nation-state and local-state concerning the national electricity market and compromises with labour; and an exposure to political and financial risks from the sector's global integration. The clear winners from the sector's restructuring are the owners of capital and the state, particularly the local-state, although the sustainability of this situation is questionable. The analysis also generates a number of propositions about the application of r??gulation theory to sector-based research.