On 2 June 2009, the Queensland Government announced a programme of asset sales projected to realise $15 billion. In this article, the public case for privatisation put forward by the Queensland Government is shown to be wrong and, in important respects, deliberately misleading. It is argued that the presentation of a spurious case for privatisation has contributed to poor policy decisions regarding the choice of assets to be sold, the failure to restructure the rail industry to promote competition, and the adoption of inferior methods for sale. Copyright (c) 2010 The Economic Society of Australia.