L13: Australia and Globalisation

1
L13 Australia and Globalisation

• The question at issue is whether we build on our
  approach of removing the meddling hands of
  bureaucracy from the operation of markets or
  retreat to the failed policies of the past.
  
• Paul Keating, 1990
• I accept that globalisation can cause some
  short-term pain but it has long-term benefits for
  all Australians.
• Alexander Downer, 1997

2
Australia Before Neo-Liberalism

• Protectionism
• Federation to WW2
• Protect domestic industries through
• High tariffs
• State regulation
• Keynesianism
• WW2 to mid-late 1970s
• Full employment
• Welfare state

3
Moving Towards Neo-Liberalism

• Step One Financial De-regulation
• Floating the dollar abolishing exchange-rate
  controls fear of banana republic
• Step Two Tariff Cuts and Free Trade
• Focus on APEC
• Step Three Micro-economic Reform
• Reducing tariffs restructuring key industries
  privatisation and commercialisation of
  public-sector activities
• Step Four Increasing Employment

4
Neo-Liberalism in Australia

• 1993 and the re-election of Keating
• Resentment from Labors traditional support base?
• Backlash against the social injustices of
  neo-liberalism?
• Howard Continuing the Neo-liberal agenda
• Was Neo-Liberalism inevitable in Australia?

5
Implications of Australias neo-liberalism

• The Region
• Human rights in non-democracies
• Forced development
• Environmental destruction
• Implications for state sovereignty
• Whither the Australian state?

Workers protest working conditions in Korea, 2002