Ausbuy

Australia’s Future

July 22nd, 2007

In a fast changing world Australia is at a point where choices have to be made which will fundamentally shape the Australia which will be inherited by future generations. Some positive steps are being taken, but those developments have taken place in an atmosphere of stealth, as neither political party is prepared to admit to a long term problem. We at Ausbuy believe that the first step in solving problems is to recognise them, and we will now identify the most serious ones:

• A Three Year Electoral Cycle. This means that we are in almost permanent election mode. This tends to inhibit long term decisions and concentrate on short term fixes.
• A mineral boom which is resulting in investment resources being diverted away from manufacturing and other sustainable enterprises. It has also resulted in an overvalued A$ which sucks in imports and makes exports uncompetitive.
• A federal system which gives too much power to the states. This can often result in a failure to agree on national requirements, and results on duplication of bureaucracies and bottlenecks which hinder efficient use of resources.
• An independent minded judicial system which believes that their conscience (personal ideology) takes precedence over the will of parliament. This is not helped by badly drafted laws.
• Most companies who manufacture in Australia are overseas owned and have their head offices overseas. This means fewer senior jobs, less trainees, overseas developed IT systems, and a diminished interest in investing profits in Australia.
• Almost no barriers to overseas interests buying Australian companies. This has now extended to agricultural and mining interests. The FIRB laws are being applied with such a narrow interpretation of the “national interest” as to be almost meaningless.
• The Trade Practises Act is badly written and is subject to judicial review. It gives little protection against misleading, anti-competitive and predatory behaviour.
• Skill Shortages. A reduction in the number of trainees has resulted in skill shortages. An attempt to replace this lack of traineeships, with increased attendance at universities, has predictably had little effect.

We do not put across the view that all is “doom and gloom”. There have been some significant developments:

• The Federal Government has used its “corporation powers” and control of the national purse to overcome state powers. This has been most successful in areas that depend on federal funding or where the federal government has bought out the states, eg the Murray Darling.
• Future Fund. This has been founded allegedly to fund government superannuation liabilities. However, it does have the effect of putting money aside in the good times rather than add fuel to an already overheated economy.
• Skill shortages are being tackled by a combination of long and short term migration. This is helping to solve the current problems, but there are still issues of English language skills and the difficulty of attracting the right skills. Calls for increased educational spending is politically popular, but no substitute for on the job training.

The following challenges remain:

• There is no political will to extend the federal electoral cycle to the 4 years in USA or the 5 years in UK. Consequently, the obsession with short term planning will remain.
• The mineral boom will run its course and will inevitably end in tears for some people.
• The judiciary is already recovering from the activist years of Lionel Murphy which saw the so called “golden rule” enshrined. It takes time to solve this problem, as judges serve a lengthy period. This is a problem which requires careful handling and we would like to see them appointed by a bipartisan committee.
• The Foreign Investment Review laws should be strengthened, and the definition of the “national good” widened. We must protect those Australian owned companies that we have from takeovers by overseas interests and keep the head offices in Australia.
• Rewriting of the Trade Practices Act to protect small Australian businesses and allow the Australian consumer to identify Australian companies and support them. A clear and comprehensive labelling system is required.

Above all we want to make sure that Australia does not become a branch office country. However, to achieve this, we must have a national debate which can build up the necessary political support. To have this debate we need the support of the media. With this, we believe that we can look forward to a prosperous future, where Australia capitalises on its natural advantages, both natural resources and the skills of its people.

These are Ausbuy Press! 4 comments.(View comments) Tell a friend

4 Comments »

1. A three year electoral period is good because it makes our politicians more accountable to the people for their action. Surely that is true democracy. Our politicians sometimes forget where they came from.

   Comment by Gami — August 10, 2007 @ 11:41 am

2. A great article that spells out what we have to do if Australia is to reach its potential and provide opportunities for future generations. Keep up the good work.

   Comment by wiseguy — August 10, 2007 @ 11:53 am

3. Our constitution is a federal one with a system of checks and balances. It may lead to blame shifting but at least it keeps the bastard’s honest.

   Comment by sceptic — August 10, 2007 @ 3:13 pm

4. We do indeed live in a fast changing world and when considering how to best shape our future there are some difficult issues and deep philosophical points of view to consider. There is no doubt that the Globalisation phenomenon will continue regardless of how passionately the anti-globalist factions protest.
   Globalisation is driven by improved communication, growth in free trade, reduced restrictions to capital movement and a standardisation of cultural aspects such as justice and business practices. It may be possible to slow some of this homogenising down but the end is inevitable.
   The challenge for those of us who can see problems with this social reorganisation is to support intelligent approaches to these issues that not only minimise the harmful side-effects of change but address the motivations that are driving these changes forward.
   Often the debate will move to the policy makers and the structures that support our representational democracy. While this is healthy it can get tangled in debate over the inefficiencies of beaurocracy, the tiers of government and the terms of office.
   Let us start by acknowledging that although we have a government we are also affected by the policy and management decisions of large corporations. This is understandable when you realise that the efficiencies gained through globalisation have allowed larger corporations to leverage massive economies of scale making an established corporation virtually impossible to challenge outside of the corporate space.
   The tendency is often to see these corporations as being inherently evil and malicious but the truth is that they are delivering what the purchasing population want.
   The population it serves likewise ultimately controls the media.
   With all of the production efficiency that Globalisation has provided it has also introduced a serious challenge that challenges us as a species and not just as a nation.
   We are having to face up to the fact that the resources of the earth are not unlimited and in the same way that they quickly became very cheap they could just as easily become very scarce and expensive.
   The pace at which this will happen seems to me to be the great uncertainty but most would agree that at some point physical goods will become more expensive in real terms. I’m not suggesting that a Mad Max scenario is inevitable. I suspect that it will be much more controlled than that.
   I believe that eventually it will start to make much more sense to produce goods locally. It will make much more sense to decentralise as much governance as possible to regional areas because it will be cost-effective and consumer discretion will be best served by servicing the needs of a local community group. Ultimately the communities that will thrive will be those best equipped to govern and supply themselves most effectively.
   Steps to centralise federal power may address short term political squabbles but there may also be longer term consequences that should be thought through before rallying the people into action. Personally I am still undecided on whether short term centralisation of power is good or bad, but many of the arguments that I see on either side appear to me as a little reactionary.
   The answers and the opportunity to minimise our pains as we grow into the future is to start using the same communication efficiencies that have fuelled economic expansion in a way that builds local community collaboration.
   Initiatives such as AusBuy are the ideal way to start building an infrastructure to allow people to make informed choices about how they spend their money and
   as a result how the economy and society will shape themselves in the future.

   Comment by localshop — September 10, 2007 @ 1:24 am

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