economy | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

Revolution and disconnected leaders

Revolutions are unexpected, but the causes are often obvious to all. The West shouldn’t be too smug about the economies of other nations.

China expert Patrick Chovanec has a provocative blog post on What Causes Revolutions, building upon the Financial Times’ description of how the Chinese Communist Party is struggling with corruption.

In his article Chovanec quotes Richard Pipes’ Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution which looked at how the fall of the Tsarist government was largely unexpected.

This is true with the fall of all great regimes, in the late 1980s the idea that the Soviet Union would cease to exist within a decade was unthinkable.

Chavonec quotes a key part of Pipes’ book;

In 1982 [Pipes writes], when I worked in the National Security Council, I was asked to contribute ideas to a major speech that President Reagan was scheduled to deliver in London. My contribution consisted of a reference to Marx’s dictum that, when there develops a significant disparity between the political form and the socio-economic context, the prospect is revolution.

“A significant disparity between the political form and social-economic context” could be just as applicable to Western democracies.

The Economist article makes a point about the French revolution “the widely accepted theory now is that the French Revolution was one of rising expectations that eventually could not be met.”

As Stratfor’s George Freedman pointed out last week, a generation of Americans have expectations that are not going to be met. The same is true in Europe.

While there’s no doubt the China’s political structures – like those in all totalitarian nations – are more brittle than those in established democracies, it might not be a good idea for those of us in the West to be smug and complacent about our own systems.

Zapata image is courtesy of Ferferfer through SXC.

How Australia’s nanny state hurts business and society

Australia has changed in the last quarter century as governments of both persuasions have found it easy to legislate rather than lead. The nanny state has had effects on business and society in general.

It’s becoming popular to describe Australia as a ‘Nanny State’ as governments respond to moral panics and the need to do something about anything from bicycle helmets to unpasteurized cheese.

Unquestionably Australia has changed in the last quarter century as governments of all persuasions have found it easier to legislate rather than lead. This has had effects on business and society in general.

A good example of how the regulations have built up over the last twenty years in Australia is a sign at my local beach.

That’s a fine welcome and it compliments the $7 an hour parking fees the local council levies. In itself, those parking fees are a good example of the price pressures driving Australia’s high cost quandary.

Possibly the saddest regulation is the alcohol ban on ferries. Twenty years ago it was normal to see a group of friends unwinding on the way home from work with a cold beer or wine. Today you can’t do that because some bureaucrat decided drunks were a problem and rather than enforce existing laws it was easier to ban drinking entirely.

The press and moral panic

Much of this nannyism is being driven by the media who drum up hysterical reports demanding ministers do something. In turn the government’s panicky PR obsessed apparatchiks respond with pointless and unnecessary laws and rules. Often duplicating those that already exist.

A good example of cynical media hysteria was the story of Malea, a Sydney mum minding her own business while legally cycling with her child in a trailer.

While out riding a discredited journalist filmed Malea and passed the footage onto a current affairs TV show which portrayed her as a reckless mum and demanded such behaviour be banned.

Fortunately in that case the politicians ignored the confected outrage, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.

Doing something

The media though doesn’t have to force Australian politicians into adopting the nanny reflex. Often governments will create their own outrage in order for attention deprived politicians to get press coverage.

A good example of this was the incompetent Carr government which decided its contribution to the War On Terror after the 9/11 attacks would be to turn the Sydney Harbour Bridge into something similar to what welcomes Guantanamo Bay detainees.

It’s worthwhile comparing the same view on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and ask which is the greater terrorist target?

When Sydney genuinely was a larrikin city, climbing the Harbour Bridge in the dead of night was a rite of passage. Today, if you can get around the security guards, barbed wire, CCTV and motion detectors you risk a $3,300 fine and being branded a terrorist.

If you try to climb the bridge and get caught, the fine is only half that of stepping on the hallowed turf of the Sydney Cricket Ground.

At the cricket, if you’re foolish enough to bounce a beach ball, start a Mexican Wave or sing out of tune and you’ll be out before you can say “Shane Warne is a safe driving ambassador.”

The Age newspaper gave a good example of Australian sports administrators’ Stalinist mindset in this fawning article which gloats over the efforts MCG staff go to in harassing their customers.

On level three of the Members’ wing is a secure room with the best seats in the house, although the occupants only manage an occasional glance at the game on hand. It is the MCG command post, where ground security, police and Securecorp officers constantly watch a bank of computer monitors and camera screens.

…

Dohnt says the camera operators will check the froth on a punter’s cup of Coke to see if it has been topped up with smuggled grog.

Forcing cricket fans to buy overpriced drinks or visitors to spend over $200 to climb the Harbour Bridge brings us to the core motivation behind many of Australia’s nanny state regulations – protectionism.

Hidden protectionism

This sign, which is attached to the back of the one at the beginning of this story, bans vendors who sell from boats. It’s questionable whether the council actually has the power or resources to enforce this ban but if it helps the local shopkeepers then so be it.

One of the hubristic traits of Australian exceptionalism is that the nation is a ‘free trade’ economy hard put upon by sneaky Japanese, American and European protectionism. The reality is Australia is just as good as Japan or the EU in introducing sneaky regulations to protect the well-connected locals.

A very good example of this is bananas where the Australian domestically produced product is substantially dearer than imported bananas sold in the US, UK or Europe.

In early 2011, Cyclone Yasi devastated Australia’s banana crop and prices soared. Not one imported banana was allowed in to ease the shortage. Remember that the next time you hear a politician or journalist boasting about Australia’s free trade credentials.

Banana prices are another example of the costs passed onto Australian households and industry through nanny state regulations. Compliance costs are real and add to the cost of production and employment. They are another reason why Australia has become a high cost economy.

More importantly, those regulations tend to favour incumbents making it harder for entrepreneurs and new entrants into markets making the economy even less flexible.

The burden of regulation is also unfairly dropped upon the smaller business who don’t have the resources to comply with or challenge unfair rules. The Howard government was very good at this with slapping small business with the responsibilities of raising the GST and complying with draconian laws like Workchoices.

At this stage it’s worth noting that the Australian nanny state isn’t a Labor party creation, it’s come from both sides of politics and often because poorly drafted laws require mountains of regulations to overcome the legislative flaws.

Workchoices was probably the best example of badly thought out laws where the Howard government panicked into slapping a whole level of punitive rules for businesses who failed to keep log books of staff hours worked – the legislation was so bad that had it not been repealed by Rudd, the sight of bundy clocks would have become common in Australian offices.

Nanny and risk

One of the unfortunate effects of the nanny state is that it saps the entrepreneurial spirit – why take risks when nanny is there to support you?

There is an unintended effect of this though – because we think nanny will always protect us we lose the ability to evaluate risk.

Where this is most obvious is in financial matters. Too often people are fooled into investing in dodgy schemes because they think that regulators will protect them. They find out this isn’t the case when the money is long gone.

That failure to understand risk though becomes pervasive through the community as the nanny state mentality becomes established. We could argue that inability to identify risk was the core reason for the global financial crisis.

The future nanny state

While the nanny state has been rampant around the world for the last fifty years, its days are numbered as cash strapped governments find they can no longer bear the cost of maintaining armies of bureaucrats to enforce silly rules.

As society deleverages from the excesses of the credit boom, governments are going to find revenues falling short and while it won’t be the first casualty of the new austerity, the nanny state will almost certainly be a victim.

Santa says buy more stuff

The Age of Consumerism has its biggest annual celebration at Christmas, but will it remain relevant for future generations?

Around the world, today marks the annual peak of consumerism. It’s interesting how one of the most important dates in the Christian calendar has been adopted by commercial interests.

In non-Christian countries, particularly in East Asia, the lack of a religious tradition shows the modern ritual for what it is – an orgy of consumerism driven by a century of advertising and opportunistic businesspeople.

For the western cultures, the biggest symbol of the occasion is Santa Clause, a figure largely invented by the Coca-Cola Corporation.

It’s often said that successful religions co-opt the festivals and practices of earlier beliefs, many European Christian celebrations are said to be modern interpretations of older rites which marked key harvest and calendar dates.

Today the religion of consumerism has co-opted the older Christian festivals which makes Christmas the grand celebration of consumption that it is.

Religions though are a product of their times, the successful ones adapt to change and thrive for centuries while many wither away as their relevance to society and the economy fades.

The Western religion of consumerism is at one of these points now after a century of unchecked growth.

Will Consumerism continue to thrive as living standards rise in Asia and Africa or will it fade as overfed Americans and Europeans wear out their credit cards and look to defining themselves by something more than the expensive toys they can buy?

Should Consumerism fade, will it be replaced with older traditions or will something else rise to meet the needs of 21st Century society?

Is hard not to hope for the consumerist orgy that is the modern Christmas celebration to fade, if not for our communities then at least for our waistlines and bank balances.

Australia’s high cost quandary

Is property the answer to keeping Australia’s high cost economy afloat?

“Around the world our towncars are usually 30% more expensive than taxis, in Sydney it’s 20% as the cabs are pretty expensive,” said Travis Kalanick on launching the Sydney version of Uber’s hire care booking service.

It’s not just hire cars which are expensive in Sydney – the soaring cost of living in Australia is bourne out by Expatistan, a web site that crowdsources the cost of living in various cities.

Expatisan’s comparisons find Sydney up with Tokyo and London as the most expensive towns on earth.

That conclusion means Australian businesses, governments and policy makers have some important decisions ahead of them.

Cholesterol in the veins

High property prices have been the norm for two decades in Australia, the middle class welfare state that both political parties support gives tax and social security concessions to property owners while the banking system requires most business lending to be secured by property.

As a consequence, generations of Australians see property as the only path to financial success. If Bill Gates, or any of today’s entrepreneurial wizz-kids, had been born in Australia, they’d be encouraged to get a safe job and buy property than to take the risk of starting a new business.

The property obsession has another perverse effect in that it creates a short term outlook for Aussie business owners who have to consider getting, and paying off, a mortgage quickly to secure their financial foundations.

A few weeks ago a business owner was profiled in the Sydney Morning Herald, which some call the Sydney Morning Property Spruiker, who paid 1.1 million Aussie dollars (a million US) for a property in Redfern – which is Sydney’s Bronx.

That poor guy not only has a fat mortgage to pay off, but he has to pass those costs onto his customers. Just to pay the bank is a fat chunk out of his business before he pays his staff, landlord and the various other expenses before he can take his profits.

Having to pay the bank for living costs is the main reason why Aussie businesses don’t invest in capital equipment, which in turn makes them less competitive than overseas competitors.

One of the myths in Australian business is that competitiveness is solely due to labor costs, what the ideologues preaching this miss is that even if Aussie workers were paid a bowl of rice a day, Chinese and Mexican factories would still be more productive due to the investment in modern equipment.

For the sake the argument, we won’t even discuss German, Japanese or Swiss manufacturers who are still competitive despite Australian level cost structures.

This last point is what’s missed in much of the discussion about Australia’s economic future – apologists for Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens and the self congratulatory Canberra monoculture say that the high Aussie dollar is here to stay and mining will be driving the economy.

Should the mining sector stall, which currently seems to be the case, then housing development will pick up the slack according to the policy-makers’ groupthink.

That housing development is going to come at a high price, with Australian land and homes already among the world’s highest. Given Australia’s private sector debt is among the highest in the world already, it’s hard to see where the money will come from to fuel further property speculation.

Right now Australia has a serious problem in determining what the future will be for the country.

If the future is a high cost economy underpinned by massive property property prices, then the future has to lie in high value added sectors.

The question is ‘what sectors’? Australian business, governments and society in general seem to think that property speculation is the future.

Property speculation turned out not to be the future for Spain and it looks like China’s speculative boom is meeting its obvious end.

Australians are going to have to hope that it really is different down under and that young people and immigrants are prepared to spend huge amounts of money to keep the economy afloat.

If the policy makers are wrong, then the worry is that there is no Plan B.

Stumbing into recession

An obsession with surpluses and satisfying the ratings agencies is going to have harsh consequences for Australians

The Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA) today released its 2012 Big Issues survey looking at the responses of 7000 business people on the issues confronting Australian industry in 2012.

One of the notable results is that business people don’t care about government surpluses. A third are neutral on the question “do you believe maintaining a government surplus is important” while 35% disagree that it is a high priority.

Yet despite the electorate and business saying the deficit is not a priority, the politicians still obsess about maintaining their surplus.

Now Australia’s mining boom has come to an end – along with the blue sky economic assumptions that underlie both sides of politics’ spending plans – governments are desperately trying to fudge the books and continue the pretense that their budgets are in the black.

Driving this obsession with avoiding deficits is the religious belief among Australia’s political classes that Triple – A credit ratings from the discredited Wall Street ratings agencies is more important than educating the nation’s children, caring for the country’s sick or building the infrastructure to compete in the 21st Century.

The real danger with this deficit obsession is that there is a very high possibility that state and Federal governments are going to tip Australia into a recession driven by European style austerity. Already we see this developing as various states start slipping backwards according to the ABS’ latest accounts.

Another interesting result from the CEDA report is how business’ view the Australia in the Asian Century report with nearly 80% of respondents saying the issue is important or critical.

It is questionable whether Australian business is prepared to face the realities of an Asian Century as David Llewellyn-Smith writes at the Macro Business Blog, Australia’s businesses are looking more at getting help from the government to cut domestic costs rather than sell into Asia. That inward focus of Australian business since the mid-1990s is the topic for another blog post.

The sad thing is that the government aspects of Asian Century report is stillborn as surplus obsessed politicians carve into skills training and innovation programs in a vain attempt to balance the books while failing to reform the tax system or address the middle class welfare that’s squandered most of the returns from the last decade of prosperity.

Australia’s politicians are very soon going to have to decide who they govern on behalf of, the corrupt and incomptent ratings agencies or the people who vote for them and pay the taxes which support them and their political parties. For some, this might be a tough choice.

Is Australia missing the Indonesian opportunity?

Mary Meeker’s state of the internet report emphasises the opportunities in South East Asian markets.

Mary Meeker’s annual State of the Internet Report looks at the trends driving the online economy. One area that should be of concern is that Australian entrepreneurs are overlooking one of the world’s biggest growth markets that is sitting right on the nation’s doorstep.

Early in Mary’s overview, on slides 5 and 7, she shows the growth of various markets. Indonesia is the second biggest growth market for internet users – 58% year on year to 55 million – and eighth in the world for smartphone growth with a 36% increase last year taking total users to 27 million.

Given the penetration of both smartphones and the internet are low with only one quarter of Indonesians connected to the internet and less than one mobile phone in ten currently being a smartphone, there is massive potential for the savvy entrepreneur.

While there’s a steady stream of stream of Australian app developers and entrepreneurs heading to Silicon Valley, London and a few to Singapore there’s very few looking to their biggest neighbour.

This ignoring of Indonesia is one of the many omissions in the Australia in the Asian Century report; despite being one of Australia’s closest neighbours with the world’s fourth largest population and an economy growing at over 6% per year, both businesses and governments tend to overlook the nation.

For Australia, the tragedy is that Indonesia has a lot offer businesses that do more than just dig up coal and iron ore.

Perhaps now the mining boom is over, entrepreneurs and governments might start to take markets like Indonesia, and other South East Asian countries more seriously. It’s an omission that’s currently costing the country dearly.

Newly normal in the English Midlands

The new normal will be different to the old normal – is the English Midlands a vision of the future?

On their metal, a story from BBC Radio’s In Business program looked at how the English Midlands is dealing with the toughest economic conditions the beleaguered region has suffered for decades.

Once the centre of the industrial revolution, The Midlands have had a tough time of the last fifty years as the region caught the brunt of Britain’s de-industrialisation and the loss of thousands of engineering jobs.

Today, the surviving engineering companies are struggling to find new markets as orders from Europe dry up and many Midlands workers find they are confronting the ‘New Normal’.

The ‘New Normal’ for British industry is described by Mark Smith, Regional Chairman, Price Waterhouse Coopers Birmingham who points out that UK industries have to sell to the fast growing economies.

Interestingly this is similar, but very different in practice, to the Australian belief – where the Asian Century report sees Australia continuing being a price-taking quarry for Asia rather than selling much of real value – the Brits see some virtue in adding value to what they sell to Asia’s growing economies.

The British experience though shows the realities of the ‘New Normal’ for Western economies – the cafe owner featured in story now offers no dish over £3 and the idea of overpriced five quid tapas are long gone. The customers can’t afford it.

Part of this is because of the casualisation of the workforce as people find salaried jobs are no longer available and become freelancers or self-employed. One could argue this is the prime reason why unemployment hasn’t soared in the UK and US since the global financial crisis.

That ‘new normal’ features the precariat – the modern army of informal white and blue collar workers who have more in common with their grandparents who worked for day wages at the docks and factories in the 1930s than their parents who had safe, stable jobs through the 1950s and 60s.

For the precariat, the idea of sick leave, paid holidays or a stable career started to vanish after the 1970s oil shock and accelerated in the 1990s. The new normal is the old normal for them, there just happens to be more of them after the 2008 crash.

With a workforce increasingly working for casual wages without security of income, the 1980s consumerist business model built around ever increasing consumption starts to look damaged.

The same too applies to the banking industry which grew fat on providing the credit that unpinned the late 20th Century consumer binge.

When the 2008 financial crisis signalled the end of the 20th Century credit binge, the banks were caught out. Which is why governments had to step in to help the financial system rebuild its reserves.

The effects of that reserve building also affected businesses as bank credit dried up. Early in the BBC program Stuart Fell, the Chairman of Birmingham’s Metal Assemblies Ltd described how his bank decided to cut his line of credit from £800,000 to £300,000 which forced the management to find half a million pounds in a hurry.

That experience has been repeated across the world as banks have used their government support and easy money policies to recapitalise their damaged accounts rather than lend money to entrepreneurial customers to build businesses.

Businesses are now looking at other sources to find capital from organisations like the Black Country Reinvestment Society which is profiled in the story that raises money from local investors to provide small businesses with working capital.

Communities helping themselves and each other is the real ‘New Normal’ – waiting for the banks to lend money or hoping that surplus obsessed governments will save businesses or provide adequate safety will only end in disappointment as the real austerity of our era starts to be felt.

The New Normal is declining income for most people in the Western world and we need to think of how we can help our neighbours as most of us can be sure we’re going to need their help.

Just as the English Midlands lead the world into the industrial revolution, it may be that the region is giving us a view of what much of the Western world will be like for the next fifty years.

Desperate Ken and market realities

Adam Smith’s invisible hand of the market is giving some people a nasty slap over the head.

Ken Slamet has a problem, his in-laws are trying to sell the family house and no-one will give them the price they want.

The house at 228 Warrimoo Ave has been on the market through an agent for more than 100 days, pulling in ridiculously low offers, Mr Slamet said.

Depending on the deposit, Mr Slamet is seeking between $1.5 million and $1.6 million for the house his wife grew up in.

One would argue that those “ridiculously low offers” are actually Mr Market giving Ken and his in-laws a slap of reality. They are simply asking for too much money.

St Ives, a suburb on Sydney’s Upper North Shore, is going through demographic change. In 1960s and 70s St Ives was the suburb for successful stock brokers and bankers, however in the 1980s and 90s that demographic decided they wanted to live closer to the city and Harbour and suburbs like Mosman and Clontarf became their areas of choice.

For Ken’s in-laws and their neighbours, this is bad news as few other people can afford 1970s mansions on large blocks within 30km of Sydney. Those who do manage to sell often find the buyers are developers who sub-divide to build townhouses or apartment blocks, madness in a congested, car-dependent suburb with poor public transport links.

Adam Smith’s invisible hand of the market is giving those holding properties that were attractive to stockbrokers in 1972 a nasty slap over the head in 2012.

Ken though has a solution for his problem – he’s offering a rent to buy scheme at a mere snip of $2297 per week. An amount 70% higher than the average Sydneysider’s gross income and a whopping four and half times the city’s average rent of $500.

Good luck with that.

The real problem is that Ken’s in-laws are stuck with expectations higher than the market reality. Like many of us in the Western world, they believe their assets are worth more than they really are.

As the global economy deleverages there will be many more people like Ken’s family. For many the transition to a less wealthy lifestyle is going to be tough.

Australia in the Asian Century – Chapter 9: Deeper and broader relationships

Australia in the Asian Century concludes with a look at how we build relationships into Asia.

This post is one of the series of articles on the Australia in the Asian Century report.

Australia in the Asian Century’s final chapter looks at how Australia can deepen relationships with its Asian neighbours. The chapter is full of fine ideas which don’t quite match the reality of government policies and spending.

Early in the chapter the white paper proposes increasing the number of Australian diplomats in Asia along with opening a new embassy in Ulan Baator, a Jakarta based ambassador to ASEAN and consulates in Shenyang , Phuket and eastern Indonesia.

Fine words, however Australia’s diplomatic corps has been shrinking for the last twenty years so staffing these facilities will require a withdrawal from other regions. The white paper doesn’t identify which countries Australia’s representation would be cut from and the consequences of that.

More importantly, it doesn’t identify how Foreign Affairs and Trade staff will be skilled up to man these facilities, instead we get another worthy ambition.

National objective 22. Australia will have the necessary capabilities to promote Australian interests and maintain Australia’s influence.

Australia’s diplomatic network will have a larger footprint across Asia.

Again, one would surely expect that Australia would already have the necessary capabilities to promote its national interest and maintain influence. Is the white paper suggesting we don’t?

Which leads us to the next national objective;

National objective 23. Australia will have stronger and more comprehensive relationships with countries across the region, especially with key regional nations—China, India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea.

If we accept the assumption which underlies the entire paper, that Asia is going to continue to grow both economically and in influence then this will happen regardless of what governments do. It’s a meaningless and silly statement which once again ignores most of Asia and simplifies the dynamics.

The Australia Network

One of the great wastes of the Howard years was the dismembering of Radio Australia which was a cheap and effective way of projecting ‘soft power’ across the region. I personally came across this as a backpacker in China where many manual workers in the hard seat carriages practiced their Australian accented English that they’d learned on Radio Australia’s programs.

This was shut down by one of the spiteful, stupid and poorly thought out decisions that were the hallmark of the Howard government.

Replacing this was a new Australia network that replaced the previous awful overseas television service which had been a niche product on Asian cable TV channels – I had it on my Thai cable subscription when I lived in Bangkok. It was rarely watched.

The Australia Network hasn’t been a great success and that is largely due to the funding – the 2011-21 contract was costed at $221 million in the budget papers.

A break out box in the white paper boasts about the Australia Channel and its “mandate to encourage awareness of Australia, promote cross-cultural communication and build regional partnerships.”

Listed is the funding for some other services – Al Jazeera, $359 million in 2009; CCTV, $280 million in 2009 and NHK World/Radio, $226 million in 2008.

With the Australia Network receiving less than a tenth of this funding, it’s no surprise the station looks amateurish and irrelevant. Once again we see the difference between government words and government deeds.

Which brings us to the final two national objectives;

National objective 24. Australia will have deeper and broader people to people links with Asian nations, across the entire community.

National objective 25. Australia will have stronger, deeper and broader cultural links with Asian nations.

Again these are more motherhood statements and barely worth considering. The section itself skates over some of Australia’s most important assets – the cultural diversity and immigrant communities.

That the final chapter spends just a few pages on this aspect probably sums up the entire project – simple, full of motherhood statements and missing the critical strengths and threats to Australia’s, and Asia’s growth.

Overall the paper is a disappointment that tells us little we didn’t already know while stating some big ambitions which successive governments have shown they aren’t capable of delivering.

The message for those building Australia’s 21st Century links with Asia is not to wait for government but to get on and do it.

Australia in the Asian Century – Chapter 8: Building sustainable security in the region

What are the security issues for the Asia in the 21st Century

This post is one of the series of articles on the Australia in the Asian Century report.

The eighth chapter of Australia in the Asian Century looks at the security picture of the region, this is one of the bigger chapters and like some of the others it’s as notable for what it leaves out as for what it says.

National objective 20. Australian policies will contribute to Asia’s development as a region of sustainable security in which habits of cooperation are the norm.

That’s nice, worthy and has been undoubtedly true for most previous Australian governments. Except of course when Australian Prime Ministers join the prevailing colonial power in wars like Iraq, Afghanistan, Malaya, Korea, Vietnam or kicking around the German territories in World War I.

Chapter Eight partly dives into territory already covered in Chapter Three, this time though the analysis does discuss the United States’ role in more detail and makes the observation that US military spending dwarfs that of any other Asian nation – interestingly this is one of the few times Russia gets a mention in the entire report.

Encouragingly, the paper doesn’t confine the concept of ‘security’ just to military matters and takes a broader view of issues such as guaranteeing access to resources, food and water. There is some discussion of climate change and on regional responses to natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes.

One notable omission is that of refugees. Given that most of the asylum seekers arriving by boat are Asian – currently coming from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka – and almost all pass through other Asian countries, it would be expected this issue would get some exploration. Sadly it doesn’t and once again skirting over an important issue detracts from the paper’s substance.

As befits Australia’s most important relationships in Asia, there is a lot of discussion of the three way relationship between China, the United States and Australia with a detailed breakout box in section 8.4.

The discussion on Australia’s relations between China and the US makes an interesting statement;

In managing the intersections of Australia’s ties with the United States and China, we will need a clear sense of our national interests, a strong voice in both relationships and effective diplomacy.

Undoubtedly this statement is true, however successive Australian governments have conflated the interests of the United States with being the same as Australia’s. In recent times Australian leaders have followed the US lead even when it has been clear American policy conflicts with Australia’s Chinese relations.

Moving away from a reflex support of the United States is going to be one of the biggest challenges for Australian governments in the Asian Century and one hopes the process is as gradual and incident free as the white paper hopes.

National objective 21.The region will be more sustainable and human security will be strengthened with the development of resilient markets for basic needs such as energy, food and water.

National objective 21 is an interesting statement in itself – “resilient markets for basic needs such as energy, food and water” smacks of the 1980s privatisation and corporatism that has left Australia with duopoly industries and an excessive financialisation of those markets for basic needs.

It may well turn out to be the case that Asian countries choose not to follow that path, particularly those like the Philippines and Indonesia who have experienced the effects of crony capitalism in recent history.

Chapter 8 of Australia in the Asian Century finishes with a detailed look at the regional efforts aimed at building trust and co-operation on trans-national issues. Much is made of various international groups such as the G20 and the UN.

An interesting case study is that of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty with an examination of Japan’s and Australia’s work in that field. Sadly this is another area that’s let down by the actions of current and previous Australian governments in selling uranium to India.

The nuclear weapons stand off between India, Pakistan and China is another ‘elephant in the room’ issue that doesn’t really get the coverage it should in such a report.

Chapter 8 of Australia in the Asian Century is a very optimistic section of the report however it does hint at the path Australia could follow to being a credible, medium sized economy and influencer in the region. However one has to consider the actions of Australian leaders when asking if the nation is really interested in taking that path.

Australia in the Asian Century – Chapter Seven: Connecting to Asian Markets

How can Australia improve its business, trade and government links with Asian countries?

This post is one of the series of articles on the Australia in the Asian Century report.

The seventh chapter of Australia in the Asian Century looks at how the country’s businesses and governments can engage with markets in Asia. In some ways this is the most effective chapter of the report.

At the beginning of the chapter introduction points out that Asia offers bigger markets than Australia and says “Australian businesses need to build on their existing advantages by developing new capabilities and approaches as they become fully part of the region.”

This is true, but the Chapter never really identifies what Australia business’ existing advantages really are and again this is a weakness in the report.

National objective 17. Australia’s businesses will be recognised globally for their excellence and ability to operate successfully in Asian markets.

How this comes about is difficult to say, and what governments can actually do to help businesses be recognised globally isn’t really identified.

The CPA case study is notable for illustrating the number of Australian expats working in Asia. In many ways these people are the wasted talents that should have been cultivated by domestic businesses through the 1990s and 2000s.

Saying that businesses need to be part of the global supply chain is a statement of the obvious and Chapter 7.3 does discuss the importance of efficient ports, fast customs procedures and reduced barriers to trade. This ties into National Objective 18a.

National objective 18a.The Australian economy will be more open and integrated with Asia, through efforts to improve our domestic arrangements. The flow of goods, services, capital, ideas and people will be easier.

Australia’s trade links with Asia will be at least one-third of GDP by 2025, up from one-quarter in 2011.

It’s difficult to argue with this objective, although one wonders what Canberra has been doing for the last twenty years on smoothing the flow of goods, services, capital and ideas. Hopefully this is one of the relatively easy areas where a Gillard, or Abbott, government can deliver.

National objective 18b. The Australian economy will be more open and integrated with Asia, through comprehensive regional agreements, better aligned economic regulations, greater infrastructure connectivity and enhanced understanding of each country’s arrangements. The flow of goods, services, capital, ideas and people will be easier and Australian businesses and investors will have greater access to opportunities in Asia.

This objective focuses around formal trade links and really only describes the current policy – continued from the Howard government – of signing bilateral trade agreements rather than waiting for the cumbersome and possibly never ending global negotiations to actually deliver something.

Most of Chapter Seven is focused on describing the various trade initiatives the Australian government is engaged in through APEC, ASEAN and various other forums.

All of these are good initiatives and these are the brightest spot in the entire report, this is where the Australian political system has delivered bipartisan support for a long term plan and it’s a shame we can’t see more actions similar to this in areas like education, taxes and sustainability.

Australia in the Asian Century – Chapter Six: Building capabilities

How can Australia build a productive workforce to take advantage of the Asian Century

This post is one of the series of articles on the Australia in the Asian Century report.

Of all the chapters in the Australia in Asian Century discussion paper, Chapter Six has probably attracted the most opprobrium because of the fine words which haven’t been matched by government policy and action.

Parts of this chapter have a strong “school marm” tone as it tries to mandate the composition of company boards or the locations of where students will study. Overall though, most of the objectives are either motherhood statements, impractical or at odds with the actions of both state and Federal governments.

National objective 9. To build the capabilities of Australian students, Australia’s school system will be in the top five schooling systems in the world, delivering excellent outcomes for all students of all backgrounds, and systematically improving performance over time.

By 2025, Australia will be ranked as a top five country in the world for the performance of our students in reading, science and mathematics literacy and for providing our children with a high?quality and high?equity education system.

By 2015, 90 per cent of young Australians aged 20 to 24 years will have a Year 12 or equivalent qualification, up from 86 per cent in 2010.

While these objectives are worthy, there’s little discussion of exactly how this will be achieved beyond broad statements. Again it’s notable that these aspirations are being laid out at a time when funding is being cut and staff retrenched in both state and Federal government education departments.

National objective 10. Every Australian student will have significant exposure to studies of Asia across the curriculum to increase their cultural knowledge and skills and enable them to be active in the region. All schools will engage with at least one school in Asia to support the teaching of a priority Asian language, including through increased use of the National Broadband Network.

Says who? Who exactly is going to force a school to engage with at least one school in Asia? These are the sort of broad brush statements that detract from the report.

These kind of statements are the “thought bubble” approach to policy that marks much of what passes for governance in Australia today and such poorly thought out programs end up at best wasting money. At worst, the unintended consequences of a ‘policy’ thought up on the back of beer mat end up causing more damage than good.

Such a program could work well if properly thought out and integrated properly into the long term curriculum of the students but it would take proper leadership from state and Federal education ministers.

National objective 12. All students will have access to at least one priority Asian language; these will be Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese.

This is good and fair, but is something that was supposed to have been put in place thirty years ago. Instead the proportions of students studying Asian languages has steadily dropped.

As newspapers have reported there are barely a dozen Hindi language teachers in New South Wales, so the priority needs to be training teachers to deliver the courses.

Such inconvenient logistical problems are an excellent example of those well meaning but poorly thought through “thought bubbles.”

National objective 12. Australia will remain among the world’s best for research and teaching in universities, delivering excellent outcomes for a larger number of Australian students, attracting the best academics and students from around the world and strengthening links between Australia and the region.

By 2020, 20 per cent of undergraduate higher education enrolments will be people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, up from 17 per cent in 2011.

By 2025, 40 per cent of all 25 to 34?year?olds will hold a qualification at bachelor level or above, up from 35 per cent in 2011.

By 2025, 10 of Australia’s universities will be in the world’s top 100.

A larger number of Australian university students will be studying overseas and a greater proportion will be undertaking part of their degree in Asia.

This objective really smacks of poorly thought out ideas on the run and illustrates starkly the differences between the well meaning objectives and the behaviour of governments.

It’s almost impossible for ten of Australia’s universities to make it into the more reputable measure of top 100 universities when for the last three decades research and post graduate programs have been slowly strangled by falling government funding.

Even if a Gillard government were to change that trend, it’s unlikely Australian universities could make up the lost ground in 13 years.

Mandating that “a larger number of Australian university students will be studying overseas and a greater proportion will be undertaking part of their degree in Asia” is nice but who is going to force students to study overseas and specifically in Asia?

More to the point, what are notoriously conservative Australian employers going to do with all these graduates of Asian universities?

National objective 13. Australia will have vocational education and training systems that are among the world’s best, building capability in the region and supporting a highly skilled Australian workforce able to continuously develop its capabilities.

By 2020, more than three?quarters of working?age Australians will have an entry?level qualification (at Certificate III level or higher), up from just under half in 2009.

Australia’s vocational education and training institutions will have substantially expanded services in more nations in the region, building the productive capacity of the workforce of these nations and supporting Australian businesses and workers to have a greater presence in Asian markets.

Given the week before the Gillard government cut apprenticeship funding and the NSW government announced it was further emasculating its state TAFE system a few days after the report was released, this objective can be treated purely empty words.

Business capacity

One of the reasons why Australia engaged so little with Asia over the last twenty five years is because the business community became focused inwards rather looking for opportunities in foreign markets. So the idea of getting more Asian experience into boardrooms is laudable but the solutions proposed impractical.

National objective 14. Decision makers in Australian businesses, parliaments, national institutions (including the Australian Public Service and national cultural institutions) and advisory forums across the community will have deeper knowledge and expertise of countries in our region and have a greater capacity to integrate domestic and international issues.

One?third of board members of Australia’s top 200 publicly listed companies and Commonwealth bodies (including companies, authorities, agencies and commissions) will have deep experience in and knowledge of Asia.

One?third of the senior leadership of the Australian Public Service (APS 200) will have deep experience in and knowledge of Asia.

This objective has drawn a lot of scorn from the business community and for good reason – how is a Federal government going to mandate that a third of the ASX200 will have “deep experience and knowledge of Asia”?

While the aim of having a third of the senior public service possessing Asian experience is worthy, this is almost impossible given the deadline for this is thirteen years away, any bureaucrat hoping to have “deep experience and knowledge of Asia” would have had to have been working on it for the last five or ten years. If this program isn’t in place now, it isn’t going to happen.

Society

Probably the biggest strength of Australia as a nation is in its diverse and relatively tolerant society so this section of the report is notable for what it misses in opportunities.

National objective 15. Australian communities and regions will benefit from structural changes in the economy and seize the new opportunities emerging in the Asian century.

Another worthy aim and its notable that the region cited in the case study is Darwin, a city whose economy is being wildly distorted by the LNG boom which is driving up prices and labour costs. If anything Darwin is an example of Australia turning its back on opportunities and focusing on a quick, resources driven buck.

National objective 16. By preserving and building on our social foundations, Australia will be a higher skill, higher wage economy with a fair, multicultural and cohesive society and a growing population, and all Australians will be able to benefit from, and participate in, Australia’s growing prosperity and engagement in Asia.

Cant and motherhood statements as one would hope all government seek to build a fair and cohesive society on our social foundations. It’s interesting that much of the poorly thought out, short term tactics by publicity hungry politicians probably does more to damage Australia’s institutions than other factors.

Overall this chapter deserves to have drawn the most criticism with its motherhood statements and wholly unachievable aims.

Most disappointingly, it skates over Australia’s diverse workforce and provides no ideas on how to harness the talents of the country’s ethnic groups in building ties and improving the nation’s skills.

Image of the Harbin Snow and Ice Festival from EmmaJG on Flickr