Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Preface
- 1 Introduction, themes and overview
- Part I Before 1914
- Part II 1914 to 1940
- Part III 1941 to 1973
- Part IV 1974 to the 1990s
- Part V Since the 1990s
- 12 International economic impacts on Australia since 1990
- 13 The globalisation of Australia, 1990–2007
- 14 Australia since 2007
- Statistical appendix
- Glossary of economic terms
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
13 - The globalisation of Australia, 1990–2007
from Part V - Since the 1990s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Preface
- 1 Introduction, themes and overview
- Part I Before 1914
- Part II 1914 to 1940
- Part III 1941 to 1973
- Part IV 1974 to the 1990s
- Part V Since the 1990s
- 12 International economic impacts on Australia since 1990
- 13 The globalisation of Australia, 1990–2007
- 14 Australia since 2007
- Statistical appendix
- Glossary of economic terms
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
In November 1990, Treasurer Paul Keating described the economic conditions at that time as ‘the recession we had to have’. In seeming to claim ownership of the downturn, he unintentionally confirmed the orthodox view of the day: that governments played too large a role in economic management. Also in 1990, Peter Costello (later Treasurer from 1996–2007), having just been elected to parliament, must have surprised his colleagues when he deplored, in an address to the National Press Club:
a moral crisis in the business community. [ It ] rose from the fact that it became so easy to make money – and huge amounts of it – through share transactions, takeover activity and associated speculation. This had a devastating effect on the business community. I know many people were drawn into this process for salaries of expanding multiples of $100,000 for doing, as far as I can tell, lots of talking on the telephone but generating little wealth and little employment. (The Age, 7 June 1990)
Although financial journalist Trevor Sykes labelled many of the businessmen ‘cowboys’, he identified the recession as a corporate calamity:
the collapses included Australia’s largest industrial group (Adelaide Steamship); the ninth largest enterprise in the nation, measured by revenue (Bond Corporation); nearly half the brewing industry (Bond Brewing); all three major commercial television networks (Bond Media, Qintex, Channel Ten); Australia’s largest car renter (Budget); the second largest newspaper group (Fairfax); Victoria’s largest building society (Pyramid); and Australia’s largest textile group (Linter). Severe problems were faced by Australia’s largest company, as measured by revenue (Elders), its largest media group (News) and the other half of the brewing industry (Fosters). (Sykes, 1994)
Keating, Costello and Sykes focused attention on domestic behaviour, but Australia’s recession was also a local variant of an international mishap. That the national money supply had grown threefold between 1983 and 1989 was in part a consequence of the risk-averse preference of investors around the world for rich and stable economies as a reaction against the unrequited debts incurred only a few years previously by resource-rich developing nations. Impediments to the surge of foreign funds into Australia had recently disappeared with the deregulation of the Australian financial sector, internally and at the border.
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- Information
- Australia in the Global EconomyContinuity and Change, pp. 316 - 354Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012