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Australian Trade Liberalisation Policy: The Industries Assistance Commission and the Productivity Commission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Evan Jones
Evan Jones*
Affiliation:
The University of Sydney, Australia
*
Evan Jones, Department of Political Economy, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Email: evan.jones@sydney.edu.au
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Abstract

The Productivity Commission is Australia’s foremost policy advisory body. Its original incarnation as the Industries Assistance Commission derives from the 1960s push to dismantle the protective tariff regime that underpinned the Australian manufacturing sector. With success in tariff reductions and complementary reductions in rural sector assistance, the Commission’s investigatory role was gradually expanded to cover the entire gamut of government policy. The Commission’s history has generally been treated favourably. This article places the history of the original Industries Assistance Commission in context and takes a critical stance on its and the Productivity Commission’s vision and achievements.

Keywords

N67O25Competition policyeffective rate of protectionIndustries Assistance Commissionindustry policyProductivity Commissiontariff protectiontrade liberalisationtrade policy
Type
Symposium Articles
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 27 , Issue 2: Symposium: Permanent Productivity Crisis - the Productivity Commission’s role in economic and social policy in Australia , June 2016 , pp. 181 - 198
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2016

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