Australia warned it has used geography as an excuse for far too long: CEDA
AUSTRALIA has to stop using its geography as excuse for holding back economically, militarily and culturally, a major report warns.
National
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LAST month’s factory rollout of Holden’s last car highlights Australia’s “inefficiencies and flaws” with the nation now urgently needing to become more self-reliant and less risk averse economically, militarily and institutionally to stave off threats to national security.
That’s the conclusion of a major review by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) report, “Australia’s Place in the World” that says we have used our geography as an excuse for too long and any notion of Geoffrey Blainey’s Tyranny of Distance should be confined to history.
According to the report, Australians have been their own worst uncompetitive enemy with their lack of vision globally exposed by unprecedented “shock” factors this year brought on by the US election of Donald Trump, UK’s European Brexit, the global refugee crisis, civil wars, the rise and rise of China and terrorism that had created a global climate of uncertainty.
First published in 1966 and never out of print since, Blainey’s seminal best-selling tome describes how geographic remoteness had shaped our past and would continue to shape our future.
But the end-of-year review by the peak national economic and social barometer group says the book was published 50 years ago and “that is where the idea should remain, in the past”.
Australia was globally intertwined but poor policy was now facing unprecedented challenges to how we conduct trade, manage our alliances with “declining” US, transnational terrorism and “potentially how we go to war”.
“Globalisation had opened the curtains on Australian business, exposing longstanding inefficiencies and flaws in our market,” authors concluding citing Holden’s domestic manufacturing collapse as “no clearer example”.
Authors found Australia had not found its place in the world particularly courtesy of failures by the Federal Government and business to “dialogue” on reinvestment and opportunities and corporate tax changes for 2026 were too late to make us attractive to foreign investment.
“In this more interconnected world Australia must take more proactive steps to build its resilience in the face of potential negative impacts of globalisation,” it states.
“At the same time it must become more adaptable and agile in the way that we can capitalise on new opportunities in the expansive global market.”
It slammed Australian business for seemingly being convinced a domestic market has the scale to deliver a sustainable future “a questionable belief given the projected trajectory of our Asian neighbours”.
In the report overview, non-executive director of AGL Energy and Wesfarmers Diane Smith-Gander said Australian needed to broaden its relations particularly with countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Author of one chapter on Australia’s response to cyber security, University of NSW Professor Greg Austin said the Australian Defence Force’s revolution in reorganising for cyber warfare was two decades too late and way too reliant on the United States.
“Australian cannot count on significant operational support from its major ally to defend against a complex cyber attack in wartime,” Prof Austin warned.
“A number of specialists agree the Americans will be too busy defending not only their own networks but tens of thousands of unique computerised systems in deployed weapons platforms and in outer space.”
But like in trade and economy, all was not lost if the nation recognised the issues now and sought to address with “renovation” of domestic policies and strategies.