Australia in Transition: A Traveller’s Impressions in 2013
Overcoming racial bias
Having travelled and lived in 52 countries, both as a business traveller and a tourist, I was always conscious that I had missed visiting Australia. This lapse was rectified in December 2012-January 2013 during a month-long tour covering Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Port Douglas (to cover the Great Barrier Reef) and Ayer’s Rock resort (to see the central semi-desert regions and some Aboriginal people). Our impressions were also formed by talking to Australians, watching Australian TV, visiting the markets and attending social events (including a New Year’s Eve dinner-dance).
Australia now is one of the most democratic countries in the world. This must seem strange to Asians who were denied entry on the basis of racial discrimination till regulations were relaxed after 1973. Thereafter, even though Australia still gives preferential treatment to white-skinned British settlers (50% quota reservation plus settlement benefits) and allows non-white people mainly on the basis of locally required skills, it is in many ways a society transformed. Most people will hold in abhorrence the systematic genocide practiced against the Australian and Tasmanian Aboriginal people in order to occupy their lands and resources during the 18th and 19th centuries. But this was an accepted practice in all the British and the European settler colonies: the North and
South Americas, West Indies, Southern Africa.
But Australia has emerged from this era much better than the others. Australian courts have now declared the legal fiction of terra nullius as no longer binding and special rights have been given to Aboriginal people to have access to some of their traditional lands, sacred sites and revive some of their religious and cultural practices. But it is not an easy project after so many millennia. The Aborigines, isolated from the rest of the world for about 40,000 years, did not advance beyond the Stone Age till Europeans arrived. To make this very basic Stone Age culture relevant in this 21st century is a formidable task.
Without a means for gradual transition, the Aborigines themselves are largely a confused people who find it very difficult to live in a modern environment and are often prone to laziness and alcoholism.
Advancing democracy
Let us not forget that Australia was among the first countries in the world to allow women to vote in national elections (1911), ahead of all the widely acclaimed Western democracies. But the issue today in the Western world is not the advance of democracy the franchise
but the progressive creation of authoritarian states controlled by giant corporation controlled oligarchies that are withdrawing personal freedoms under the guise of protecting the people from external terrorism based in remote Third World nations where people can barely feed themselves, let alone invade the West with missiles. Red flags of danger have been raised over Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, among others, while a more subtle campaign has been waged against China to prevent it from advancing economically and challenging Western economic hegemony. The Western media, owned by the same giant corporations, which largely controls international opinion due to its widespread reach, has persuaded people that secret surveillance of telephone, internet and social media is good for national security. It has sanctioned arrests without legal warrants and secret torture of prisoners. It has allowed Western nations to run enormous military budgets despite huge public debts and wage overt and covert wars in the Middle East, Africa and South America.
In contrast, Australia has retained its sanity. The noisy and tainted propaganda that characterises the mainstream mass media in the USA is not a factor in Australia. The main TV sites like ABC and Sunrise are enjoyable to watch as they contain balanced views on world affairs and also have many interesting programmes on science, history and the environment. Unlike the often noisy and raucous US TV political news presenters, the
Australians are refined and dignified. Australian politicians are not subordinated by big corporate funders: corporate funding is illegal. When gun violence appeared in Australia,
they were able, unlike in the USA, to pass vigorous gun control laws that have removed the threat of extreme gun violence.
The first evidence of a democratic society is felt by the visitor from America as he enters an Australian airport. Unlike the rough and often humiliating treatment of passengers by
security personnel and Customs officers in America, Australian officials are courteous and efficient. To an American, it is an astonishing sight to see airport security personnel greeting visitors and helping them go though the searches. There are no full body scanners and people are not required to remove shoes. The police and public officials everywhere are friendly.
I would aver that this decency and efficiency is due to the concern for social justice which prevails in Australia. In America, many public services have been contracted out to private corporations whose main concern is not service but ever increasing profits. They employ the least qualified workers, often minorities from poor backgrounds, and pay minimum
wages. The US minimum wage of $8.0 per hour contrasts with the Australian minimum wage of $18. A person cannot survive on a salary based on $8.0 per hour and the result
is often frustrated employees with a chip on their shoulders. A cowed public in America
seems to accept this kind of poor treatment as a part of normal life.
In contrast, even jobs considered menial in America are not done by under-privileged people. Riding is an early morning taxi to the airport in Cairns from Port Douglas, I was
surprised to see the vehicle driver listening on the radio to the Vienna waltzes by Strauss. Even toilet cleaning is done by well paid workers.
Australian politics is free from the highly divisive and inane political debates in America on gay rights, abortion, creationism myths and the corporation-funded campaigns designed to transfer the national wealth to a miniscule wealthy minority.
The best indication of a democracy is not the mere holding of periodic general elections to choose the government, it is also the commitment to social justice that allows all citizens to lead a decent life, even if they are handicapped. Unlike in the US, where politicians have been busy cutting social benefits while keeping taxes for the very rich at historic low levels
and big corporations are often subsidised, Australia has an extensive social welfare system that prevents absolute poverty. You do not see beggars on the streets of big cities, like you do in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Washington.
Australian dilemma
Australian politicians have been faced with a dilemma. Traditionally, white-skinned Australia regarded itself as a purely European nation located south of Asia and far from Europe. They prided themselves on being British, even though the earliest settlers were the poor who had been punished and condemned by a harsh British legal system to exile in a difficult land. Australians have paid a heavy price for their unquestioning loyalty to Britain: a huge loss of Australian lives in the First and Second World Wars fighting for Britain. The Australians revere the British crown and follow most of the archaic British traditions that are a hangover from its feudal past.
But they felt leaderless when the Great Britain lost its empire and became just another European state. When US President Dwight Eisenhower announced that the USA was the leader of the Western world by harshly denouncing Britain, France and Israel for their 1952 Suez invasion and forced their humiliating withdrawal from Egypt, Australian politicians realised that they needed a new leader and that this was the USA. Australians still feel, unjustifiably, that they need a Western power to protect themselves from the
huge heavily populated countries of Asia, a fear reinforced by Japanese imperialism in World War 2.
Australia has also paid a heavy price for its unflinching loyalty to the US-UK alliance on foreign policy. They lost large numbers of servicemen in Korea and Vietnam. They acted as the US-UK proxy in the East Timor crisis and sent their armed forces to support this imperial alliance in Iraq and Afghanistan. And right now Australia has agreed to be the US partner in President Obama’s grand vision to increase the US armed presence in East
Asia to intimidate the rising power of China in international politics and economics.
Can Australia shed its blind allegiance to hegemonic Western powers and become a truly independent nation? In the longer term, with its now heavy dependence on Asia for its economic prosperity, this seems inevitable.
Australian economy
The Australian economy is not exactly robust, as none of the “Western” nations that dominated the world economy in the past can be characterised as such. Yet Australia is in much better shape than any of the Western economies of Europe and North America.
It endured the US originated world financial crisis of 2008 much better than the Western nations. It has a healthy balance of payments and manageable public debt. The financial system is in good shape and the Australian dollar is stronger now than the US dollar in value.
All this is due to a dramatic economic shift in focus from Europe and North America towards Asia. The Australian economy was based in the past on agriculture and modest levels of industry and mining. But agricultural subsidies in the EU and in the USA curtailed Australian agricultural exports. Australian industries, like the industries in
the EU and North America, suffered from the dramatic expansion of low-cost high
quality industrial exports from Asia, mainly from Japan, China, South Korea and India,
but also from Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. Even more importantly, this was counteracted by the strong demand for Australian minerals and coal to power the huge manufacturing industries in Asia. So China is now Australia’s biggest trading partner, with 26% of its trade. Almost 75% of Australia’s exports are now taken by four Asians: China, Japan, South Korea and India. China is also its main import partner. Equally, despite some resistance, Japanese and Korean motor vehicles have pushed out the Australian Holden from its once dominant position in the market.
There is still lingering evidence of the White Man’s reluctance to see non-White Asians take over major industries in Australia. Chinese efforts to take over Australian mining interests have been viewed with alarm. After all, for centuries it was the Europeans who took over the economies of Asia. Adjustment to this new world order is not easy for the once dominant nations.
But Australia is more pragmatic and less easily prejudiced by vested interests than America. The widespread China bashing that was seen during the last US presidential election cannot happen here. All Australian national leaders seen on television acknowledged that their economic interests are now increasingly tied to trade and cooperation with Asia. In turn, many Asian countries are making use of Australian excellence in higher education and some areas of technology for their own development.
The Asian economic boom that has no end in sight will be a cornerstone of Australian economic development. Cooperation for mutual benefit will keep the Australian economy strong for many decades to come. But Australia can also substantially help Asian politics through closer cooperation. Throughout most of Asia, even in countries today considered “democratic”, the rights of ordinary people are circumscribed by authoritarian leaders, ruling family dynasties, corruption and nepotism. There is often a thin edge to the Rule of Law. Asia can benefit from Australia’s example of a sturdy democracy with a concern for peoples’ rights and welfare.
Kenneth Abeywickraama
25 January 2012
Sydney, Australia.