"Authority. persuasion and exchange" (revisited): the public policy of internationalising the Australian economy

Abstract

This paper examines the 1980s restructuring of the Australian economy from the perspective of two contending paradigms. After World War II Australia sheltered its economy from international competition. McEwenite "protection-all-round" - constituted this "politics of domestic defence". In consequence, by the 1980s Australian governments faced the problem of ridding the Australian economy of the endemic inefficiencies of this post-war form of the "Australian Settlement" model and developing a new model to make Australia internationally competitive. This paper traces the attempts by the Labor governments of Australia in the 1980s and early 1990s to reshape the Australian economy. Reforms of the political and administrative structures and practices of Australian politics, as well as deregulation and other economic reforms were involved. To effect this historic change in Australia's policy paradigm required varying combinations of "authority, persuasion and exchange" (Kemp 1983). Implementing this paradigm shift. however, was dogged by the combination of exogenous shocks to the economy and "political" disagreements about the appropriate policy mix for the new model.