The white people who dominated Dick Smith’s “population puzzle” video broadcast on the ABC last recently were barely leavened in the Q and A studio audience by Suvendrini Perera, (Curtin University academic and Fairfax oped writer) on the panel, and Tanveer Ahmed and his dad on the floor. Unfortunately the arguments of people like Dick Smith — while apparently well-intentioned — may well have racist effects. Immigration levels can be an issue for many people as part of the wider debate about population, but the legitimate presence of generations of immigrants and their children should not be. If immigrants are made to feel somehow they are the cause of problems other Australians face, this sets up a very dangerous basis for the debate.

Our current “national conversations” about migration and the rather different set of issues raised by asylum seekers, is not helped when public opinion leaders such as politicians give license to prejudice by making anti-immigrant speech somehow OK.

Both the major parties have taken short-term advantage of the attention that fear and hate foster. Whether it is “hearing peoples’ concerns about asylum seekers” or “the best Australians are locally born, not immigrants” there is a fairly obvious message to those who wish to hear it that immigrants have less value or legitimacy than other Australians. With asylum seekers now universally and so wrongly labeled as “illegal immigrants” the situation can only deteriorate. And that’s unsustainable!

So let’s talk about multiculturalism as the basis for a sustainable population, and why its principles have to be part of any useful debate on sustainability – of people, of lifestyle, of environment, of employment, of economy and of the future. Everyone has to have buy-in to the debate if they are expected to own the outcomes.

Non-Anglo Australians cannot be marginalised — as the government may already have done by placing only one “person of colour” Fairfax columnist Waleed Aly on only one its three advisory bodies on population — and then be expected to feel committed to the outcome of the process. After all, it’s their extended families that are one of the targets for the reduction in immigration. It’s their relatives in refugee camps who’ll be kept out or turned back, it’s often their expectations that are thwarted by rapidly changing immigration rules, and they’ve been the targets of racist attacks. Their family consumption patterns will need to change just as much as anyone else’s, and they’ll need and want to know why. Their kids will need the training and support, and their older people the care and geriatic services. In the latter case non-Anglos made up 40 per cent of the over 70 year old population at the 2006 Census — and could be creeping up to half-way for the 2011 Census.

Cultural diversity already contributes a critical component to our productive wealth and our community services. Whether we are talking health or the service sector or education or industry, turn off the tap on immigrants and you don’t just reduce demand, you reduce skill supply as well. A good way of turning off the tap is to make potential immigrants we do want and need, feel they’d be better off somewhere, almost anywhere, else. One of the most challenging areas for government and opposition is thus their level of recognition of these issues, and the policy settings that result from this awareness (or lack of it).

Read the complete essay here.

More Than Luck is a collection of ideas for citizens who want real change edited by Mark Davis and CPD Executive Director Miriam Lyons. A to-do list for politicians looking to base public policies on the kind of future Australians really want, More Than Luck shows what’s needed to share this country’s good luck amongst all Australians – now and in the future. Click here to find out more. Like what you’ve read? Donate to help make good ideas matter.

Many Australians go into this election disillusioned with what is on offer. Staring them in the face is the systemic failure of governance that I alluded to in my chapter of More Than Luck, “Governance That Works: why public service reform needs systems thinking.’ For example, both major parties have “copped out” of meaningful policies for climate change. Prospects for the Greens in effecting change in the next parliament remain an open, if hopeful question.

But all parties have in common a failure to frame climate change as a “wicked problem”that demands both systemic understanding and practices for moving forward. I will go further and say that collectively, and here I mean globally, we are in the wrong conversation.

What do I mean by this? Well it became apparent to me after CoP15 in Copenhagen that an unintended consequence of the climate change conversation was that its scientistic framing, especially through the activity of the IPCC, had released a global emotion of fear. In making this claim I am not criticising climate scientists, climate activists, academics and the like. I do not question the science but I do offer a critique of how the doing of science — scientism — operates in our society. We will do well to learn lessons from this example about how scientific explanations function in social systems.

What is unpardonable about this election is that Tony Abbot and those who follow him have deliberately set out to foster an emotion of fear throughout the country. It is fear politics matched only by George Bush and John Howard. The emotion of fear reduces our behavioural choices – the hatches are closed, and, ultimately we create an unethical manner of living together because we reduce the choices we have as individuals, as a nation and as a society.

In contrast Julia Gillard, knowingly or not, in her rhetoric offers an emotion of hope. Under the circumstances it seems the only choice.

The next government should abandon the current conversation about climate change and turn to a conversation of transformation, to a post carbon society, built on an emotion of hope accompanied by investment in transforming practices, institutions and technologies as responses to “peak oil”, biodiversity loss, the global water crisis, and, yes, greenhouse gas emissions. ClimateWorks Australia’s Low Carbon Growth Plan for Australia which provides the first comprehensive economy-wide blueprint for how Australia can achieve an ambitious reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, whilst also building a growing low-carbon economy, exemplifies the transformations we have to imagine and deliver.

Conversation is more than talking – it is how we frame situations, shape and enact policies, build discourses about our circumstances and possible futures and, above all, address the type of society we wish to be.

More Than Luck is a collection of ideas for citizens who want real change edited by Mark Davis and CPD Executive Director Miriam Lyons. A to-do list for politicians looking to base public policies on the kind of future Australians really want, More Than Luck shows what’s needed to share this country’s good luck amongst all Australians – now and in the future. Click here to find out more. Like what you’ve read? Donate to help make good ideas matter.

Violence against women continues to be a real problem for women from all socio-economic groups and cultural backgrounds. While the Government’s National Action Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Their Children is a very significant step toward addressing the relentless epidemic of violence against women and girls, some parties have not committed to adequate and long term funding for the plan.

Both the ALP and Coalition’s Paid Parental Leave policies have been debated in the media, but the Greens also have a policy that meets the recommendations of women’s organisations. Women want paid parental leave that is fully costed and comprehensively funded, flexible and extended up to six months, includes superannuation and a paternity leave component.

Pay equity is still a problem, with women working full time earning, on average, only 83 cents in the dollar earned by men. While all three parties have made public statements about the importance of pay equity, not all parties have a commitment to reduce the gender wage gap. This includes a commitment to meeting the recommendations in the House of Representatives Report Making It Fair, as well as fair work conditions and equal pay for community sector workers.

One fundamental area that needs work from both the ALP and Coalition is a Human Rights Act for Australia, bringing domestic laws in line with our international obligations. In fact, the Coalition has indicated it will not fund an initiative to consolidate and strengthen anti-discrimination laws.

Health is another burning issue for women. While the ALP has promised a National Women’s Health Policy, they have failed to deliver the funding to implement it. In a disturbing step backwards for women’s right to choice over their own healthcare, the ALP and Coalition passed legislation that gives private doctors the right to veto a woman’s informed choice to access private midwifery care.

Time is running out for women in the 2010 Federal Election. Can we put gender equality on the agenda and make women count?

More Than Luck is a collection of ideas for citizens who want real change edited by Mark Davis and CPD Executive Director Miriam Lyons. A to-do list for politicians looking to base public policies on the kind of future Australians really want, More Than Luck shows what’s needed to share this country’s good luck amongst all Australians – now and in the future. Click here to find out more. Like what you’ve read? Donate to help make good ideas matter.

Along with the ghosts of Labor leaders past, Julia Gillard now has to contend with ex-Labor supporter and adman John Singleton’s foray into the election campaign. Singleton’s agency Banjo has developed a series of advertisements attacking Labor’s health record on behalf of corporate medical outfit Primary Health Care.

The ads feature a woman dying of cervical cancer — allegedly because she could not afford to have a pap smear due to the Labor Government funding cuts for pathology services.

Of course the suggestion that the Labor (or any) government can be held responsible for an individual death from cancer is outrageous. The complex interplay of factors that result in the tragic situation depicted in the ads cannot be reduced to a single policy decision. It’s also unfair to imply that a Coalition government would have resulted in a better outcome for women at risk of cervical cancer.

The fact is, the Labor Government has done more in a single term to re-orient the health system around primary care and preventive health than the Coalition did in its entire term in office. While Labor’s health reform agenda certainly has significant gaps and limitations, it does at least involve a commitment to preventive health at its core.

The same cannot be said for the Coalition which has largely ignored preventive health in its election health policy and instead has directed resources into increasing the numbers of hospital beds.

Furthermore, the Coalition has said nothing in its health policy that would address the problem of affordability of health care raised in the ads engineered by Singleton. In fact, the Coalition’s policy of diverting funds from primary care programs to individual GPs is likely to increase out-of-pocket costs to consumers, rather than reduce them.

There is no question, given their respective records on health policy and their election platforms, that the Government should be comprehensively beating the Coalition on health.

However, ludicrous and distasteful as the ads are, they highlight why Labor is getting into difficulties in a policy area where it should have a home ground advantage.

A major area of oversight in Labor’s health reform agenda is the issue of patient co-payments for health services. We know from extensive research that co-payments are an issue for many consumers. In particular, they create difficulties for people with chronic conditions and families. The reforms address many of the structural problems within our health system but barely mention out-of-pocket costs for services — despite the powerful influence these have over how consumers access health care.

We know from extensive research that co-payments are an issue for many consumers. In particular, they create difficulties for people with chronic conditions and families with young children who use health services more frequently than average. This is why the Singleton ads may resonate with some sections of the community.

The irony of this is that co-payments are not a significant issue for pap smears, compared with other health care services. Pap smears generally attract only a small payment (and are often free) and are required (for most women) only once every two years. Even if the co-payment has increased over the last term of government, it is hard to see how this increase would create financial hardship for any woman.

People with chronic and complex conditions who require regular tests to monitor their conditions (for example those on anti-coagulant therapy) are much more likely to experience difficulties in affording any out-of-pocket costs associated with pathology services.

But when it comes to advertising, an overweight middle-aged man with heart disease isn’t as powerful as a young woman dying of cancer.

In the end, these ads are unlikely to change any voter’s mind about who should govern the country. But they will be an unnecessary – and largely undeserved – distraction for Labor as we enter the home stretch of the election campaign.

More Than Luck is a collection of ideas for citizens who want real change edited by Mark Davis and CPD Executive Director Miriam Lyons. A to-do list for politicians looking to base public policies on the kind of future Australians really want, More Than Luck shows what’s needed to share this country’s good luck amongst all Australians – now and in the future. Click here to find out more. Like what you’ve read? Donate to help make good ideas matter.

Former health minister Kay Patterson was fond of asking people who complained about the cost of health care how much they paid their hairdresser. Her not very subtle point was that if someone could afford $60 for a cut-and-blowwave then they shouldn’t complain about a similar expense to see their GP.

What the then Senator Patterson didn’t take into account was that the need for medical care is generally much more urgent (and less predictable) than the need for a haircut.  People don’t plan to get sick or have an injury. And they don’t plan to pass on an illness to other family members who then also require medical care. Unlike a bad hair day, a period of sickness can restrict earning capacity making it more difficult to come up with the up-front payment required for many health services. These factors make budgeting for health expenses more difficult than planning for other areas of household expenditure.

From a community perspective, there are also good reasons why we should be more concerned about the consequences of leaving a health problem untreated than delaying a visit to the hair salon. When people can’t afford timely and preventive health care, their problems get worse and ultimately require more expensive treatment. This ultimately has a greater overall social and economic impact on society. The same cannot be said for delaying hair appointments. People with dark roots and untamed frizz are not clogging up emergency departments and diverting scarce hospital resources from other areas of need because they couldn’t afford high quality hair care advice when their problems were first identified.

There is substantial evidence that in Australia many people struggle to afford the cost of medical and health care. Last week the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the results of the first national Patient Experience Survey, examining health care for Australians in the last 12 months.

The survey found that some people delayed or did not get some types of medical care due to cost.  For example in the past year:

• 1 in 16 people had delayed seeing or not seen a GP;
• nearly 1 in 10 people with a prescription had delayed getting or did not get their medication; and
• around 1 in 10 people referred to a medical specialist had delayed seeing or did not see the specialist.

This confirms other Australian and international research which has found that many people in our society forgo recommended medical treatment because of cost issues.

This risks undermining the success of many of the planned health reform initiatives.  It doesn’t matter how well integrated, ehealth-enabled or multi-disciplinary a new primary care centre is if someone in need of a GP can’t afford the $60 upfront payment needed to get in the front door. Often the issue is not so much the total cost but the available cash required to access care. Our system of Medicare and private health insurance rebates, coupled with safety nets which usually require significant outlays before they kick in, can create problems for those without ready access to cash and savings. Many of these people would have no difficulty affording the cost of care over the longer term, if they could plan and budget for this expense.

A health credit card and a single safety net for health care, as proposed by the CPD, would solve this problem without requiring a major injection of additional funding or a restructuring of the health system. It would particularly assist people with chronic conditions whose health care expenses are – through no fault of their own – much higher than average.

Structural reform of our health system is important and should be pursued by whichever party wins the election. However, for this reform to deliver better health outcomes across our population we need to also ensure that essential health services are accessible to all who need them.

When 10 per cent of people requiring prescription medication or specialist medical care can’t afford to access these services within the recommended timeframe, we have a problem.

Any politician who doesn’t agree should go and get a haircut and a real job.

More Than Luck is a collection of ideas for citizens who want real change edited by Mark Davis and CPD Executive Director Miriam Lyons. A to-do list for politicians looking to base public policies on the kind of future Australians really want, More Than Luck shows what’s needed to share this country’s good luck amongst all Australians – now and in the future. Click here to find out more. Like what you’ve read? Donate to help make good ideas matter.

A recent report of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JCFADT) identified the Asia-Pacific region as ‘diverse and complex’ with a ‘mosaic of human rights challenges’.  The Committee highlighted gender discrimination and violence, human trafficking, capital punishment, restrictions on freedom of expression and association, and profound poverty, among others.  The Committee identified a ‘clear need to enhance mechanisms to protect human rights and to redress human rights violations’.

On Australia’s role, JCFADT found that Australia is ‘well placed to foster discussion and progress on a cooperative approach to human rights challenges facing the Asia-Pacific’.  It concluded that Australia has a ‘significant’, albeit ‘sensitive and cooperative’ role to play in the promotion and protection of human rights in the region.

So what concrete commitments would a human rights-focused policy on engagement with the Asia-Pacific include?

Human Rights as a Key Instrument and Aim of Australian Engagement in the Region

JCFADT recommended that the Australian Government should be ‘conscious of its human rights obligations in all of its regional relationships’, including in the area of trade.

• Australia should develop a comprehensive white paper on human rights and Australia’s engagement with the Asia-Pacific.  The paper should: explain the benefits and imperatives of a human rights-based approach to the Asia-Pacific region; set out Australia’s human rights and foreign policy objectives in the region; and detail the means by which the Government will pursue these strategic objectives.  The paper should identify priorities for action and make concrete, measurable commitments across all areas of Australian engagement with the Asia-Pacific which impact on human rights.
• Australia should develop and undertake Human Rights Impact Assessments as a key aspect of doing business in the Asia-Pacific, including in the areas of aid, development, trade, investment, business, labour, migration, defence, military cooperation, security and the environment.
• Australia should ensure that the promotion and protection of human rights are incorporated into the objectives and activities of all regional organisations and processes that impact on human rights and of which Australia is a part.
• Where appropriate, Australia should negotiate for bilateral and multilateral agreements to include human rights clauses and safeguards.

Adopting a Human Rights-Based Approach to Aid and Development Assistance

JCFADT also recommended that AusAID ‘adopt a human rights-based approach’ to aid and development projects.  This recommendation was underpinned by evidence that development and human rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, and that a human rights-based approach can enhance program effectiveness and efficiency.  Both the OECD and the Overseas Development Institute have identified that the integration of human rights in all aspects of aid programming can deliver more effective, sustainable and value-for-money development outcomes.

• Consistent with the Government’s commitment to strengthen the effectiveness of Australia’s aid program, AusAID should ‘adopt a human rights-based approach’ to aid and development projects.
• Australia should prioritise human rights as a key aim and instrument of Australia’s development cooperation with the Asia-Pacific.

Adopting a Human Rights-Based Approach to Military and Security Cooperation

In many countries in the Asia-Pacific, members of the security forces who are implicated in human rights abuses are neither investigated nor prosecuted.  Australia is playing an increasing role in training foreign security forces through exchange programs and joint training exercises.  Human rights should be central to these trainings both in content and in terms of who is invited to participate.

• Australia should develop a transparent vetting system to scrutinise all members of security forces who are put forward to participate in activities funded or coordinated by, or otherwise involving, the Australian government.  The vetting system should be codified in a publicly available policy document initially and later through legislation.  Members that have themselves been implicated in human rights abuses, or are stationed with a unit that is implicated in such abuses, should be excluded from the trainings unless they have been charged with criminal offences relating to the abuses and found not guilty.  National human rights institutions and human rights NGOs should be consulted to determine whether members or units are implicated in such abuses.
• Australia should ensure that all activities involving members of foreign security forces, particularly training activities, funded or coordinated by, or otherwise involving the Australian government, includes practical human rights training.
• Bilateral military assistance and training programs that involve security forces should be contingent on respect for human rights and accountability for violations.

Check Thinking Points on Wednesday for further human rights policy recommendations.

More Than Luck is a collection of ideas for citizens who want real change edited by Mark Davis and CPD Executive Director Miriam Lyons. A to-do list for politicians looking to base public policies on the kind of future Australians really want, More Than Luckshows what’s needed to share this country’s good luck amongst all Australians – now and in the future. Click here to find out more. Like what you’ve read? Donate to help make good ideas matter.

Of the myriad issues inadequately covered in the election campaign thus far,  Australian values and identity — and the question of how these values shape the way we understand our role and responsibility in the world — rank high.  In the leaders’ debate, for example, the only discussion of Australian foreign policy and our place in the world arose in the context of the “Timor Solution” and the war in Afghanistan.

This is not the way things should be.  With real leadership, elections present an opportunity to tap into admirable but often latent aspects of national identity, a concept explored by Canadian political scientist Alison Brysk in her new book, Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy. Why, Brysk asks, do a small number of countries sacrifice their national interest to promote human rights and help strangers? Her answer is simple: they don’t. Instead, she explains, countries such as Sweden, Canada and the Netherlands have nurtured national identities that have a deep commitment to human rights at their core. Global good samaritans, Brysk posits, see the “blood, treasure, and political capital they contribute to human rights as an investment, not a loss”. Both at the local and international levels, they have learned to see themselves, she says, “as interconnected members of a community that works best for everyone when human rights are respected”.

What I’d really like to see in this election is our national leaders appealing to and mobilising the most constructive and admirable aspects of Australia’s national identity and committing to the nation’s development as a principled, persistent, fearless and forceful human rights champion in the region and on the international stage.

Certainly, we are well placed to be an effective human rights promoter. We are democratic and politically stable. We are globalised and multicultural. We have an active and well networked civil society. We enjoy low levels of social stratification and high levels of economic development. We are a secure regional middle power.

We also have much to gain from pursuing the human rights agenda and much to lose in failing to do so. The positive side of the ledger includes the development of more stable and predictable international and regional policy environments, enhanced international credibility and diplomatic capital, strengthened policy coherence, and the mobilisation of universal, unifying national values. Conversely, a failure to multilaterally address urgent human rights challenges, such as climate change and food and water insecurity, will have grave implications for global, regional and national peace, security and development.

What then, could Australia do to most actively and effectively contribute to the agenda of making human rights a human reality in the 21st century?

As a first step, Australia should develop a comprehensive strategy on human rights and foreign policy. That strategy should mainstream human rights across all areas of Australian foreign affairs, including aid, development, trade, investment, migration, environment, business and security. It should contain concrete measures and commitments to promote and protect human rights in the region and internationally. Such a policy could enhance our international reputation as a human rights leader and build significant diplomatic capital.

Australia’s 2013-2014 UN Security Council candidacy could be a flagship for this policy. As a Security Council candidate, we should commit to taking a principled, persistent and consistent approach to human rights internationally and to ensuring that our domestic policies and practices are human rights compliant. We should use our Security Council candidacy to promote our national interest in international human rights, the rule of law and good governance.

Australia should similarly take a proactive and principled approach to the UN Human Rights Council, whether as an active observer state or member. We have an important role in ensuring the Council fulfils its mandate, and achieves its potential, as the leading multilateral forum for the discussion, promotion and enforcement of human rights.

Both through the Security Council and other international and regional bodies, including trade and financial institutions, we should push a fearless and forceful human rights agenda. This agenda should address existing human rights challenges – including poverty, financial instability and inequality – and pursue progressive initiatives, including operationalisation of the responsibility to protect, the abolition of the death penalty, the advancement of Indigenous peoples globally, and the regulation of business and human rights.

It is often observed that human rights begin at home. The fulfilment of human rights at home is inextricably linked with our national identity and our capacity and ability to promote human rights abroad. Domestic human rights protection must be recognised as a core aspect of any comprehensive and coherent foreign human rights policy.

In order for Australia to adopt not only a principled and consistent, but also effective, approach to human rights in international affairs — from the death penalty, to child labour, to people trafficking, to a regional solution on asylum-seekers — human rights must become core business in internal affairs. As US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton recently recognised, “By holding ourselves accountable, we reinforce our moral authority to demand that all governments adhere to obligations under international law.”

Australia’s status as the only Western democracy without a national human rights law undermines our authority and legitimacy on international human rights issues and in regional human rights dialogues. A national Human Rights Act — rejected by the Rudd/Gillard Government – could promote more responsive and accountable government, improve public services, and enshrine fundamental values such as freedom, dignity, respect and a fair go. Perhaps most importantly, however, a comprehensive national Human Rights Act could provide a framework for international, regional and domestic policy coordination and create a “virtuous circle” in which a constructive national identity is mobilised which places human rights at the centre of our internal and external affairs.  The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has played precisely this role, placing human rights at the centre of both Canada’s self-perception and external engagement.

Australia has what it takes to be a human rights promoter at home and abroad.  For Australia to realise our potential, however, will require real political leadership and legislative and institutional reform, Most critically, it will require the mobilisation of a national identity that values human rights every bit as highly as beaches, barbecues, boomerangs, the Anzac spirit and the Ashes. That is the opportunity that this Federal Election presents and the responsibility that the next Australian Government confronts.

More Than Luckis a collection of ideas for citizens who want real change edited by Mark Davis and CPD Executive Director Miriam Lyons. A to-do list for politicians looking to base public policies on the kind of future Australians really want, More Than Luck shows what’s needed to share this country’s good luck amongst all Australians – now and in the future. Click here to find out more. Like what you’ve read? Donate to help make good ideas matter.

As the world bounces back from the Great Recession more quickly and after less suffering than expected, progressives will need to adjust their strategies. The opportunities for a paradigm shift away from neo-liberalism are still there, but it will be a less dramatic rejection of the status quo than initially thought. As we come together to consider our options, it is my view that we could benefit from taking a leaf out of the neo-liberals’ book. There is a lesson to be learned from how they challenged and ultimately displaced social democracy.

S.M.Amadae argues, in her fabulous book, Rationalising Capitalist Democracy[i], that a crucial element of the cold war battle of ideas was a struggle over the nature of democracy. She argues that, in the 1940s, civic republican conceptions of democracy – as the public deliberation on the common good – had collectivist and therefore socialist undertones. At the time, socialist ideas were in the intellectual ascendancy and ideals of democracy had growing popular appeal. As a result a reconception of democracy was a key battle ground for those seeking to defend capitalist individualism. Amadae argues that the Schumpeterian perspective was taken as a starting point, and public choice theory accounts of democracy were built upon it and actively developed to this end. Instead of arguing against democracy, neo-liberals sought to reconceive of it in away that rendered it consistent with market individualism. Democratic politics was increasingly understood as the struggle for power and a share of public resources between narrowly self interested actors. The strength of democracy was that this struggle for power could be contained and channelled to the public good by a process of political competition. Amadae noted that it was not until the 1970s that a suggestion of a natural relationship between free markets and democracy became a staple of the pro capitalist argument.

These public choice/rational choice accounts of democracy became powerful through the 1970s. By the 1980s their account of democracy as mediating between rent seekers was widely accepted in government circles. The ideas legitimated the winding back of the welfare state. They ultimately undermined social democracy and cleared the way for free market reforms.

I think there are two very important lessons we can learn from this example. Firstly, they did not try to win a direct confrontation with a hegemonic concept – they resisted the desire to swim against the rip and instead swam across it. Secondly, they looked at an existing idea that had become widely accepted and they looked for different ways to frame and explain its strengths. They developed ways of explaining its achievements which resonated with their social philosophy, and then down the track began the process of stigmatizing the aspects of the institution that they disliked.

It is my view that progressives in our confrontation with free markets need to do
much the same thing. The global financial crisis has not led to the type of crisis that will see the old ideas thrown out. A belief in free markets is here to stay and will only be moved on incrementally.

In my view, we need to take a fresh look at markets. The framing of political debate as between ‘government’ and ‘the market’ has allowed the classical liberal account of
markets to go unchallenged. The opportunity now, for progressives, is to look at the market afresh, to examine different ways of understanding how markets work. Fresh understandings of markets’ strengths and fresh understandings of the things markets have achieved is paramount. If we can come up with new accounts of the features of markets that work well, we will then be able to move onto the step of stigmatising, and, more importantly, excising the exploitative features of markets.

My starting point for a rethink of markets is Adam Smith[ii].Smith argued that the nub of economic growth was the division of labor. He tracked economic development as the move from being subsistence farmers who produced almost everything they consumed themselves to a society in which people became more specialized. The first step away from subsistence was when some people became dedicated blacksmiths, carpenters or bakers. The specialization enabled people to become more skilled at what they did and to make tools that assisted with the task, resulting in people becoming much more productive. As industrialization took hold, manufacturing led to greater and greater levels of specialization, creating higher and higher levels of productivity.

The flip side of all this specialization was that we developed longer and longer production chains where more people were involved in creating a single product. In the modern world these production chains flow from primary producers, who sell to wholesale manufacturers, who make inputs for other manufacturers, who make inputs for other manufacturers, before it finally goes to a retailer and on to the consumer.

This notion of efficient economies being marked by specialization and long production chains strikes me as having considerable potential for reframing.

Firstly, economic growth, the creation of genuinely new wealth, is a product of gains from co-operation. Secondly, a key condition for economic growth was that you needed social conditions that made these long production chains possible. You needed to have a society in which people were ethically developed enough that they could have trusting and cooperative relationships with strangers. These two points together, it seems to me, are the basis of a progressive case for how markets can contribute to our communities. It is a notion that productive markets thrive on co-operative relations, trust and ethical behaviour.

This specialisation and long production chains approach also seems to me to have some other desirable features as a paradigm shifting framework.

Its third quality is that markets as we currently think of them can be seen as existing between links in the chain. As a result, it is an approach that could incorporate existing theories of markets but build on them and expand them. It does not require existing economists to recant, rather it asks them to build new extensions on their existing thinking. Fourthly, and most importantly, this larger more encompassing framework enables us to start doing some more sophisticated analysis of both the strengths and weaknesses of markets.  We can distinguish between good profit making behaviour that expands the size of the pie, and bad profit making behaviour that simply shifts wealth from one part of the chain to the other – what I might call profit shifting.

We can see examples of this sort of profit shifting when farmers have to negotiate with the major supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths. Coles and Woolworths are able to increase their profits not by creating new wealth but simply by redistributing it from farmers to themselves.

We can see similar sorts of profit shifting between workers and employers. We can
distinguish between good profits that genuinely create new wealth and bad profits where employers increase their profits by shifting costs onto employees. Whether it is by pushing down wages, shifting income risk onto employees by making them casuals, or by reducing work hours or conditions.

These sorts of approaches that seek to re-imagine the market, to politically neutralize its strengths, and to focus on excising its exploitative qualities, strike me as having the greatest potential for a post-neo-liberal future.

[i] S. M. Amadae (2003)  Rationalizing capitalist democracy: The cold war origins of rational choice liberalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[ii] A. Smith (1976)  An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Oxford : Clarendon Press.

I’d like to begin by recalling the words on the invitation to this seminar, in which we describe the aspirations of many people for a better society — and also the way Australian society falls short of these aspirations. Then we added the following:

‘…underlying these concerns is something else that is rarely discussed: it is the crisis of ideas and values which express alternatives. In spite of the current economic crisis, the rise of neo-liberalism reminded us that social change depends on political ideas embedded in an intellectual and moral framework. The motive for this seminar therefore arises from the need to find a space to discuss the development of intellectual and moral frameworks for progressive politics in Australia.’

By putting it in this way,  we are talking about the connection between ideas and politics. Or what would once have been called the connection of theory to practice.

A crisis of vision

The lack of a broadly agreed set of ideas for the non-conservative side of politics  is
reflected in a number of ways.  Perhaps the most obvious, at one end of the spectrum, is the decades-long crisis of vision within the Australian Labor Party. That party once had a vision which was based on using government to regulate and civilize capitalism. Yet it was a Labor federal government which ushered in privatization and deregulation in the national economy.  In a different way, the radical left in Australia was, historically, a small but significant part of the Australian political scene. It had a highly developed analysis of society, centering on the social consequences of private ownership of property and the market. Most of the radical left has now disappeared altogether, including the Communist Party of Australia to which I once belonged. Some of the remaining parts of the radical left, as far as I can tell, seem to be groping towards a vision of ‘ecological socialism’. Others look determinedly backwards to past glories.

Yet while the anti-corporate left has largely disappeared, problems about the role of private corporations in democracies like ours have not disappeared.

The crisis of vision extends to other social movements, such as the women’s movement. This movement achieved tremendous gains in social equality and  opposition to discrimination. These changes, combined with the inflexibility in the economy and workforce, have lead to a situation where we now have what Barbara Pocock calls a ‘work-life collision’. In many families neither partner is able easily to fulfill the role of carer of small children. More broadly we have the continued devaluation of caring itself in a society focused on work, economic efficiency, consumerism, and individualization.

The crisis of vision also touches on matters of cultural diversity. Progressives have championed acceptance of cultural diversity against its detractors such as John Howard and Pauline Hanson. Progressives were also key supporters of acceptance of other forms of diversity around sexuality. Indeed, if you asked many younger people today the meaning of the political term ‘the left’ may would respond in terms of its support for cultural and social diversity.

In celebrating diversity, it’s worth recalling what has happened to an older progressive virtue — that of the common good and the notion of a common interest. In a society in which the forces driving individualization are powerful, the notion of a common good has been a casualty.  Even so, some thinkers dismiss such a notion at the level of theory. However, if one abandons a notion of the common good, one is reduced to promoting particular and small constituencies. Yet members of small constituencies also have communal identities — as Australians, as users of a health care system or an education system.

Many of us want to retain support for acceptance of diversity, but we also believe that political action to address some of the major crises facing us is impossible without a notion of common humanity which shares a common fate and which needs to identify a common good.  But how can a new balance be achieved?

Other problems exist between progressives based on the labour movement and the new and growing environmental movements. The need to address climate change will mean the dislocation of industries, and the need to end jobs in certain industries such as coal mining, and this is causing growing problems. My own view is that the need to address climate change will move to the centre of political ideas and practice. This situation will require the creative and bold application of progressive
values.

A lesson from neoliberalism

In discussing the crisis of ideas for progressives, I think it is useful to look at a parallel and opposite case back in the 1970s. In those days it was the Right which had a dearth of credible and inspiring ideas. In the 1960s and 1970s, the old conservative Right found its dominance under challenge by ideas of social change. Old notions of nationalism, of racism, of deference to authority and of the naturalness of privilege were being undermined.

But some individuals and forces within the Right sought an intellectual renewal, not by defending old shibboleths but by exploring old ideas which, in their view, suddenly had a new relevance. This was the beginning of the era of the ‘think-tanks’ and the rise of economic liberalism or neo liberalism.

This ideological revolution of the Right had an instructive result. Over a period of time, it gave the Right the ascendancy in the battle of ideas and values in Australia and elsewhere.  Even where the Right did not directly succeed in taking government, the ideas of the new Right dominated the political agenda and promoted its values and world view. It is only now, after decades of dominance, with the global financial crisis that this extraordinary movement has received its first effective opposition and undergone a significant challenge to its credibility.

In its days of success, neo liberalism had one advantage, and it contains a useful lesson on the reason for the rise and fall of ideas which aim to have social impact.

That advantage, and a key to the success of neo liberalism, was that it was in tune with deeper social changes. In my view the set of ideas known as neoliberalism evolved as one response to the age of affluence. Probably even its originators were not fully aware of this, but it suited the social changes which were sparked by material prosperity. Let me explain. The material prosperity of countries like ours is extraordinary and unprecedented in human  history. This wealth gives most people a range of choices of which the most obvious are in supermarket shelves but which extends to a vast number of choices about where to live and how to live. It extends from choice about whether or not to have children — to choices about which overseas destination to travel to. With choice comes a degree of personal freedom for ordinary people which, as I said, is unprecedented in history. It was not surprising that a set of ideas arose which celebrates choice and freedom  and see these abstract notions as the basis for a good society. On this basis, neoliberal economic and social policies foster a strong individualism and self interest.

As I said, I believe that properly understood, this has lessons for us. Every successful movement for social change has invariably had one major advantage over bigger and more powerful forces. That advantage is the ability to identify problems emerging from beyond the horizon and to articulate a new social vision.

Why is that? Well, because certain forces have a logic of their own: they impose themselves on events regardless. Things are forced to change – and if you are in tune with that change, if you understand something like climate change in all its shocking implications, then you can do one very important thing. To put it bluntly you can seize an opportunity when it arises. Because when things begin to change, those who have a vested interest in the present state of affairs don’t want to recognize the new reality, they want to tinker with it, they hope for the best. Those who do not have a stake in the present, but who have a vision of the future which is both principled and pragmatic can have an enormous influence.

Because you never know what is over the horizon. Let’s say in the next 12 months an unprecedented drought occurs. Let’s say Melbourne and Sydney’s water supply once again dips down below 30 %, down to 20% or less. This sort of frightening example of climate change would also be the kind of event which forces the whole society to consider new possibilities in public policy and politics. Being able to explain these events gives you a tremendous advantage in being able to suggest a course of action.

Seeking a coherent new vision

A new vision needs to have a degree of coherence. That is, your economic policy has to be in alignment with your social policy. If you want to encourage, for example, home care for children , then you don’t want economic conditions that force women back to work immediately after giving birth. Or, if you want to fight carbon pollution, this has big implications for your economic approach as well as your social policy.

In raising the need for a coherent social vision, some might see this as a return to an
oppressive orthodox theory of society. And that is the tendency after the collapse of the grand narrative of socialism. Indeed in as far as I can understand postmodern ideas, they have  a decided preference for localizing politics and rejecting anything resembling a synthesis. And this is understandable up to a point, since it’s perfectly possible to argue that the trajectory of Marxism which began to liberate working class, ended by enslaving them. Whether you accept this rather simplistic argument or not, it seems to me that the age of theories which purport to explain everything from world history, to current politics to the future of humanity, is over. Like certain kinds of religions, such theories tend toward a fundamentalism.

But to reject so called ‘theories of everything’ is not to reject sets of ideas which try to explain more than local events and issues. Diversity is good and I don’t wish to impose an orthodoxy on progressive politics. But in complex societies such as ours, some sort of coherent vision seems almost unavoidable. To take an obvious example, if you want to say something about the environment, it’s necessary to have a view on aspects of the economy. Indeed you could argue that the fundamental issues of the environment are now issues of political economy and vice versa.

My personal view about a new politics is that it means searching for a new ‘social philosophy’ which deals with problems such as sustainability and the balance between the life-world and the market. Another view is that politics will increasingly be oriented around the need to reduce carbon emissions — and that this will involve a clash with entrenched corporate power as well as a challenge to deeply ingrained ways of life shared by large numbers of people.

Developing a new vision will not be easy. It is not a simple arithmetical ‘adding up’ of a list of progressive causes and demands. Rather it involves far more complex syntheses of ideas and policies. And the need to explore some of those processes is what brought this collection of thinkers and authors together.

In the ABC television coverage of the 2004 federal election, when Howard’s victory was becoming clear, an exhilarated supporter explained to the reporters why he had voted for the Coalition:

‘It’s because I’ve become wealthy: when John Howard was elected in 1996, my house was worth only $200,000; it is now worth $800,000.’

Presumably his house in 2004 was much the same as it had been in 1996. In all probability it was a little more run down by the ravages of weather, children and guests. Was he really more wealthy?

It’s easy to ridicule a political zealot who doesn’t understand asset price inflation, but his confusion of money with wealth is commonplace. Financial commentators report with enthusiasm when share prices rise, even when there has been no change in a company’s material conditions. Financial salespeople have re-named themselves as ‘wealth managers’.  And, of course, the global financial crisis is just that – a financial crisis. Although failures in the financial sector by now have affected the real economy, its origins were financial. There has been no tsunami or war wiping out our physical infrastructure and we still have the same human assets of skills and experience.

In the absence of physical destruction, environmental catastrophes or, on the positive side, major technological breakthroughs, our wealth does not vary much over the short term. Money, by contrast, as a measure of wealth, is highly volatile, as any shopper in Zimbabwe knows.

If we are to make wise personal and investment decisions, if we are not to be carried away with illusions caused by asset price inflation and deflation, and if we are to understand the real meanings of terms like ‘national debt’, we need to understand money, and to distinguish it from those things it denotes – our real wealth.

In our human evolution, money is a relatively new phenomenon, and, while it has given us huge convenience in terms of facilitating trade and investment, it has often been misunderstood.

We read in the Christian Bible ‘For the love of money is the root of all evil’ (Timothy 6:10). This may be read, by the left, as a warning to the rich; perhaps it is. But it is also sound practical advice – to remember that money, itself, is fairly useless.

Timothy’s Epistle had no influence, however, on the devout Portuguese and Spanish conquistadores who invaded South America in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They stole so much gold from the Incas that they caused a huge bout of inflation when they returned to Europe. Their plunder, carried out at huge human cost, had the same effect as Robert Mugabe running the note printing presses overtime.

Five hundred years on we are no wiser. There are periodic financial crises, such as the Great Depression, and while we do seem to learn for a while, we soon forget. Hugh Stretton, in his textbook on economics, points to changing notions of corporate objectives. The early management theorists, such as Chester Barnard, referred to corporations having complex objectives, generally in terms of making or doing something for society’s benefit. Of course they had to make a profit, but that wasn’t the prime objective; it was merely a precondition for survival.

But, from the 1980s to the present day, making money has become the prime objective of many corporations. Those corporations which make long-term investments with modest but assured returns, are punished on the stock market.

Even governments have become obsessed with money: our government budget papers, which used to be full of explanation about what the government is doing, are now full of financial data. The current political obsession with public debt has crowded out any sensible consideration of the other side of the balance sheet, the quality of the assets which that debt is financing. We are too concerned with money to think about wealth.

Personally, I was struck a few years ago when a former student visited our university to thank his lecturers for his learning. He had done very well, his family having taken over a business in a growth market, and he hosted a dinner for us in the University restaurant. In his speech he thanked us all, and then went on to explain how, when his family took over this business, it had been entirely product and service focussed. As best as I can reconstruct his following words, he went on to say ‘We transformed it into a real business, about making money’.

None of us responded, but we all felt that somewhere in our teaching we had failed. As teachers we had that same feeling as a parent has on learning that a child has joined an extremist religious sect. We were witness to the early emergence of what was to become the Global Financial Crisis.

Some Winter reading:

• On corporate objectives, Chapter 29 “Theories about firms’ purposes” of Hugh Stretton Economics: a new introduction (UNSW Press 2000).
• On what money is, a very clear work is John Kenneth Galbraith Money, whence it came, where it went (Penguin 1975).
• On the history of money, Niall Ferguson The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.  (Penguin Press, NY, 2008). This has recently been shown as a series on ABC Television, and a DVD of the series will soon be available in ABC shops.