The Bob and Paul show
July 17th 2010 02:15
It's always good to see old pollies emerge from their cushy retirement to try and rewrite history, as Hawke and Keating did last week. Whatever they wish to claim, we should recall that their real legacy was to change Oz from one kind of country into another kind. In short, they threw open the doors to the forces of globalisation which means most of the core decisions that affect the lives of Oztralians are now made overseas, often by corporate CEOs.
There was an alternative. The ACTU sent a mission overseas to check out how other countries were facing this thorny issue. They came back with 3 basic models - the Anglo-American neo-liberal model, the Japanese model and the Scandinavian model.
The latter-most model, with government playing a key role in managing national competitiveness in global markets (as oppsed to the neo-liberal model where markets - meaning mostly transnational corporations - hold sway) was well suited to the situation in Oz and should have appealed to a Labor government. As I recall, it was the one favoured by the ACTU.
But Hawke and Keating caved in to the neo-liberals, and here we are. Of course, the GFC showed the utter bankruptcy of the whole neo-liberal project, and we will pay for that mistake for decades.
But none of this should change the rosy view of themselves held by these old political relics.
There was an alternative. The ACTU sent a mission overseas to check out how other countries were facing this thorny issue. They came back with 3 basic models - the Anglo-American neo-liberal model, the Japanese model and the Scandinavian model.
But Hawke and Keating caved in to the neo-liberals, and here we are. Of course, the GFC showed the utter bankruptcy of the whole neo-liberal project, and we will pay for that mistake for decades.
But none of this should change the rosy view of themselves held by these old political relics.
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