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November 3, 2008
The title of Rupert Murdoch's Boyer Lecture is A Golden Age of Freedom and it refers to the way the opening of new markets is leading to the rise of new nations, and adding hundreds of millions of people to a new global middle class. In this new world Australia's leading trade partners are the great nations of Asia not Europe.
In the first lecture Murdoch, an ex-pat, says that he is concerned about Australia's future in a globalised world, since, on his account, Australia is not prepared for the challenges caused by the global economy.
While Australia generally does well in international rankings, those rankings can blind us to a larger truth: Australia will not succeed in the future if it aims to be just a bit better than average. We need to revive the sense of Australia as a frontier country, and to cultivate Australia as a great centre of excellence. Unlike our parents and grandparents, this new frontier has little to do with the bush or the outback. Today the frontier that needs sorting is the wider world. Complacency is our chief enemy…
Australia is not prepared because it is complacent. Where, then, is the Australia's complacency in a globalised world, given the opening up of the economy in the 1980s and the embrace of the global market?
Murdoch says it is our continuing dependency on government:
[We] need to reduce dependency on government … to reform our education system … to reconcile with Australia's Aboriginal population and to maintain a liberal immigration system. At a time when the world's most competitive nations are moving their people off government subsidy, Australians seem to be headed in the wrong direction. In a recent paper [the director of the Institute for Private Enterprise] Des Moore pointed out that while real incomes had increased since the end of the 1980s, about 20 per cent of the working aged population today received income support, compared with 15 per cent two decades ago. While a safety net is warranted for those in genuine need, we must avoid institutionalising idleness. The bludger should not be our national icon.
It is not clear that the Rudd Government is institutionalising idleness or making and the bludger our national icon? Surprisingly Murdoch says that traditionally the Liberals have been more free market in their outlook than their opponents. But Labor has also recognised that central planning does not work. But increased middle class welfare was a characteristic of the way that the Howard Government used economic prosperity to deliver on the "fair go".
Murdoch says that traditionally the Liberals have been more free market in their outlook than their opponents and that Labor has recognised that central planning does not work. However, increased middle class welfare was a characteristic of the Howard Government. Since when has the ALP advocated central planning? Surely Rudd Labor is pro-market, pro-business and pro-globalisation.
Murdoch says that is a good start, but then warns:
....being pro-market, pro-business and pro-globalisation means working for a society where citizens are not dependent on the government. That means ending subsidies for people who do well. It also means sensible targeting and persistence - so that when subsidies are given, they help those passing through a rough patch or born into abject poverty build themselves up to a point where they can provide for themselves. And it means smaller government and an end to the paternalism that nourishes political correctness, promotes government interference and undermines freedom and personal responsibility
This requires reforming our public education system as it is a nineteenth century system in a 21st century economy that in effect writes off whole segments of society and deprives them of the skills to take advantage of the opportunities of a global economy.
Murdoch reduces freedom to economic freedom. Where is political freedom? Secondly, Murdoch's Australia appears to be a different world to the one where we live in, which is where the coal industry, miners and big energy users want lots of subsidies as Australia makes the shift to a lower carbon economy. Where in our liberal democratic world is paternalism is encouraging political correctness? Does that imply that Australia is not an open society? Would Fox News make Australia a more open society?
What does political correctness mean today? Leftwing? Presumably, Murdoch is not referring to the heritage of a decade of the Howard Government? If it is leftwing---as understood by the conservatives at The Australian is not a cleaner, greener world, or reducing inequality suffered by indigenous people, since Murdoch accepts the need to address these issues. More than likely "political correctness" means a rejection of neo-liberalism--small government, deregulated markets and limited welfare?
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He lives as a wealthy person in a country that has completely screwed up it's social structure and he comes over here and suggests we should do the same. I just wish there was a smiley with two fingers in the air because that is how I would like to end this post.