Book Review: BRIAN GALLIGAN, WINSOME ROBERTS, and GABRIELLA TRIFILETTI. Australians and Globalisation: The Experience of Two Centuries. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. vi, 217. S65.0 0 (us), cloth; $25.0 0 (us), paper.

Bolton, G. (2003) Book Review: BRIAN GALLIGAN, WINSOME ROBERTS, and GABRIELLA TRIFILETTI. Australians and Globalisation: The Experience of Two Centuries. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. vi, 217. S65.0 0 (us), cloth; $25.0 0 (us), paper. The International History Review, 25 (3). pp. 665-666.

Abstract

RECENT AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS, both Labor and Liberal, have embraced globalization resolutely . This process has led to what Paul Kelly, a seasoned political commentator, describes as 'the end of certainty'. For eighty years after the creation of the Australian Commonwealth in 1901, the salient features of its polity and economy included widespread tariff protection behind which an industrial arbitration system fixed standard wages and conditions across nearly all industries and the state provided comprehensive social welfare. During the 1980s and 1990s, much of this system, with its insistence on preference for the Australian-made, has been jettisoned or transformed. Mainstream Australian politicians speak the language of international competition. From sectors hard hit by structural reorganization, notably the primary producers and workers in hitherto protected industries, there has arisen something o f a populist backlash embodied most notably, but not exclusively, in the One Nation Party. Anti - globalization and mildly xenophobic, One Nation has succeeded in placing small numbers in a number of state parliaments and the Commonwealth senate, though the movement may already be past its peak.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Murdoch Affiliation(s):	Vice Chancellery
Publisher:	Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/15530

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