Crisis, What Crisis? The Political Economy of Vulnerability in Australia

Abstract

If we could transport policy makers and commentators from the 1980s into 2018, they would no doubt be surprised to find that Australia has not had a recession since 1991. The sustained boom in resource demand and prices spurred by Chinese demand would also baffle them, because the widespread concern of the time was that late twentieth century Australia had 'the wrong sort of economy' for continued prosperity (Bell 1997: 4). Resource pessimism and a growing critique of protectionism (Conley 1999) led to a fundamental reassessment of the Australian political economy, and eventually to comprehensive restructuring of the economy during the Hawke and Keating years (1983-1996). The Howard Government ( 1996-2007) consolidated this embrace of economic liberalism and globalisation (Conley 2001).