Paul Kelly and Greg Sheridan have diametrically opposed views on the Asian Century white paper (see below). But I’m always skeptical of bold forecasts about the future. Those who promoted the Russian language for the Soviet century have become somewhat disappointed. Then we were told that Japan would be the dominant economic power (the Japanese Miracle) in the golden 60s.
I think it a mug’s game to try to make much out of such projections. Why should we expect China to be the dominant economy for a whole century anyhow – after all its demographics tend to an ageing population? Why not the Asian Millennium or the Asian Decade?
Now the Government proposes to appoint Craig “Twitter” Emerson as Minister for the Asian Century. As if Australia’s engagement with the rest of the world should be so finely planned – I would put more faith in the private sector to invest correctly than a government agency to dictate such policies.
Paul Kelly
The Asia white paper contains some of the most ambitious benchmarks in Australia’s history but the risk is obvious: that the policy framework will fall short of their delivery.
Julia Gillard has given herself a whole-of-government narrative that unites every aspect of her policies under the theme of “unprecedented opportunity” arising from the coming Asian century.
This white paper is a test for the nation, and a test for Labor.
It is about opportunity and challenge.
Greg Sheridan
The Gillard government white paper on Asia is a fraud. On every level, it is a con job. The government is having a lend of us. Its only admirable quality is its chutzpah.
No Australian government since that of Billy McMahon has done less to increase the level of Asian engagement it inherited when coming to office than the Gillard government.
Some of the white paper is conceptually confused and silly. Is there another nation in the world that so frequently tries to make out lists of the nations most important to it?
This pathetic and obsessive list making is a sign of a deep intellectual insecurity. It’s also a sign of government failure.
But the best analysis of the Asian Century white paper is by Henry Ergas who makes the excellent point that the growth of Asian economies, and the lifting of millions out of poverty is NOT due to central planning and the welfare state. Indeed if we think that Australia’s response to an “Asian Century” is to grow the welfare state and increase the intervention of the State on the private sector, we would be condemning Australia to a Lost Decade / Century. Henry concludes
Yes, Australia can and should thrive in the Asian Century. However, it is not through gimmicks such as “continuous access to Asian language learning” that we will do so. Rather, it is by giving Asia’s experience the respect it deserves. Finally heeding the lessons of Asian education’s hard-won success would be a great place to start.
Oh god, this dross and ad homonym attacks on Abbott gets the ALP back to level pegging on Newspoll. Clearly Australians like being lied to, more debt and lower living standards. Half of Austrlaian voters truly are as thick as pig shit.
John Comnenus
29 Oct 12 at 6:49 am
Kelly should be ashamed of that. He wants a place in history as an in depth commentator (via his books mainly, but presumably via the newspaper articles as well) and this bit of obscurantist genuflecting rather undermines that objective.
Blogstrop
29 Oct 12 at 6:54 am
But you know, I mean really you must know, that this government really thinks they set the direction for business? They are fucking deluded.
Abu Chowdah
29 Oct 12 at 6:58 am
I like my council to pick up my rubbish, I like my state to look after schools and hospitals, and I want my federal government to organise a defence force, and I would appreciate it if all 3 levels would stay the fuck out of the way of businesses and individuals. If there is money to be made in the Asian century for Australia, a good start may include not increasing the tax burdon on our most important industry and I probably wouldn’t recommend handicapping the rest of the economy with a carbon tax. Start there and then maybe we can start looking at languages in schools so that 60% of kids can count to 10 in another language and say hello.
After all a government is just like a referee or umpire. When they do their job right you barely notice them.
Adam Diver
29 Oct 12 at 7:08 am
Gillards Education
RevolutionRevelation.Fme.
Rudiau
29 Oct 12 at 7:15 am
we should be helping our Asian friends learn English
Adrian
29 Oct 12 at 7:16 am
This should be read carefully. There’s not much Ken Henry in it. It has been rewritten by the spinmeisters and is clearly the beta version of what passes as an election manifesto.
It is full of paragraphs such as:
Since coming to office in 2007, we have continued the reform process, putting into place the essential policy settings that will ensure Australia has an economy that is positioned to address the emergence of Asia. Tax reform, returning the budget to surplus, managing the resources boom, regulatory reform, ensuring that industries under pressure become a successful part of Australia’s future, skills reform, school funding reform, and increasing connectivity through the NBN, are all part of this
broad reform agenda.
Doesn’t sound very white papery, does it?
Oh, and it also sugggests one pathway to Asia is: ‘continue to develop, through the Fair Work Act 2009, and ongoing partnership, a workforce culture in which employees, employers and unions collaborate for continuous improvement and productivity growth’.
KC
29 Oct 12 at 7:57 am
This should be read carefully. There’s not much Ken Henry in it. It has been rewritten by the spinmeisters and is clearly the beta version of what passes as an election manifesto.
It is full of paragraphs such as:
Since coming to office in 2007, we have continued the reform process, putting into place the essential policy settings that will ensure Australia has an economy that is positioned to address the emergence of Asia. Tax reform, returning the budget to surplus, managing the resources boom, regulatory reform, ensuring that industries under pressure become a successful part of Australia’s future, skills reform, school funding reform, and increasing connectivity through the NBN, are all part of this
broad reform agenda.
Doesn’t sound very white papery, does it?
Oh, and it also sugggests one pathway to Asia is: ‘continue to develop, through the Fair Work Act 2009, and ongoing partnership, a workforce culture in which employees, employers and unions collaborate for continuous improvement and productivity growth’.
KC
29 Oct 12 at 7:57 am
5 years ago Krudd suprised the region with a plan for an Asian EU and got told to talk to the hand.
Between that announcement and today Labor has not acted as a partner to Asia and relationships across the region has suffered.
Now Labor releases another document full of plantitudes and empty aspirational statements and like last time the asian-illiterate Stenographers love it.
Let’s face it the spin and headlines Labor gets from this is all they care about. In 2 weeks time no one will remember the buzz we hear today as the understanding of Asia of the chattering classes is skin deep.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 8:00 am
In that statement alone the fundemental lack of understanding of the region is explained in bold.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 8:02 am
No mention in the whole paper on the role of the Phillipines.
You know that English Speaking Christian Democracy with 100s of milliions of people with deap links to communities in Australia…
Oh well.
Max
29 Oct 12 at 8:03 am
Yawn, my Jap matey is patronising about Australia’s earnest Asia funnies.
As he says , keep your Japanese for the bar after work, we will never do business or discuss anything important in any language but English. And this from a bloke who says the Japanese waste the first two years of every uni degree desperately trying to acquire enough technical Japanese language to proceed.
Alfonso
29 Oct 12 at 8:07 am
Here’s something I prepared earlier.
Ooh Honey Honey
29 Oct 12 at 8:10 am
The Department of the Asian Century? Labor have lost the plot.
Lloyd
29 Oct 12 at 8:23 am
FFS, I wish lobotomised politicians (but I repeat myself) would stop spouting idiotic, insulting inanities such as “the Asian Century”.
It simply makes me hate them even more.
Rabz
29 Oct 12 at 8:24 am
Well there’s already a “department of climate change”, so hey, why not go full retard?
Rabz
29 Oct 12 at 8:25 am
I’m sure the paper talks about the movement of jobs to China and ignores the fact telemarketing and manufacturing jobs have been going to to Phllipines.
As you note a country with many more English speakers than Australia in the same timezone. Phillipino nurses and maids are spread across the region doinng low wage work so the gentrified societies across SE Asia can do higher end work.
Labor would not want this to be known as it runs counter to that moronic regressive high wage/low productivity Work Choices agenda they are pushing.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 8:39 am
A promotion for the Leg-over Man.
H B Bear
29 Oct 12 at 8:47 am
Yep, whenever I have the misfortune of seeing or hearing that utter idiot, the first thing I think is ‘Asia”.
Morons.
Rabz
29 Oct 12 at 8:51 am
Until JEG and her puerile bunch of pricks and ‘ginas understand that when Sum Won is nodding while you’re talking, all you can take from such observation is that they’re hearing what you are saying (bullsh!t, at best) but, generally, unless there’s something ($$) for them you’re wasting their f@cking time; and our country’s resources as well.
amcoz
29 Oct 12 at 8:57 am
I share the profound scepticism when it comes to governments picking geo-economic winners.
Australia is incredibly well-advantaged by being institutionally and historically situated within a network of nation-states known as the commonwealth, which tend to be stable and robust economic performers. I would also add the Anglosphere (including the United States). So why lean towards countries, such as China, with significant looming demographic and political problems ahead?
As for Australian kids being obliged to learn Asian languages, the fact is that young people in Asia are clamouring to learn English and Western customs, diluting the need for what is a questionable geopolitical strategy wrapped in an education policy.
Little has also been said of the actions of the Rudd-Gillard governments in making Australia economically uncompetitive in comparison with her near neighbours, including the small-government jurisdictions of Hong Kong and Singapore.
Julie Novak
29 Oct 12 at 8:58 am
Given we still have 88 years to go it will probably be the African century. They would seem to be the mob with the most to gain.
TerjeP
29 Oct 12 at 8:59 am
TerjeP, my thoughts, exactly; they’ve got the greatest ‘upside’, if not backside, to twist a market eh-con-oh-mist’s favorite saying.
amcoz
29 Oct 12 at 9:09 am
The Department of the Asian Century? No one can say this government doesn’t create jobs.
Hey, does that mean they will also have an Asian Century Commission? What about an Asian Century tax?
jupes
29 Oct 12 at 9:11 am
Just another instance of central planning by the Emily’s Listers – to which we could add the latest taxes, MRRT, Carbon, etc., etc. creating a new Stupid List.
And I can just imagine having this latest list articulated by that awful Gillardian drone …… I’m almost tempted to go back to bed – what a way to start the week!
Louis Hissink
29 Oct 12 at 9:22 am
As a commitment to the Asian Century, let us put Minister Wong second on the senate ticket.
Gordon of 2902
29 Oct 12 at 9:24 am
Don’t forget the insights that KRuddy’s Mandarin gave him at the Copenhagen Warmy Fest.
What’s Mandarin for “Chinese rat fuckers”?
H B Bear
29 Oct 12 at 10:33 am
Also:
Rabz
29 Oct 12 at 10:36 am
Ooh Honey Honey,
Thank you. I enjoyed that.
The saddest thing is that they can present all this Asian Century stuff with a straight face and no blushing.
Ellen of Tasmania
29 Oct 12 at 11:01 am
Trouble is, I can imagine an Abbott government presenting much the same thing.
Many years ago, a senior politician explained how it works: you find a trend that seems to be happening, prepare a strategy paper to say that you will make it happen, then claim credit.
It probably does not matter much, so long as the politicians don’t get in the way. I fear that this lot – and perhaps Abbott – will get in the way, by trying to help.
ken n
29 Oct 12 at 11:41 am
Thank you Ellen. I remember it upset some people in the audience the bit about multiculturalism. But I think it has stood the test of time..
Ooh Honey Honey
29 Oct 12 at 11:52 am
OHH, presumably it meant you hit the target!
Steve D
29 Oct 12 at 12:04 pm
What about the African century? Ah wait they mostly speak English. There is no way to featherbed for the NTEU or NSWTF in preparing us for that.
.
29 Oct 12 at 12:06 pm
The SMH I think quotes Woolcott saying there is a transfer of wealth from the West to the East. What a goose. The quality of thinking about this issue is abysmal. Mercantilism and the cargo cult.
Pedro
29 Oct 12 at 12:43 pm
If some kid learns Korean in high school but ends up working for a company that mostly deals with Japanese, then one has to ask what the point was. English is the global language of business. Every kid in Australia learning one out of dozens of Asian tongues will do fuck all for international businesses.
Feral Abacus
29 Oct 12 at 1:02 pm
SteveD, yes. There were some staff of MoV of ethnic (Greek) background who wanted to tell me “But I eat Vietnamese food!”
Whatever.
Ooh Honey Honey
29 Oct 12 at 1:02 pm
Exactly.
As we all know big governments have a great track record of predicting what the pattern of the world economy will be in 20 years time.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 1:05 pm
So, no South American Century in the near future?
They will be peeved…
Rabz
29 Oct 12 at 1:18 pm
Meanwhile, tend of thousands of middle-class Chinese families are buying up vast tracts of land in Australia so their kids get a Western education.
And another 500+ million Chinese are desperate to learn to speak English.
If this is the so-called “Asian Century” why are we operating under a European Union Emissions Trading Scheme?
I call bullshit.
Major Elvis Newton
29 Oct 12 at 3:16 pm
“Now Labor releases another document full of plantitudes and empty aspirational statements and like last time the asian-illiterate Stenographers love it.”
What are you, Token? The plant whisperer?
The Beer Whisperer
29 Oct 12 at 3:28 pm
No need for the increase in CO2 that is creating that non-existant Glow-ball Warming is doing a great job making my tomatoes big and tasty.
What a surprise, Gillard announces a big spending plan then throws it over to the states to pay for it.
How mendacious is this woman?
Token
29 Oct 12 at 4:51 pm
While I’m at is, Beer Whisperer I’m going to ask Santa for a beer brewing kit. Are you the type of Whisperer that can recommend the right gear?
Token
29 Oct 12 at 4:53 pm
That is unlikely. No one has ever learned a foreign language to a usable level at a high school. Language education at schools is basically a complete failure (apart from immersion programs).
Dangph
29 Oct 12 at 5:10 pm
Hear hear.
There may be one or two.
But they should be locked up.
Ooh Honey Honey
29 Oct 12 at 5:19 pm
Why wouldn’t Penny Wong get the job of Minister in charge of the “Asian Century”? I mean, surely it’s not racist to point out she is of Obvious Asian heritage herself, and as the Finance Minister surely possesses the attributes required to do whatever it is that Gillard decides a Minister for the Asian Century should do.
But the former boyfriend gets the job instead. Sounds misogynist to me…..
GrazingGoat66
29 Oct 12 at 5:42 pm
Would you look forward to a century which promises a 100 years of Penny Wong?
Token
29 Oct 12 at 5:46 pm
The “Australian Century” would be much nicer and more fun, more positive, something we could actually relate to.
candy
29 Oct 12 at 5:52 pm
With Labors track record of picking winners, Asia will probably collapse into an economic and social abyss within 5 years.
harrys on the boat
29 Oct 12 at 6:26 pm
The strongest of the Asian Century theme is of course the Chinese Economic Miracle.
Putting your eggs in a basket that has a reasonable chance of geographically disintegrating over then next 100 years is hardly intelligent.
Oh come on
30 Oct 12 at 1:12 am
The strongest pillar
Oh come on
30 Oct 12 at 1:17 am
Is this a bit like the accusations against the churches that they shove their “problem priests” into out of the way postings, or they move them on when allegations are made, instead of confronting the problems?
John A
30 Oct 12 at 7:40 am