The ‘arc of instability’ and Australia's strategic policy

The proposition that Australia faces an ‘arc of instability’ to its north has been an important feature of the Australian strategic debate in the early twenty-first century. Prompted by worries in the late 1990s over Indonesia's future and East Timor's uncertain path to independence, the ‘arc’ metaphor also encapsulated growing Australian concerns about the political cohesiveness of Melanesian polities, including Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. While tending to overlook the divergent experiences of countries within its expanding boundaries, the ‘arc’ fed from Australia's historical requirement for a secure archipelagic screen. As such it has became an important weapon in the debate over whether the locus of Australia's strategic priorities should be increasingly global in the ‘war on terror’ period or remain closer to home in the immediate region. The ‘arc of instability’ metaphor was consequently adopted by leading Australian Labor Party politicians to argue that the Howard Coalition government was neglecting South Pacific security challenges. It became less prominent following the Howard government's greater activism in the South Pacific, signalled by Australia's leadership of the East Timor intervention in 2003. But its prominence returned in 2006 with the unrest in both Honiara and Dili. In overall terms, the ‘arc of instability’ discussion has helped direct Australian strategic and political attention to the immediate neighbourhood. But it has not provided specific policy guidance on what should be done to address the instabilities it includes.     

Unlocking Australia's Relationship with the Middle East

Historically, Australia's interests in the Middle East related primarily to its role in the Commonwealth imperial defence system which resulted in the deployment of Australian forces in the Middle East during both the First and Second World Wars. Similarly, the current involvement of Australian troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is driven by the country's strategic alliance with the United States. However, Australia's current involvement reflects a multifaceted relationship that spans economic, political and strategic spheres. Yet it is at the level of cultural and civilisational contacts that this relationship appears at its most vulnerable. This paper argues that a deeper understanding of this cultural dimension combined with a broader emphasis on good governance and human rights would be conducive to more robust ties in the longer term.     

Bounded political contestation: the domestic translation of international health and housing rights in Australia

Political contestation within liberal democratic states is an important, albeit limited, guide in defining how these states domestically implement their international human rights obligations. While often ritualistically endorsing human rights standards, political actors allow themselves a limited policy space with their domestic political contest circumscribed by more pervasive influences, often at odds with the state's international commitments. This article examines recent health and housing policy initiatives by Australia's two major political parties and assesses them against its international commitments. Applying a social constructivist approach, this article argues that the dominant neoliberal political discourse and the state's institutional structure set contextual boundaries to the parties’ policy contestation and reveal the limited influence of domestic political contestation in determining Australia's rights implementation.     

Deliberation and Resecuritization: Australia,Asylum-Seekers and the Normative Limits of the Copenhagen School

In the lead-up to the Australian federal election in 2010, both major political parties represented the ‘unauthorised’ arrival of asylum-seekers as a security issue. This article explores the dynamics of this resecuritization of asylum in Australia, suggesting the case has important implications for both the securitization framework and Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers. The relationship between securitization and calls for an open debate about asylum-seekers challenges the securitization framework's normative claims about political debate and deliberation as a progressive development illustrative of desecuritization (the removal of issues from the security agenda). This case also illustrates that without political leadership to engage with the social and cultural context that allows the securitization of asylum to resonate with large segments of the Australian population, the exploitation of this issue for short-term political gain will continue.     

One continent,two federalisms: rediscovering the original meanings of Australian federal ideas

Federalism is usually described in political science as a single body of ideas—in Australia's case arriving in the 1840s–50s and moving to constitutional reality in the 1890s. This article re‐examines the origins and diversity of federal ideas in Australia. It suggests that federal thought began influencing Australia's constitutional development significantly earlier than previously described. This first Australian federalism had a previously unappreciated level of support in British colonial policy and drew on Benjamin Franklin's American model of territorial change as a ‘commonwealth for increase’. The revised picture entrenches the notion of federalism's logic but also reveals a dynamic, decentralist style of federalism quite different from Australia's orthodox ‘classic’ or compact federal theory. In fact, Australian political thought contains two often‐conflicting ideas of federalism. The presence of these approaches helps explain longstanding dissent over the regional foundations of Australian constitutionalism.     

Unintended consequences: an examination of Australia's ‘historic policy shift’ on East Timor

The Howard government's foreign policy objectives concerning East Timor remain the subject of intense historical debate. Given that some Indonesians harbour suspicions about Australia's role in East Timor's independence, it is important to reflect on Australia's diplomacy throughout this period. This article draws on 15 interviews with former politicians and officials—including Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer—to argue that in 1998, Australia's foreign policy was focused on supporting Indonesia's democratisation process and maintaining the bilateral relationship. It was only when Indonesia moved towards a ‘special status’ of autonomy for East Timor that Australia reconsidered its own position. Although rarely acknowledged, Australia's policy shift actually precipitated outcomes that it had sought to avoid. As such, Habibie's decision to allow self-determination in East Timor can only be viewed as an unintended consequence of Australian diplomacy—independence was never the objective of Australian foreign policy.     

Pauline Hanson,the Mainstream,and Political Elites: The Place of Race in Australian Political Ideology

Pauline Hanson is well known for claiming that Australia's major political parties are out of touch with 'mainstream' Australia on issues related to race. Parallel surveys of the electorate and candidates in the 1996 federal election allow this claim to be tested, with items tapping general ideological dispositions, but including questions about Aboriginal Australians, immigration, and links with Asia. I make three critical findings: the electorate holds quite conservative opinions on these issues relative to the candidates, and is quite distant from ALP candidates in particular; attitudes on racial issues are a powerful component of the electorate's political ideology, so much so that any categorisation of Australian political ideology ignoring race must be considered incomplete; racial attitudes cut across other components of the electorate's ideology, placing all the parties under internal ideological strains, but the ALP appears particularly vulnerable on this score. The data show the coalition parties to be the net beneficiaries of the ideological tensions posed by race. Racial issues thus resemble a realigning ideological dimension, with possibly far-reaching consequences for the conduct of Australian electoral politics. Racism is as Australian as lamingtons and sausage rolls but the real political leader is the man or woman who can appeal to what Abraham Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature'. Robert Hughes (Lamont 1996)     

Australian-African relations 2002: Another look

Various recent developments and events in Africa, including the involvement in 2002 of the Prime Minister of Australia in Commonwealth initiatives in relation to Zimbabwe, have made it timely to review the nature and extent of Australia's relations with African countries. This commentary describes current Australian policies on Africa, including trade relations and aid programs, against the background of the political and economic situation in Africa in the new millennium. In conclusion, the comment is made that Australia's dealings with African countries might have more significance to its own interests than is generally acknowledged. This is so particularly in respect of common standpoints on multilateral trade issues, and the future of the British Commonwealth.     

The Country,the City and the State in the Australian Settlement

The Australian Settlement, as formulated by Paul Kelly, had a sixth pillar: a settlement between the city and the country in which the state compensated people living in the country for the costs of remoteness and sparse settlement. This was underpinned by the reliance of Australian export performance on agriculture, by nation-building commitments to peopling the continent, and by agrarian beliefs in the virtues of country life. Australia's egalitarianism had a spatial and regional as well as a class dimension. Changes in Australia's economy, demography, and political culture have eroded these foundations, leaving rural Australia vulnerable to the neoliberal agenda. The dismantling of tariffs, the restructuring of agriculture, microeconomic reforms driven by National Competition Policy, and regional policy which stresses self-reliance, all treat rural Australia as a minor part of the nation rather than its economic and cultural foundation, and reject claims to special treatment. To give country Australia its own pillar makes visible the magnitude of the historic shifts which have taken place in the state's relationship to rural Australia since 1983 and brings it into the main frame for understanding Australia's abandonment of protective statism.     

Resource nationalism or resource liberalism? Explaining Australia's approach to Chinese investment in its minerals sector

Since 2005, a burgeoning wave of Chinese investments has set off a new ‘minerals boom’ in the Australian iron ore and coal mining sectors. While normally a welcome development, the state-owned and strategic nature of the investors has raised concerns in Australia about how these should be regulated. As a result, in February 2008 the Australian government declared an intention to more closely screen foreign direct investment (FDI) from state-owned sources, which both supporters and detractors alike have claimed is evidence of ‘resource nationalism’ in Australia's approach towards its trade and investment relationships with China. This article challenges this understanding through an examination of the characteristics of Chinese mining FDI, the dilemmas these present to the Australian government, and the relatively restrained nature of its response. Through this, Australia's FDI policy is explained as a defensive move against the potential for strategic behaviour by Chinese investors resulting from their state ownership, rather than any national program to subject minerals trade and investment to political control. On this basis, the article argues that Australian government policy instead evidences a ‘resource liberalism’ approach, which intends to ensure that the governance of Australia's minerals trade and investment with China remain market-based processes.     

Killing the goose that laid the golden egg? Australia's resource policy regime in comparative perspective

A common criticism of the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT) was that it would ‘kill the goose that laid the golden egg’ for the Australian economy. Mining companies, their industry associations, and the Liberal–National Coalition all argued the MRRT would reduce Australia's attractiveness for mining investment, and lead to ‘capital flight’ as resource firms shifted towards lower-taxing competitors. To evaluate this claim, it is necessary to compare Australia's resource policy regime – including, but not limited to, its taxation elements – against those of its principal competitors. This article undertakes such an evaluation by comparing Australian resource policies with those of nine of its major mineral and energy competitor countries. This survey reveals that Australia's comparatively high mining tax rates are partially offset by its ‘non-interventionist’ approach to resource policy, and that it has retained good rankings on international political risk surveys. There is some evidence of short-term market response to the mining tax, but there is little evidence of sustained capital flight occurring due to the MRRT. These data collectively suggest that the MRRT did not significantly undermine Australia's attractiveness for international mining investment, despite widespread perceptions to the contrary.     

Not My Taxes! Explaining Tax Resistance and its Implications for Australia's Welfare State

In discussing Australia's need to increase taxes to pay for future social security, Michael Keating worries that voters see taxes as a ‘burden’ and that ‘the link between taxation and citizenship has been broken’. This paper deals with the problem of tax resistance (preferring lower taxes even when tax cuts risk public services) for Australia's welfare state. First, I describe how two Australian fiscal institutions—a residual welfare system and visible income taxes—promote tax resistance among voters. Second, I draw on these insights to develop several explanations for tax resistance: voter self-interest, voter hostility to minorities, voter disengagement (low trust and lack of interest in politics), and individualistic attitudes. The main conclusion is that tax resistance in Australia is institutionalised, making it easier to mobilise interests around low taxes, and harder to advocate for alternatives. Results of multivariate analysis using AES 2004 data indicate that an ‘anti-tax coalition’ can build on three diverse publics; one of higher and middle-income earners attuned to self-interest, another hostile to welfare beneficiaries, and another ‘tuned out’ of politics and willing to support any call for tax cuts. Inevitably, the debate about the welfare state is shadowed by a debate about voter willingness to pay taxes that finance it.     

The alliance echoes and portents of Australia's longest war

Afghanistan was Australia's longest war, yet the consensus between Australia's major political parties on the commitment never wavered over 12 years. The bipartisan unity held even as the nature of the war changed and evolved, Australian casualties rose and popular support fell away. The enduring centrality of the US alliance explains much—probably almost all you need to know—about the unbroken consensus of the Australian polity. Afghanistan was an example of the Australian alliance addiction, similar to Vietnam. As with Vietnam, the Australian military left Afghanistan believing it won its bit of the war, even if the Afghanistan war is judged a disaster. As Australia heads home it finds the USA pivoting in its direction; with all the similarities that can be drawn between Vietnam and Afghanistan, this post-war alliance effect is a huge difference between the two conflicts.     

In defence of the Indo-Pacific: Australia's new strategic map

The 2013 Australian Defence White Paper categorically termed Australia's zone of strategic interest the Indo-Pacific, the first time any government has defined its region this way. This raises questions about what the Indo-Pacific means, whether it is a coherent strategic system, the provenance of the concept and its implications for Asian security as well as Australian policy. Indo-Pacific Asia can best be understood as an expansive definition of a maritime super-region centred on South-East Asia, arising principally from the emergence of China and India as outward-looking trading states and strategic actors. It is a strategic system insofar as it involves the intersecting interests of key powers such as China, India and the USA, although the Indo-Pacific subregions will retain their own dynamics too. It suits Australia's two-ocean geography and expanding links with Asia, including India. The concept is, however, not limited to an Australian perspective and increasingly reflects US, Indian, Japanese and Indonesian ways of seeing the region. It also reflects China's expanding interests in the Indian Ocean, suggesting that the Chinese debate may shift towards partial acceptance of Indo-Pacific constructs alongside Asia-Pacific and East Asian ones, despite suspicions about its association with the US rebalance to Asia. Questions about Australia's ability to implement an effective Indo-Pacific strategy must account for force posture, alliance ties and defence diplomacy, as well as constraints on force structure and spending.     

Dangerous Liaisons: Neoliberal Foreign Policy and Australia's Regional Engagement

Recent dramatic events in the Asia/Pacific region have prompted a reassessment within the Australian community of the prevailing analytical and policy orthodoxies associated with our contemporary regional engagements. This paper, written well before the serious upheavals in Indonesia and Malaysia, warns of the likelihood of such upheavals taking place and of the long-term dangers faced by Australian foreign policy in relation to them. In this context it concentrates primarily on Australia's explicit and enthusiastic commitment to a neoliberal global trade agenda and its less explicit but still solid commitment to a neo-Realist security agenda. It suggests that the tensions intrinsic to this policy matrix could provoke major problems for Australia in the future. More specifically, it argues that the pursuit of traditional (elite-centred) political stability and radical (market-driven) economic prosperity in the Asia/Pacific might well accelerate an opposite scenario, as people throughout the region resist the processes of rapid free-market development and ongoing political repression. It urges less fealty to the latest grand-theory of (Western) global power and a more serious empirical analysis of the implications of it for Australia's long term future in the Asia/Pacific.     

Winding Back Australian Women's Rights: Conventions,Contradictions and Conflicts

Since 1996, Australia's Coalition government has been involved in winding back women's rights. It has diluted the role of the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, attempted to weaken the Sex Discrimination Act to allow for discrimination on the basis of marital status, and has refused to provide Australian women protection through the international realm via the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. In taking these steps, the government has not only placed rights in conflict against each other but has also been contradictory in its approach. The attempts to wind back women's rights demonstrate the fragility of existing rights protection measures in Australia more generally and suggest the need to consider alternative rights protection mechanisms such as sex equality guarantees in a bill of rights.     

Getting Behind the Grain: The Politics of Genetic Modification on the Canadian Prairies

Abstract: In 2001 a coalition of actors including farm, consumer, health, environmental and industry organizations announced its opposition to Monsanto's attempts to commercialize GM wheat in Canada. Although this coalition consisted mostly of rural and agricultural groups, the three arguments that came to dominate the discourse advanced by the coalition seem, at first glance, to characterize a politics of consumption. These three arguments revolve around market acceptance, environmental risk, and the lack of democratic and transparent process in biotech regulation and policy. This paper argues that producer interests were not displaced by, but rather articulated alongside and through consumer‐driven discourses. In fact, farmers used claims about the supremacy of the consumer and impending environmental change to advance their vulnerable political and economic positions as producers of food.     

A continuing confusion? A comment on the appropriate dispersal of policy powers in the Australian federation

Dissatisfaction with Australia's federalist constitutional and administrative arrangements seems universal. The Labor Party has historically preferred a centralist thrust to the Australian federal compact. From the opposite, decentralist tack the Liberal‐National Coalition parties currently propose that the Commonwealth should hive‐off policy functions to the States. These attitudes are expressed in an intellectual climate that disparages the allocative efficiency of Australian federalism and debates these issues in terms of shifting power to or from the Commonwealth. A more sensible focus is on the usage that the citizenry has made of the federal system in obtaining satisfactory service delivery. Using this approach our federal system works efficiently (in a limited political‐administrative sense.

This is not an argument that Australia's federal system is good because it maximises fiscal efficiency or guarantees equity. It does not do the former'and varies in its attainment of the latter. The federal system is good because it maximises opportunities and avenues for citizens to obtain what they want from government. In that sense the Coalition parties are fundamentally confused both about their philosophy and that philosophy's relationship to the political nature of Australian federalism. Labor's slowly‐ebbing centralism equally ignores the political usage that citizens have made of the administrative and funding arenas provided by our federal system.     

‘That's What Being A Woman Is For’: Opposition To Marital Rape Law Reform In Late Twentieth‐Century Australia

From 1976 until 1994, Australian states and territories introduced a raft of reforms to sexual assault laws. Most of these were welcomed, and were seen to reflect women's changing status within a modernising society. One reform, however, was especially contentious. The British law had proclaimed that a woman could not be raped within marriage: the marital bond included a husband's right to sexual access to his wife. Following South Australia's lead, all Australian jurisdictions introduced changes to this law, making it a crime to rape a woman within marriage, either before or after separation. It was a fundamental challenge to the way familial authority was conceptualised, established and policed. In a period where feminism had infiltrated many layers of political and social life, we might expect that this change to the law would have been greeted with relief and even celebration. The response to changes to marital rape laws was, however, both muted and ambivalent. Even feminist groups did not offer unequivocal support, and in general public opinion was at best reserved. Further, many conservative groups understood the new laws as an assault on the sanctity of the family itself. Drawing on a wide range of sources in the mainstream and alternative media, as well as parliamentary debates, government enquiries, academic studies and legal reports, this paper will explore the multifarious responses to legislative change. It uncovers the complex ways sexual violence and female bodily autonomy were understood within and beyond the borders and boundaries of the home and family.