The government will not adopt a “Buy Australian” policy of giving preference to local firms when allocating multibillion dollar contracts because that would repeat the mistakes of the Great Depression, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said yesterday.
Manufacturing union delegates are expected to seek a policy change aimed at saving jobs in the global recession when they attend the ruling Labor Party’s annual national conference in Sydney this week.
Rudd said Australia’s wealth depended on its access to export markets, which would be compromised by protectionism.
“We need to avoid any form of protectionist measure, which invites retaliatory protectionist measures from economies around the world, and that’s what would happen,” Rudd told reporters.
“The mistake of the Great Depression in the early 1930s was this: Economies believed that the way to get themselves through was to shut their economies down and close their borders to imports from abroad,” he said. “The entire global economy shrinks.”
“That depression resulted in negligible economic growth throughout the 1930s. We’re not about to repeat those mistakes here,” he said.
Rudd has condemned similar protectionist policies in other countries as damaging to Australian exports and to international trade.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Dave Oliver said a public survey commissioned by his union had found that most Australians want the government to adopt a “Buy Australian” policy to bolster employment.
He blamed a lack of government action for the loss of 76,000 manufacturing jobs in the past year.
“It’s no different to what governments around the world have been doing for many years,” he said.
Jeff Lawrence, secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said he expected the unions and the government to reach a compromise on how contracts are allocated.
“Our fundamental position is that if the government is spending ... public money, as it clearly has through the stimulus package, that should be on the basis of conditions,” Lawrence told Nine Network television.
“I’m very hopeful that in the next week, there’ll be a measure of agreement between unions and the government about means by which the government spends its money,” he said.
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a