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.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique