Chapter 7 : An International Perspective

 As of the time of writing this manifesto, we are still being bullied by China through aggressive trade behaviour. China feels we are a small economy dependent upon them.  China believes it can bully us and so it does. This will continue to happen unless we change our strategy and grow our economy from within Australia. Stop relying on potentially unfriendly countries for our economic growth. We need to look at new immigrants for our growth. Even low-skilled immigrants and refugees stuck in camps and detention centres here and around the world can be a source of GDP growth if given the right opportunities. 

Yes, we need to be careful to keep the balance right when importing people, but we have been good at that. We assimilate people into our country better than most. Some people have said Australia’s environment is too fragile and we could be easily overpopulated. Others, especially just after each of the World Wars, have said "Populate or perish". If you listen to Professor Hugh White, he predicts a bleak future where large countries become predators and small and mid-sized countries are their vassal states. Considering this outlook, I'd prefer to get big as quickly as possible, whilst maintaining our cultural and legal framework. If change must happen, let it be on our terms.  

You can tell by what I am saying that I think we need to populate sustainably or perish. I believe our land is not fragile at all. It's strong and getting stronger, and will be able to sustain a very large population. How big? Big enough so we can stand on our own feet if we need to. We won't need America to protect us. And the way things are now with the present US administration, who knows if they will even help in our hour of need? 

When the US starts borrowing to repay the interest on its debt, you know that is the beginning of the end for them. Trump has an opportunity to reduce the debt if he doesn't extend the tax deductions for the rich this year. Instead, all the taxes he gets from tariffs should go towards reducing the debt. But we know with a man like him, that will not happen.

I can't remember where I heard this, but when a country's interest expense exceeds its defence expense, that's the beginning of the end of their empire. I think it was Niall Ferguson who is not just a historian, but a financial historian. That makes him even more interesting. 

Look at the drama unfolding in Gaza. What if we negotiated with the Israelis and the Palestinians a peace deal? The Israelis want to force the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. Let us make an offer to the Israelis and Palestinians. We will take all the Palestinians occupying the Gaza Strip. Their demographics are good. The average age of those Palestinians is 29 years old, I think.  We negotiate to import them over a 10-year period. The Israelis will pay the Australian Government for that land known as the Gaza Strip, and we can use the money to resettle the Palestinians in Australia. No war, no terrorism, no atrocities. A better future for the Palestinians and their children. And a workforce paid for by the Israelis to help us build our new infrastructure. I'll bet even the Americans would pay us to make that problem go away. Their problem could be our opportunity because we don't have any hang-ups about religion. Of course, the Palestinians would have to agree to this via a referendum.

What's that I hear you say....? Bringing in too many immigrants from one country will destabilise our immigration policy. Especially desperate oppressed people like the Palestinians. Look what happened in Sweden! I am not suggesting we bring them into the country, give them a pension and tell them to assimilate like the Swedes did. That was a failure. These new immigrants need to help us build our new infrastructure. They won't be allowed to sit idle. The same thing happened when we built the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme. We took in over 65,000 desperate Europeans after WW2 just to build that project, when we had a population of just 7 million. Let's do the same thing now with the Palestinians, but let's get paid for it this time by the Israelis.

If we give the Palestinian immigrants a clear path towards progress, if we ask them to be part of something new and exciting. If we ask the Palestinians already here to vouch for our honest intentions. If the Palestinians consider what they are giving up in exchange for what they have to gain, I'm sure the vast majority of them will enthusiastically participate in helping us build this country for us, for them and for our children, who will all speak with an Aussie accent and think like Australians within one generation.

Building an entirely new class of infrastructure will involve massive amounts of labour. Apart from the above-mentioned scheme, I envision incorporating all the surrounding Pacific Island nations to act as a fly-in-fly-out labour force on, say, a six-month working visa stay. But the whole family comes. Not just the worker. The labourer's children get an education in Australia whilst the labourer is in Australia, and remote education if they choose to, when not in this country. This will be part of the payment for the labour. So the employer will pay for the education of the children and deduct it from the labourer's wages. When the labourer’s current visa is finished, they swap with another Pacific Islander who is sharing their labouring job. As visa holders, they will need medicare cover, so whilst in Australia, they will need to pay a Medicare levy. This levy is also deducted from the wages by the employer. The labourer can opt for a health insurance cover whilst back home under Medicare if they choose to pay for it. 

The purpose of this visa campaign is to share our growing wealth with our neighbours and influence them in a way that makes them think favourably towards us. We need to find ways to help these countries, but not by bribing officials and suggesting infrastructure schemes that will cost too much and are too risky to build. Pacific Island nations don’t need massive ports, etc. They need their citizens with money in their pockets, which they spend in their own economies when they are back home. If their kids are educated through our system and the Pacific Islanders join our sports competitions (see the new PNG Rugby League team), then I would suggest we will have great influence over our neighbours. It would be hard for other untrustworthy countries to influence Pacific nations away from us. And it's all paid for by their citizens with the labour they supply to help us build our new infrastructure. 

This process should start with grants from Australia to eradicate communicable diseases like TB, hepatitis and HIV from all Pacific Islander communities. Even this will be seen as a goodwill gesture. But we can't import sick contagious people to work in Australia. This is really important now as American aid and UK aid, along with many other countries, roll back their aid programs as they look to save money in their own economies so they can beef up their defences or give tax cuts to the rich.

Another reason why Australia needs to grow and evolve into a more complex economy is to develop a more stable and resilient currency. We have a trusted legal system. So that's a plus. We have a very small population if we can terraform our land successfully. If our population grows, if we invest in higher education and research, if we economically protect promising startups, then our currency will stabilise. When the currency stabilises, investors will more willingly invest in Australia. It just makes it easier to do business in Australia if the currency doesn't fluctuate as much. But if the currency does fluctuate, then you might need to give multinationals attractive tax breaks to cover the currency risk. So if we don't fix this, we will end up paying in some way, like lost tax revenue from foreign investors.