Make Australia fair dinkum again

Rising inequality, not immigration, is at the root of rising social and economic tensions in the country, professor writes Adil Khan.

I am an Australian born overseas. I first came to Australia as a graduate student in the late 1970s and left in the early 1980s after completing my studies.

I returned in the early 1990s and worked as a research director at one of Australia’s leading universities.

Then, in the late 1990s, I left Australia again and joined the United Nations (UN).

After retiring from the UN in 2009, I returned to Brisbane to live permanently.

I currently live a retired life, but keep myself busy as an adjunct academic at the University of Queensland.

During my intermittent and now permanent stay in Australia, I have seen how Australia has developed economically, socially and behaviorally over the years.

Australia in the 1970s was a white, egalitarian society where people were simple and fair dinkum, followed modest lifestyles, appeared equal, and interacted as equals with mutual respect and love.

There weren’t many immigrants in the early 1970s. But even in those days there were not many immigrants. There was racism, but I personally never experienced it.

Moreover, in those days I felt that the distinction between racism and crude curiosity was blurring. For example, during my student years in the early 1970s, many Australians were surprised by my fluency in English and asked: “How do you speak English so fluently?”

My answer was simple: “Because we both share the same history; both Australia and my country [Bangladesh] “They were British colonies where English used to be the official language of communication.” We all laughed.

In the early 1990s, during my second stay, I found a different Australia. The government of the time had made a significant shift in economic policy from state-led growth to neoliberalism, a market-based approach in which the profiteering private sector was made the main driver of the economy.

There was a buzz everywhere; The economy was expanding, lifestyles were changing, needs were increasing and everyone was trying to get ahead of each other. This was a different Australia. In the past, in the 1970s, Australians needed each other to get along and live. The adoption of neoliberalism changed this; Everyone was trying to get ahead of each other.

Australia had entered that period laissez faire – the age of self-interested opportunism. The Australian economy grew rapidly; people became rich, though not all.

As a result, when I returned to Australia to live permanently in 2010, I encountered a very different society.

Australia had moved from the collective to the self; there were more luxury cars on the roads, and in terms of the number of people, you could see there were rich people and not-so-rich people, and there was another obvious change: more immigrants.

These changes were the inevitable consequences of an economic policy (neoliberalism) that, among other things, tied Australia to a cycle of rising consumption, production and growth. This changed not only the economy but society both demographically and behaviorally.

People have become more self-interested, consumerist and materialistic; This was once frowned upon behavior in Australia. Not anymore.

The adoption of neoliberalism, which has trapped Australia in a cycle of consumption and cheap production, has been accompanied by the steady growth of Australia’s aging population; This ensured a large-scale inflow of immigrants to populate the labor market, leading to a significant increase in the immigrant population in a very short period of time. This meant that immigrants in Australia were a resource, not a burden.

Various factors, local and global, particularly changing geopolitics and geoeconomics, are challenging Australia’s economic leverage, its upward growth trajectory and the adoption of neoliberal economic policies that make the rich richer and promote conspicuous consumption as millions struggle to make ends meet.

measured by poverty line income One in eight adults (13.4%) and one in six children (16.6%) live below the poverty line, at $489 a week for a single person and $1,027 a week for a couple with two children. top 10% He owns 44 percent of the wealth.

Unfortunately, although one-eyed economic policy without adequate provisions for wealth redistribution is the cause of Australia’s current economic and social difficulties, many are self-interested political opportunists, especially Senators Pauline HansonThey point to immigrants and a particular type of immigrant as the cause of the problem. This is not only wrong and malicious, but also counterproductive.

Immigrants are a significant contribution To Australia’s economy and workforce, particularly healthcare, aged care, agriculture and other sectors facing labor shortages. Migrant workers make up a large proportion of Australia’s care workforce and play an important role in maintaining health, construction and agricultural services.

The immigration backlash that Australia, and indeed most societies dependent on white immigrants, is currently experiencing is a result of many interconnected factors, not the least of which is the widespread adoption worldwide (with a few exceptions) of neoliberal economic policies, underpinned by Wall Street/US corporate-initiated stimulus and the assumption that making the rich richer makes economies richer and that not all rich people are good for nothing, particularly in Australia.

On the contrary, the patronage growth strategy, without provisions for redistribution of wealth, checks and balances and, more importantly, for the protection of Australia’s core value of egalitarianism, has produced major imbalances economically as well as socially and, more worryingly, has fragmented Australia’s egalitarian culture.

At the end of the day, societies develop in response to how policies (economic, social and cultural) interact with each other and affect people economically and behaviorally.

Pauline Hanson’s sudden rise needs to be understood in the context of the repercussions of neoliberal economic policy.

Pauline Hanson reflects the frustration but not the problem or solution. On the contrary, he sees the crisis emerging in Australia not as a challenge but as a political opportunity. ALP is more reactive than proactive. The LNP is waiting for crumbs to fall off Hanson’s plate.

The situation is very dire. This is not the time to play politics. It is time for Australia to forget its political differences, put its heads together and find a comprehensive solution for the short, medium and long term.

It’s time to take Australia back and make it a fair dinkum again.

Professor Adil Khan assistant professor He is a lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Queensland and a former senior policy manager at the United Nations. Adil is also a member of the Rohingya Support Group in Queensland.

Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA.