Why we must break free

Australia is rich in resources but poor in results because our biggest industries are US-owned, he writes Bevan Ramsden.

US corporate dominance of our economy deprives Australians of the benefits of our abundant resources and denies our government sovereign control over our economy. It’s time to be liberated.

It is a fact of life and a great disadvantage for us Australians that we live under the military, economic and cultural domination of the USA. Although much has been written about military dominance expressed through obedience to the US alliance and embrace of its subsets, AUKUS and Forced Standstill AgreementLess is known about the economic dominance of the United States and its devastating impact on our daily lives. But it does help explain why, in a rich country, there are so many poor, homeless, and workers struggling to cope with financial problems.

Len Fox, in his 1980 book ‘Multinational companies have taken over Australia’He provided the following figures on foreign control of various industries:

“Motor vehicles 99.8%, Oil refineries (ownership) 90.8%, Basic chemicals 78%, Pharmaceuticals 77.8%, Transport equipment 54.6%, Base metals 38%, Textiles 33.3%, Food, beverages, tobacco 33.2%”.

These figures are obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), but unfortunately more recent figures are not available from this source as the Fraser government’s treasurer, John Howard, stopped the ABS collecting data on foreign ownership in 1978. These figures were becoming an embarrassment at a time when the Fraser Government was encouraging foreign investment.

we owe Speech and Clinton Fernandes for more up-to-date information on foreign industrial ownership in Australia and quote the following:

“Currently US companies dwarf everyone else in their ability to influence our politics through their investments in Australian stocks.

Using company ownership data from Bloomberg, I analyzed the ownership of Australia’s 20 largest companies just days after the 2019 federal election in May. Of those 20, 15 were majority owned by US-based investors. Three more were at least 25 percent owned by the United States.”

The list included:

“Commonwealth Bank of Australia was once the “People’s Bank”, but after privatization it is now 62% US owned. BHP Group, once a “Great Australian”, is now 73% US owned. Westpac Bank is 64% US owned, National Australia Bank is 63% US owned, ANZ Bank is 54% US owned, Woolworths is 66% US owned, Rio Tinto is 65% US owned, Westfarmers is 56% US owned and the list goes on.”

“The ASX’s 20 largest companies account for close to half of the market capitalization of the Australian Securities Exchange.”

One might ask how US economic dominance works to the detriment of the Australian people. After all, governments keep telling us that ‘foreign investment’ is a great blessing and something we can’t do without.

Because of their financial size and sector dominance, decisions regarding investment and development are made not by the Australian government, but by the boards of these companies and, most likely, abroad. These decisions are made not to meet national priorities for the benefit of the Australian people, but to maximize profits, which is the primary responsibility of shareholders.

A classic example is the automobile manufacturing industry. Successive Australian governments permitted and even encouraged foreign investment and therefore ownership, to the point that the entire automobile manufacturing industry became 100% foreign owned. The government lost all control over this industry, which was taken from Australia by foreign owners who decided they could make more profits in a country with lower labor costs. The closure of the automobile industry resulted in the closure of support industries, loss of jobs and the loss of skills that accompanied this industry.

We also lose because of tax manipulation and so-called “creative accounting.” Clinton Fernandes in his excellent book, ‘Island off the Coast of Asia’ writes:

“Recent studies by investigative journalist Michael West and the Tax Justice Network have revealed numerous methods used by certain companies to circumvent tax laws. ExxonMobil, for example, “paid zero tax on more than $18 billion in income” despite the price of domestic gas “all the way up” in 2014-15. Figures analyzed and released in December 2017 showed that Glencore, which operates in commodity industries such as coal, copper, oil and zinc, “managed to: Destroy all profit and tax on revenue of $22 billion” Shell Australia “paid zero on revenue of $4.2 billion, Chevron paid zero on $2.1 billion, Viva Energy (bought the gas stations from Shell), zero tax on $16.8 billion and ExxonMobil not a penny on $6.7 billion.”

In short, one Australian worker paid more tax that year than five giant US companies with combined revenues of $51.8 billion. Australian society is suffering from the loss of income that could otherwise fund much-needed infrastructure such as public housing, basic improvement of public health services and tackling the climate crisis.

The influence of the foreign-owned mining industry was seen in 2010 when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd launched a very public political campaign against a proposed resource lease tax that would increase revenue from this sector for the benefit of the Australian public. The ALP bowed to this political pressure and replaced Prime Minister Rudd with Julia Gillard, who immediately bowed to the wishes of the foreign-owned mining industry and excluded the resource rent tax proposal from further consideration.

The dominant US corporations are putting downward pressure on wages, and as the example below shows, their attitudes towards labor leave much to be desired.

A former union organizer shirley winton At a recent protest rally in Melbourne he declared:

Exxon-Mobil is the world’s largest oil and gas monopoly. In 2017, Exxon Mobil workers in Longford (Victoria) went on strike for more than 6 months, fighting against Exxon Mobil’s 30% pay cut and worsening working conditions. For six months, workers in a long and bitter fight against the oil monopoly have set up a 24-hour picket outside Exxon Mobil in Longford, Victoria. They organized and carried out the strikes themselves and received broad support from many workers, unions and communities locally, nationally and internationally.

Striking Longford workers pointed out that Exxon Mobil had not paid a penny in corporate taxes for three years, while in the same period pocketed $25 billion from the plunder of our natural resources and the exploitation of workers who made billions of dollars in profits and shipped overseas to its headquarters in the United States.

Successive Australian governments, through the encouragement or even subsidy of US and other foreign transnational corporations, have allowed them to gain ownership dominance in key industries, thereby losing sovereign control over the economy and the ability to set national economic priorities. Defense against dominant foreign ownership and control are publicly owned enterprises. But successive governments have brushed aside this defense by adopting a policy of privatisation, selling off the Commonwealth Bank, Australian Defense Industries and others, and opening these businesses up to takeover through share purchase.

For a bright and independent future in which the Australian people will derive maximum benefit from the country’s rich resources, we absolutely need to break away from the economic domination of the United States. Reversing the privatization policy to regain sovereign control through public ownership is a starting point. IPAN, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, will address the issue of US domination and the urgent need for liberation at this year’s National Conference in Adelaide. It is scheduled for July 24-26. sign up Here.

Bevan Ramsden is a long-time peace activist who returned to full-time volunteer organizing work with the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, where he served on the National Vietnam Moratorium Campaign committee with Victoria representative Jim Cairns. He has since continued his peace activities, most recently as a member of the national co-ordinating committee of the Independence and Peaceful Australia network and editor of its monthly publication, Voice.

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