Malcolm Turnbull

Malcolm Turnbull writes that “The Coalition left Rudd with a national balance sheet free of debt and with cash at the bank, not to mention sustained economic growth.”

What rubbish. The Coalition delivered these things not because of particularly strong or visionary economic policies, but because it was lucky. Earlier deregulation reforms and the floating of the currency made Australia rather resilient to the Asian Financial Crisis and US tech-bubble recession. The industrialisation of China and India ensured that revenues from resources would keep piling in. Funds were in such over-supply that the treasurer had to create a “Future Fund” and cut taxes annually to stop the budget surplus getting too big. These are all cyclical events in which Australia was lucky. The previous Coalition government did not tackle the choking infrastructure and skills shortages we faced; it did not leave Australia immune to the global financial crisis. The Rudd government has taken a large and proactive policy stance to offset some of the worst effects of the crisis.

Could Malcolm Turnbull, if he was Prime Minster, really have done anything different without making more Australians jobless? What is his alternative vision for dealing with these events, and for the future? His essay is glaringly silent on these.

The Chinese diaspora in Australia

The Chinese government’s demand for support by the Chinese diaspora is hardly unprecedented in historical terms. Many politicians in many countries have attempted to exploit the long-distance nationalism and ethnic sentiments of their diasporas as a means to obtain investment, foreign exchange or votes (for example, Israel, India, Italy, and that’s just the I-countries). This is nothing new.

We need not worry about such rhetoric. The Chinese diaspora in Australia poses no threat. Many of these people have migrated because they do not agree with the Chinese government, or because they seek better lives in a democracy. Many of those who subsequently send back money to their family or invest in China do so because they care about their relatives or because their background and connections provide them with a valuable understanding of business cultural and commercial opportunities in their homeland. It is rarely (if ever) because they have unwavering patriotic support for the government.

Many diasporic people yearn for a homeland that no longer exists, and many come to feel alienated when making return visits after a long time away. For most migrants, the material standard of living in the new country is often superior to that of the old. For these reasons, it is likely that Chinese immigrants, like millions of others, have a greater allegiance to democratic Australian society than they do to the repressive Chinese government. Migrants do not need their homeland to tell them to feel pride in their cultural background. The Chinese government may well find that a drive to enlist overseas Chinese as supporters by making silly-sounding statements about “blood lineage” could easily backfire.

Coorong wetlands

It is a tragedy that the Coorong wetlands have become so degraded they are almost beyond the point of recovery. The tragedy is compounded by the negligence of governments that could, and should, have seen this coming. State governments' stubbornness on buying back water allocations from farmers is destructive. How many more precious ecosystems and bird habitats must die before action is taken?

There are complex processes underlying the changes being observed in the Murray-Darling basin, but the basic causes are straightforward. There are too many farms using too much water, and often in an extraordinarily unsustainable way. The landscape simply cannot support this level of agricultural activity. When European farmers first saw Australia's wide open spaces, they assumed these lands had the same high levels of soil fertility and could grow the same types of crops as in Europe. To overcome the lack of water, the Snowy River was diverted into the Murray, causing immense shock and change to the ecosystems of both rivers.

Governments' inability to actually implement changes that will stop the Murray River degrading further continues this pattern, as if they think that one day more water will simply appear out of nowhere. Environmental determinism is never sustainable in the long-run. We need to respect the constraints of nature and farm our land more sustainably. That means fewer farms and lower water entitlements in the Murray-Darling basin.

The Australian book industry

Do not be fooled by the eloquence of Australian authors. They have been repeatedly arguing that Australian authors deserve a fair profit and that Australian literature has great cultural benefits for many of us. That’s difficult (and slippery) to dispute, but it’s an attempt to reframe the argument over book import laws in a way that stirs emotions.

Unfortunately, such emotions rarely lead to good public policy. The territorial copyright restrictions currently in place are a market distortion, a barrier to trade and the cause of over-inflated book prices paid by consumers. If an author (or their publisher) wants to boost their profits by printing different editions abroad and pricing them differently, why should Australian law permit them to prevent imports of the foreign-market version? If authors and publishers are too scared that cut-price books from abroad will threaten their royalties and profits in the Australian market, they should stop publishing in or supplying to foreign markets. They will continue to have control over this, and retain the copyright to their own work, regardless of any changes in book importation laws. Despite what they may say, the integrity of copyright itself is not at stake.

By restricting imports in such a way, laws against parallel imports cause the price of all books to be much higher than they otherwise would be. This seems to be mostly for the sake of supporting a few Australian authors who, judging by the shrillness of their recent complaints, would otherwise be unable to remain viable. I am sick of having to pay through the nose for books in Australia, or pay high freight costs to buy them online from America.

If consumers valued the work of Australian novelists more than that of other authors, they would be willing to pay more for their books. These writers should stop trying to stir up emotions through the media and focus on writing better books.