Wednesday 8th of May 2024
Home » Blogs » John Richardson's blog

a singular arrogance ....

an arrogant singularity ....

Rupert Murdoch says Australia needs to embrace high immigration to add dynamism to the economy, enhance its human capital and create strong bonds with the rest of the world.

The News Corp chairman decried a "self-defeating" immigration debate in the United States and pointed to opportunity for Australia in embracing diversity and opening the doors to all comers – provided cultural relativism was resisted and the newcomers were willing to "abide by our way of life".

The positive intervention on immigration was a significant theme of a lecture the media mogul delivered at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Thursday evening.

"We think of the United States as an immigrant nation, and rightly so," Murdoch told his audience in Sydney.

"But the percentage of foreign-born in the United States, a country currently racked by a self-defeating debate over immigration policy, is just about 12%. Incredibly, Australia is double that," he said.

"That means Australia is on the way to becoming what may be the world's most diverse nation. This is an incredible competitive advantage. 

"A nation as small as ours will increasingly depend on trade. And the more people we have with ties to other parts of the world, the greater our advantage when we seek trade relationships with these nations."

Murdoch declared the 21st century "Australia's for the taking" – and contended Australia must be an economy that thrives on disruption. He talked about significant structural adjustments within his own publishing business, including the relentless rise of mobile communications, replacing the old ways of print newspapers and the distribution of news products.

Reality, once embraced, could be made rewarding, Murdoch reasoned.

"It means we are always forced to think outside the box," he said.

"The disruptive forces and the world economy today are as relentless as they are remorseless. Once we embrace that reality, we can make sure they are rewarding."

The lecture was strong on the Murdoch anti-elitist ethos. He suggested Australia had come a way to moving past the "stuffy narrow-minded elitism" of old, and had thrown off the "faux class war that has been served by contemporary politicians grasping for a theme" – a reference to the previous Labor government.

Proof of evolution beyond Australia's "primeval prejudices" stemming back to our colonial origins was the rise of Catholics in the Liberal party, with the prime minister,

Tony Abbott, "part of the proof".

"The heart of Australia today is our belief in a fair shake for all," Murdoch said. 

"No man or woman is above any other. We applaud achievement and innovation."

People prepared to exploit their talents and strive for success were the "essence of an egalitarian meritocracy".  Australia, he said, was on the cusp of becoming just that, "with more than a touch of libertarianism" – qualities which were "rare and valuable in this new world".

Murdoch championed a free press, lawyers who did not interfere, and strong private institutions – and talked up the virtues of trade, technology and free markets.

He endorsed the Abbott government's focus on Jakarta in terms of foreign policy, while insisting America remained Australia's most important ally.

Murdoch argued for a good relationship with China even as "[we] guard ourselves against a possible economic contraction there".

But he said Australia had to be ambitious at a time of great global transformation, including the rise of the middle class in our region. And Australia had to realise it was people who defined the future, not governments or allies.

"Let's stop thinking about Australia's place in the world as defined by its alliances, by its trading partners, by its government," Murdoch said.

"We will fight regulations that hamper growth and economic development. But it is the Australian people who will, collectively define this nation's destiny.

"We must be leaders, not followers. We must be egalitarian, not elitist. We must be victors and not victims. It won't be easy but the Australia that I know and love has never shied from a challenge."

Rupert Murdoch Says Australia Must Embrace Immigrants To Boost Economy

 

mindless ....

from Crikey ….

Rupert, Clive and Campbell in the Arkansas of the world …

So, on a Thursday night in Australia, the proprietor of the country's largest media outlet gives a lecture auspiced by a think tank set up by the country's largest shopping mall magnate, which is then broadcast live and in full on ABC News 24, and breathlessly reported the next morning in all the papers.

Meanwhile in Western Australia, the Australian Electoral Commission loses some 1400 votes in a tight Senate election, which will have to be redone in very changed political circumstances ... meanwhile plutocrat party starter Clive Palmer dodges questions as to whether he will use his emerging Senate control to leverage advantage for his businesses, currently in a possibly precarious state (though how would we know?), while his Tasmanian Senator-elect Jacqui Lambie - demonstrating a deep understanding of the Westminster system - calls for an inquiry into the Greens (perhaps a revival of Clive's CIA charges).

And up north, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, with a 60-plus seat majority, takes a problem of criminal gangs - not nothing, but hardly war in the streets - dredges up Joh-era public order laws, and imports "zero tolerance" laws from the United States - the country with among the highest crime rates, highest homicide rate and highest incarceration rate in the Western world.

History, first as tragedy, then as farce, the man said. He forgot to add ... "then as a Dukes of Hazzard" episode. Boss Hogg Palmer dun got hisself a posse to find them lost votes probly stolen by some Labor-associated hack, while the governor done give the commencement address at the university and Police Chief Newman won't let the biys ride, but the kids just want to dance man, the kids just want to dance!

What can explain the state of the nation today, this mix of the mildly sinister, with absurdity beneath it, where billionaires lecture us about elitism, and celebrate the "dynamism of capitalism" reported throughout the news organs they run at a loss of millions a week in order to have a voice?

What can explain the absurd deference to Murdoch's mix of business magazine platitudes about the country, the world, and the nature of prosperity and the good life? What can explain the vacuum beneath, wherein - absent a major political clash - absurdities such as the Palmer United Party and the microparties can pullulate? The "surplus repression" inherent in Newman's actions, the determination to bring in all the US problems associated with draconian law – ie: bikies saying they will stand their ground against cops - where none currently exist here?

What can explain it above all in a country that once had a more involved and pluralist democracy, a contestation of forces that ensured that representation was not aligned with money and power? As so often in these matters, the question is the answer.

Those institutional structures fell away so quickly, were undermined so quickly - far more in the Hawke/Keating than in the Howard years; at the same time as the global economy and culture changed - that the effect was political implosion. Our union movement had always been so top-down (with honourable exceptions) that its winnowing produced no great storm of resistance.

Our great publicly owned corporations were so bureaucratic and distant from general mutual ownership and provision that few shed tears when they were privatised and then sold back to us. Superannuation and other measures profoundly privatised prosperity, and ushered in an era not merely of individualism but of atomisation. Within that, not merely Left traditions, but also classical liberal traditions died as mainstream political causes.

The result? A cautious and evasive Liberal Party, hoping to govern by stealth, a self-involved and complacent Labor Party, a Greens outfit hemmed in by the limits of its class base - and in the vacuum Clive Palmer, Rupert Murdoch, vague waffle of a Promethean nature about our great future, etc, etc. It is all nonsense, of course.

We will live better or worse depending on decisions of governments to come, but we missed the great future. We missed it these last 20 years, when we failed to plug the mineral boom into a genuinely dynamic and world-beating knowledge/science/industry/post-industry base.

While Norway builds a future fund now approaching $800 billion, we built one of $60 billion for a country five times the population. We let our schools decline, our universities rot, and we wasted the talents of a generation through complacent inequality. We gave the run of the farm to big banks, big comms, big services, and thus when ANZ makes $6 billion - $6 billion - in profit, there is no one to say that maybe they should pay a little more tax, or not charge us $2 to get our money out.

We could have been the Germany of the Pacific. We decided to be the Arkansas. Not hopelessly backward, but a long way from the front foot, too. That this fantasy creed should have been enunciated by the man who did so much to stunt our real development, on a Thursday night in Australia, is grimly amusing I guess.

Morale Hazzard indeed.