From the Australian Settlement to Microeconomic Reform: the Change in Twentieth Century Policy Regimes

Abstract

This paper outlines and discusses explanations of the substantial shift in the economic policy regime in Australia. The first regime held from federation through the 1970s. It focused on extensive development, through the attraction and retention of selected immigrants by a set of mutually-supportive policies centered on trade protection. The second strategy, of recent vintage, concentrates more on intensive development and, in contrast with the earlier, relies on economic competition, rather than attempting to suppress it. Similar shifts in policy regimes have occurred in other countries, but with different timing and character. In the Australian case, there was bi-partisan support for the claims that liberalization was a desirable response to the changed external economic environment.