Australian Trade Policy Research Articles

Australian Trade Policy in the Twenty‐First Century

AbstractIn the 1980s and 1990s, Australia moved from a protectionist trade policy to very open trade policies. This paper analyses the evolution of these policies in the twenty‐first century: first signing bilateral agreements in the 2000s and then participating in negotiation of mega‐regional agreements (TPP/CPTPP and RCEP). To some extent these shifts have reflected stasis in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its inability to make agreements on new areas. Underlying drivers of Australia's beyond‐WTO trade agreements have been the fragmentation of trade along global value chains and the emergence of new trade technologies associated with the spread of the internet.

Trade and nutrition policy coherence: a framing analysis and Australian case study.

Maximising synergies and minimising conflicts (i.e. building policy coherence) between trade and nutrition policy is an important objective. One understudied driver of policy coherence is the alignment in the frames, discourses and values of actors involved in the respective sectors. In the present analysis, we aim to understand how such actors interpret (i.e. 'frame') nutrition and the implications for building trade-nutrition policy coherence. We adopted a qualitative single case study design, drawing on key informant interviews with those involved in trade policy. We focused on the Australian trade policy sub-system, which has historically emphasised achieving market growth and export opportunities for Australian food producers. Nineteen key informants involved in trade policy spanning the government, civil society, business and academic sectors. Nutrition had low 'salience' in Australian trade policy for several reasons. First, it was not a domestic political priority in Australia nor among its trading partners; few advocacy groups were advocating for nutrition in trade policy. Second, a 'productivist' policy paradigm in the food and trade policy sectors strongly emphasised market growth, export opportunities and deregulation over nutrition and other social objectives. Third, few opportunities existed for health advocates to influence trade policy, largely because of limited consultation processes. Fourth, the complexity of nutrition and its inter-linkages with trade presented difficulties for developing a 'broader discourse' for engaging the public and political leaders on the topic. Overcoming these 'ideational challenges' is likely to be important to building greater coherence between trade and nutrition policy going forward.

Australian Trade Policy and the sme Backlash: Are Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (smes) Sufficiently Respected and Reflected in our Trade Agreements and Outcomes?

This paper discusses the importance of smes in the context of Australia’s trade policy. The question is asked; is sufficient attention given to smes in the drafting of ftas or is the trade policy directed to “the big end of town?” This paper highlights the difficulties of enterprises in navigating through the multitude of trade agreements. One of the issues is that the documentation accessing ftas is not uniform. This causes compliance problem specifically in relation to rules of origin. As a corollary to the different documentary requirements the associated transaction costs are examined with the conclusion that Australia does not exploit its growth potential, as smes are not maximizing their contribution to international trade.

European Integration and Australian Manufacturing Industry: The Case of Philips Electronics, 1960s–1970s

The creation of the Common Market in the European Community required electronics multinational Philips to integrate production operations across European countries. This effort had consequences for its Australian subsidiary. Rather than become a regional Philips hub with the support of its parent, as intended in the 1960s, it was absorbed by addressing changes in Australian trade policy and increased Japanese imports. The parent company's establishment of regional supply centres in Europe and Asia left no role for the small Australian production facilities in the company's global structure. Production and employment at Philips Australia were scaled back drastically during the 1970s.

Australian Trade Agreements – A Divergence between Trade Policy and Business Outcomes – Can They Deliver Trade-related Growth for Australia?

The recently negotiated Japan Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (jaepa) is the latest in a series of trade agreements that seek to create a trading environment for Australian firms delivering outcomes similar to those anticipated under the wto multilateral model. However, the gains to business and the economy from this approach to trade policy have been particular to specific economic sectors and have generally not resulted in significant broad based economic benefits. In particular, the negotiation of trade agreements by Australia has been characterised by the reduction of trade-in-goods barriers (tariffs etc) which have assisted some agricultural and resource activities and compromised value adding, high employment sectors of the economy such as manufacturing. In contrast, Australian trading partners have increasingly sought concessions relating to Foreign Direct Investment (fdi), allowing their businesses to vertically integrate productive activity. The apparent disconnection between Australian trade policy outcomes and the requirements of business and the broader economy stem from failures at both the fundamental level of policy creation and the negotiation and implementation of the agreements. This paper argues that Australian trade policy needs to develop a new, more flexible and responsive model of trade negotiation in order to better serve the economy and its businesses.

Trade Policy and International Finance in the Bretton Woods Era: a Doctrinal Perspective with Reference to Australia and New Zealand

The Bretton Woods system embodied a self-imposed liquidity constraint. Trade policy was subordinated to the maintenance of official foreign reserves used to defend fixed exchange rates. In Australia and New Zealand, reserves were considered a form of national self-insurance against the instability of export receipts and the liquidity problem was often referred to as the ‘foreign exchange constraint’ – as if it were exogenously given rather than the result of certain policies, and it reinforced inward-looking trade policies. International financial arrangements, including severe restrictions on cross-border capital flows, delimited thought and action in connection with Australian and New Zealand trade policy.

Australian Trade Policy Strategy Contradictions

AbstractAustralia’s Trade Policy Review by the WTO in 2011 was positive about Australia’s openness and its progress in removing residual barriers to trade. But it glosses over the fact that Australia’s current strategy of supporting the multilateral system while signing, negotiating and concluding preferential agreements is not consistent. The paper focuses on the question of Australia’s role in the multilateral system as it prosecutes preferential agreements, and examines ways of multilateralising some of those preferences, especially in a broader regional setting and under the WTO. One priority is to multilateralise the preferences in trade agreements – by reducing the MFN tariffs and extending the preferential access that some investment and services providers enjoy. Another priority is to get domestic regulations and reforms right so that there is no discrimination between foreign and domestic firms, let alone between foreign firms from different countries.

Australian Trade Policy under the Howard Government: The Impact of Organised Interested Groups

There has been much debate in the literature about the impact of globalisation on the Australian economy, but few studies focus on the domestic determinants of Australia's negotiating position in international trade negotiations. In order to close this gap, this article analyses the impact of organised interest groups in the Australian trade policy under the Howard government in the different World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meetings from 1999 to 2006. In particular, the article explores the link between parties and interest groups in the Australian political system. It suggests that the Australian negotiating position reflects the demands put forward by interest groups closely linked to the government parties and the change of the international environment towards bilateral and regional trade agreements.

Preferential trade agreements and the future of Australian trade policy

Trade policy has seldom featured in Australian election campaigns. Indeed, since a largely bipartisan consensus emerged in the mid-1980s over the desirability of Australia's pursuing a policy of un...

Australian trade policy in an age of globalisation

Arguably, the world trading system has entered a period of greater change and uncertainty in the past two years than at any time since the end of the Cold War. At the same time, Australia faces a range of internal and external challenges to its trade policy, while having lost many of the old 'certainties' guiding its trade agenda. This article identifies four major challenges confronting Australian trade policy now and into the future: the EU agenda to inject self-serving 'governance' mechanisms into the WTO; rises in the demands and influence of developing countries within the WTO; the new trend towards bilateral free trade areas; and increasing opposition to globalisation by groups within society. It assesses the capacity of Australia's trade bureaucracy to manage these issues, warning against expecting too much of the trade policy agenda, particularly in relation to the role it plays within domestic politics in Australia.

Unfinished Business

AbstractThis article is about three phases in Australian trade policy: protectionism, unilateral liberalisation, and participation in regional trade liberalisation. Australia used to have one of the most protected economies in the world. The last dozen years have seen a radical transformation of Australian economic policy: Australia is in the process of becoming one of the most open economies in the world. The last five‐to‐ten years have also seen a related transformation of Australian foreign economic policy. This policy is now centrally concerned with promoting the process of international economic integration within the Asian region; particularly through the APEC process. Should Australia be pursuing ‘open regionalism’ in the Pacific? or promoting an Asia Pacific trading bloc? or concentrating on its own unilateral trade liberalisation? or using its energy to press for global liberalisation through the GATT? I argue that there remains a deep contradiction in the APEC process; that ‘open regionalism’ is in Australia's interests, and that the critical test of Australia's conversion to liberalisation will come in this third phase, in the future answers that it gives to these questions.

Australia and the Pacific Economy*

The industrialization and growth of East Asian countries has shifted the centre of world trade and economic activity towards the Pacific. There has already been a huge redirection of Australia's trade and external economic interests towards the region, based importantly on the emergence of Japan as a major economic power. Australia's future economic prospects will be significantly determined by how it manages its trade policy interests in the context of continuing East Asian industrialization. The most promising Australian trade policy approach is one which allies Australia's trading interests to those of East Asian countries in seeking to maintain an open non‐discriminatory trade regime, supportive of the transformation of trade specialization necessary to the industrialization of resource‐deficient countries, and which marries that objective to the liberalization of her own and Pacific country markets.

AUSTRALIAN TRADE POLICY AND WESTERN PACIFIC ECONOMIC GROWTH

Economic Papers: A journal of applied economics and policyVolume E1, Issue 65 p. 14-30 AUSTRALIAN TRADE POLICY AND WESTERN PACIFIC ECONOMIC GROWTH ROSS GARNAUT, ROSS GARNAUTSearch for more papers by this author ROSS GARNAUT, ROSS GARNAUTSearch for more papers by this author First published: June 1981 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1759-3441.1981.tb00820.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat VolumeE1, Issue65June 1981Pages 14-30 RelatedInformation

Book Review: Great Britain and the Commonwealth: Australian Trade Policy, 1942–1966: A Documentary History

Book Review: Great Britain and the Commonwealth: Australian Trade Policy, 1942–1966: A Documentary History

Australian Trade Policy 1942–1966: A Documentary History. Edited by J. G. Crawford. Assisted by Nancy Anderson and Margery G. N. Morris, coeditors. Canberra: Australian National University Press; University of Toronto Press, Toronto, distributor, 1968. Pp. xxix, 641. $15.00.

Australian Trade Policy 1942–1966: A Documentary History. Edited by J. G. Crawford. Assisted by Nancy Anderson and Margery G. N. Morris, coeditors. Canberra: Australian National University Press; University of Toronto Press, Toronto, distributor, 1968. Pp. xxix, 641. $15.00. - Volume 29 Issue 2

AUSTRALIAN TRADE POLICY: COMMENT AND QUESTION*

I have a threefold purpose: Firstly: to repeat and review briefly some of the things I have been saying in the last few months about Australian trade policy. Secondly: to bring to light three or four of the more important questions or issues which arise in the course of a generalised statement of Australian trade policy. To comment in this way may give rise to rather unbalanced digressions: I believe the risk worth taking. Thirdly: flowing readily enough from these two will come a plea for more public debate on policy issues. No less important will be a correlative plea for more work to be done by economists (using the Adam Smith concept of political economist) on the many important variables in the debate, about which more needs to be known. I cannot possibly exhaust the subject; hence I propose to review two fields only--both very broad--within the framework set by this threefold purpose. In what I might call Trade Policy: Part A I will sketch one side of the interrelation between internal economic objectives and trade policy. Part B will dance--very lightly albeit clumsily too--over what I have been describing as five areas of export policy. The incompleteness of the survey will readily be evident. For example, I will not be saying anything systematically or in detail about import licensing, tariff policy, or the prospects for exports--all vital ingredients in a trade policy for Australia.

Australian Trade Policy : A Book of Documents, 1932–1937

Australian Trade Policy : A Book of Documents, 1932–1937