I returned a month ago from a wonderful break in Western Australia where we were visiting our children and grandchildren in Perth. We left just a day before the weekend marking 231 years since the arrival of Arthur Phillip’s First Fleet on the continent that was to become the home of the nation of Australia.
That experimental export of British traditions, customs and institutions to the other side of the globe was an unqualified success. But while Australia may be an offspring of Britain, it would be quite wrong to suppose that its people are remotely like the British now.
Today’s relationship is between two mature and independent equals living in different parts of the world and confronted with different regional problems.
Australia has forged its own distinct personality, its own distinguished history, its own culture and its own position as a major nation in the world. The original settlers were of predominantly British and Irish stock, and thousands have come from Britain since World War II, together with Europeans from Italy, Greece, Malta and others, to populate and make it the thriving country it is.
There are almost 215,000 Australians of Maltese descent living there. But Australia is changing, with the majority of its new citizens now born overseas and arriving from Asia – countries as diverse as India, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, Japan and Nepal.
The Australian personality and way of life has been a triumph of rugged character over matter. As a people, they are genuine, self-deprecating and full of goodwill, though also forthright of expression and externally blunt. They are generous, courageous and gregarious.
Australia is not simply the lucky country (or, as I prefer, God’s own country), blessed with plentiful sun and natural resources. It takes far more than luck to achieve 26 consecutive years since 1993 without a recession, a global record. No other advanced economy has matched it.
Australia’s daily politics may be brutal – they have had six prime ministers in the last 12 years – but in the 1980s, Australian politicians, from both sides of the Liberal and Labour divide, rejected what historian and political journalist Paul Kelly (The March of Patriots) called “the Australian settlement”: a policy of restricted and limited migration, protectionism, inflexible workplace relations and paternalistic social policies.
Instead, the new economic Aussie Rules, created over a period of about 14 years by the governments of Labour Bob Hawke from 1983 to 1991, Labour Paul Keating from 1991 to 1996 and Liberal John Howard from 1996 to 2007, lowered tariffs, removed subsidies, abolished quotas, increased migration, provided workplace flexibility, privatised industry, floated the dollar and deregulated financial markets.
Tariffs have been reduced from as high as 90 per cent in the 1980s to a maximum of five per cent today. Trade has grown from under AU$100 billion to over AU$750 billion. There are free trade deals with countries such as Singapore, the United States, Japan and China. Australia has latched on to the global engines of growth.
Developments that took centuries in Europe, such as the growth of the rule of law and democracy, happened in Australia seamlessly and practically overnight
The results are plain to see. Australia has had immense success on trade. The outward signs of prosperity are visible everywhere – an excellent social support system, all the material vestiges of a dynamic economy and an advanced and opulent life-style.
Bright economic prospects. Unfractured social cohesion. First-class medical services and education. A political environment that is vibrant, tough but less polluted than in Europe or the US.
Australia’s trade agreements are not just about tariffs and subsidies. To build the people-to-people links that are essential for trade, the Australia-US free trade agreement, for example, created a special visa category that makes it easier now for Australians to work in the US than in Britain – once the natural place for Australians to go and make a name. Today there are more Australians in New York than in London.
Like the successful EU single market, Australia has recognised, and embraced, the concept that trade should be tariff-free, regulations and qualifications should be mutually recognised, and people should be able to move freely between countries.
Except for a brief trip to Melbourne a few years ago, I have spent all my visits in Perth, which I have come to love. It is a modern, gracious, sybaritic coastal city of two million people with the majestic Swan river running through it. It is not the largest city in Australia, but it must be one of the most civilised and thoughtfully planned.
The planning of Perth is outstanding. It is a model of good layout and land use. Spacious, tree-lined streets, a road network which is uniformly laid out to the last detail and drivers who are courteous, considerate and law-abiding. Perhaps Australian adherence to the rule of law, not just in their driving habits, but also their observance of planning law and the urban landscape – where height restrictions, whether aesthetically-pleasing high-rise, medium-height modern apartments or single-storey structures in their allocated building zones, are meticulously observed – is the most striking aspect for those newly-arrived from Malta.
As in Europe, security worries have been aroused in Australia by the weight of refugees and fears about border protection. There are lessons here for Europe.
Successive Australian governments since 2001 have imposed stringent measures to deter unentitled asylum-seekers. They detain refugees on the Pacific Islands of Papua New Guinea and Nauru while their claims for asylum are being processed.
They ensure that the numbers arriving in Australia are carefully calibrated and controlled. It may be time for Europe to take determined steps to introduce bold and wide-sweeping reforms on the Australian model to secure its frontiers.
Australia is still a young and resilient nation. It faces huge challenges from climate change and water shortages. Despite difficulties with the indigenous Aborigines – whose conditions successive recent Australian governments have sought to alleviate – this is a homogenous, prosperous country.
It is unburdened by the obsolete hierarchy and customs of the old world we live in. Developments that took centuries in Europe, such as the growth of the rule of law and democracy, happened in Australia seamlessly and practically overnight.
As the Chinese century dawns and the shift in the US-China power balance continues, Australia will continue to have the capacity and the human and natural resources to play a crucial, steadying strategic role in Asia.
Advance Australia fair.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece