Getting on Track: a Business Plan for Australia.

GETTING ON TRACK: A Business Plan for Australia by Ken Aldred, Ernest Rodeck, Patrick Byrne and Martin Feil

Melbourne: Society for Australian Industry and Employment (Box 138, Upper Beaconsfield, 3808), 2004, pages 105, $19.95

This book is an important addition to the debate regarding job losses in Australia and the economic difficulties that are already being experienced or are imminent. During the last ten years in particular many employment positions in Australia have been lost. On the one hand many goods previously produced in Australia are now imported from foreign suppliers. On the other hand many Australian manufacturers have set up factories abroad, or employed foreign producers, so that goods are no longer manufactured in Australia.

The consequent problems--a large and growing trade deficit and a loss of jobs in Australia--are very serious indeed.

Mr. Ken Aldred, a former parliamentarian, notes that G.D.P. growth is now expected to fall and that youth unemployment exceeds 20 per cent. Since 1982 manufacturing as a proportion of total employment has fallen from 19.4 per cent to 12 per cent, and net foreign debt has increased from 11 per cent of G.D.P. to 47.8 per cent. He points out that the combination of AUSTRADE with Foreign Affairs in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has damaged Australia's trade promotion.

Mr. Ernest Rodeck, an engineer who has been a director of many large public companies, discusses the transfer of employment from high-wage countries to low-wage countries. He sets forth arguments why we should not continue to terminate quotas and to reduce tariffs and why, on the contrary, we may have to take steps to restore an earlier position.

Mr. Patrick Byrne, a senior journalist who has written widely on economic and trade issues, discusses many of the problems presently facing Australia. He emphasises the need to develop our national infrastructure, to use water resources more intelligently, to set up a development bank and to protect and strengthen rural industries. It is noteworthy that during the past twenty years primary producers have been the hostages of whatever "free-trade" inequalities have been practised against Australia, and that the National Party has failed almost completely to defend them.

Mr. Martin Feil is a former director of the Industries Assistance Commission and is a consultant in industry policy, international trade and transfer pricing. He discusses the services sector, as opposed to the manufacturing sector, and its protection through measures that are not obvious or easily measurable, and also sets out various steps that should be taken to further Australian economic development.

The various proposals of the authors are extensive and not readily able to be summarised. However they cogent and incisive, and Getting on Track is an important contribution to public discussion of economic and social issues that should not be neglected. The authors write in clear terms, without undue technicalities, and this book is able to be read with pleasure and profit.

R. M. Pearce