“Team Australia” arrived home recently, chests thrown out, amid
much back-slapping, strutting and preening.
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| The Washington Consensus makes puppets of all it touches, including whole nations. |
The travelling party from the big end of town, the business
boys (and they were mostly boys) who lock arms in a club that understands, and
cares only about growth and profit, toured with Prime Minister Tony Abbott to
Japan, Korea and China.
Surrounded by a phalanx of billionaires, Mr Abbott visited
that trio of Asian countries to talk up Australia and point out it is “open for
business”.
He went to sign-off on free trade agreements; deals he
believes will benefit all Australians, but which history has shown will only
enrich his already rich fellow travellers.
Free trade is integral part of globalization, which has done
nothing but make the wealthy wealthier, worsening inequality and ripping the
rug out from under small businesses.
The stance taken by Mr Abbott and his rich cohort reflects
the Washington Consensus, a 10-point plan that the U.S. Government and
international economic institutions have successfully used to rob resource-rich
underdeveloped countries.
The oddities of Mr Abbott’s thinking are intriguing as
usually it is the less developed countries that fall into economic traps set by
wealthy and influential nations, but in this case Australia, under the PM’s
insistence, has been a part of its own deception.
Third-world countries that fall under the spell of
Washington Consensus-like programs are stripped of their resources, and natural
trading advantages, bringing on bankruptcy from which they are allowed relief only
by agreeing to punishing trade arrangements.
Forced into free-trade agreements that favour, invariably,
the developed countries; and the small businesses in the target country are
pillaged and forced to align with huge corporations and so are destroyed and
vanish – they go broke.
Driven by what appears to be a hint of desperation to
demonstrate his promise of Australia being “open for business”, our PM has
played the country itself as his trump card and has laid us bare on the trading
table.
The people who could make a meaningful social difference to
Australia are being treated like criminals and secreted to the likes of Manus
Island, while those whose only interest is in exploitation, profit and growth
are ushered into our dining room with a flourish reserved for royalty.
Money, it seems, can easily cross international borders, no
papers, no passport and no identity required, but should you be a struggling
individual or family escaping a life of oppression and you bring no riches other
than who they are, then Abbott’s Team Australia throws up the barricades.
Speaking during his Asian tour, Tony Abbott puffed out his
chest and declared “Australia has had a very good day”, failing to acknowledge that
it was really his rich friends who had a very good day.
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