You were robbed. Stolen from. You had your heritage and
your prosperity deliberately taken away from you, and it was done right under
your nose and you were lied to about it.
You may have heard the myth that Australian car
manufacturing died because of unions and because of high wages caused by those
unions. This argument is attractive to many, because a lot of people can comprehend why that could be the case. But it makes no sense logically. Think
about it: Australia is a massive country, with heaps of resources, and a small spread out population. We need
cars to get places. Because we have a small population spread out over a large area, we
have no choice, but for the majority of people to own cars to do everything from shop, to
work, to socialize. So, we need cars and we need people to buy them.
If those
cars are built in Australia, by Australians, from Australian resources, and the
workers are paid in Australian dollars, who spend their money in the Australian economy, you have a closed system, don’t you? The money flows through the economy. The unions will be able to push for wages which make living in Australia
possible, but the production of cars will continue to be necessary, so car
makers will be able to demand a reasonable premium to make cars, but the money
they make from those cars will go back into the economy, and the system will
sustain itself over time. Like other countries the government will subsidize
the industry by making up government vehicle fleets of Aussie cars, and this
will to go back into the economy and aid the production of the cars.
Of course, the system was not totally closed, that is not
my argument. But, if only Aussie made cars are being made, bought and sold,
then how can high wages bankrupt the car industry? They can’t. You need an
outside competitor to achieve this. In a closed system you may end up paying
higher prices, because of higher wages, but those wages will balance out within the wider economy, because that money is part of the same system. Higher paid workers spend more in the economy right? This is why
people are still buying homes, even though builders are making wages that car
manufacturers would have once dream off, because their services are in such
high demand, they can command high wages. Therefore, high wages is not the
problem, interference in the system is the problem.
When I mention interference in the system, some people
might think I mean subsidies. But all countries with a car manufacturing
industry subsidize that sector, and Australia’s
subsidies to our car industry were modest compared to
other countries. The problem was not the unions. Unions and collective
bargaining are only a detriment if Australian workers need to compete against
foreign labour which is far cheaper, and that is exactly what happened. This is what really killed our car
manufacturing industry, along with much of the rest of our manufacturing, and
this process was guided and deliberate.
It is here where I ask you have you
heard of the Lima Declaration?
The Lima
Declaration was a 1975 United Nations agreement that
many countries, including Australia, signed up to which had the express
intention of moving western manufacturing to poorer developing countries. The
stated aim was to bring equality to all countries,
“5. Recognizing the urgent
need to bring about the establishment of a new international economic order
based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence and co-operation, as has
been expressed in the Declaration and Programme of Action on the Establishment
of a New International Economic Order, in order to transform the present
structure of economic relations,…”[1]
The way this “equality” was meant to be achieved was by
taking from the West and giving to developing countries so that they could
catch up,
“36. That developing
countries with sufficient means at their disposal should give careful
consideration to the possibility of ensuring a net transfer for financial and
technical resources to the least developed countries:
37. That special emphasis
should be laid on the need of the least developed countries for the
establishment of production facilities involving a maximum utilization of local
human resources, the output of which meets identified material and social
requirements, thus assuring a convergence between local resource use and needs
as well as offering adequate employment opportunities;…”[2]
Notice that? The UN was asking for governments, including
our Australian government, to transfer our own economic and technical resources
to these countries so that they could do what our countries used to do, make
things. Various measures were outlined to achieve this transfer,
“59. The developed countries
should adopt the following measures:
(a) Progressive elimination
or reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers, and other obstacles to trade,
taking into account the special characteristics of the trade of the developing
countries, with a view to improving the international framework for the conduct
of world trade. Adherence to the fullest extent possible to the principle of
the “standstill” on imports from developing countries and recognition of the
need for prior consultation where feasible and appropriate in the event that
special circumstances warrant a modification of the “standstill”;
(b) Adoption of trade
measures designed to ensure increased exports of manufactured and
semi-manufactured products including processed agricultural products from the
developing to the developed countries:
(c) Facilitate development
of new and strengthen existing policies, taking into account their economic
structure and economic, social and security objectives, which would encourage
their industries which are less competitive internationally to move progressively
into more viable lines of production or into other sectors of the economy, thus
leading to structural adjustments within the developed countries, and
redeployment of the productive capacities of such industries to developing
countries and promotion of a higher degree of utilization of natural resources
and people in the latter;
(d) Consideration by the
developed countries of their policies with respect to processed and
semi-processed forms of raw materials, taking full account of the interests of
the developing countries in increasing their capacities and industrial
potentials for processing raw materials which they export;
(e) Increased financial
contributions to international organizations and to government or credit
institutions in the developing countries in 12 order to facilitate the
promotion or financing of industrial development. Such contributions must be
completely free of any kind of political conditions and should involve no
economic conditions other than those normally imposed on borrowers;…”[3]
The UN was asking our government to lower tariffs that
protected Australian manufacturing, so as to help foreign manufacturers compete
in our market. They wanted us to become dependent on food from overseas, and
also on other products and raw materials made or partially processed overseas. They also expected us to move our own manufacturing to these foreign countries, give advantages to
foreign manufacturing, and then also to use our own sovereign money to increase
this process.
This is what killed our Australian car industry. This is
what killed many other parts of our manufacturing industry. It was not the
unions, it was a deliberate top-down strategy to move money, resources, man power and even
technology overseas,
“(j) The developing
countries should he granted access to technological know-how and advanced
technology, whether patented or not, under fair, equitable and mutually
acceptable conditions, taking into account the specific development
requirements of the recipient countries;
(k) Appropriate measures,
including consideration of the establishment of an industrial and technological
information bank, should be taken to make available a greater flow to the
developing countries of information permitting the proper selection of advanced
technologies;
(I) International
conventions on patents and trade marks should he reviewed; and all aspects of
the question of their revision, including inter a/ia additional provisions of
special benefit to the developing countries, should be studied through the work
of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), with appropriate
contributions from UNCTAD and other interested United Nations bodies, in order
that they may become an appropriate instrument to assist the developing
countries in the transfer and development of technology;…”[4]
In other words, Australia, and all the other developed
countries that signed the Lima Declaration, were being asked to agree to hamstring their
own manufacturing industries and pour money, intellectual expertise, and more
into third world countries so that they could compete with our manufacturing
and run it out of business, under the shroud of "equality". The stated goals were the movement of our own
manufacturing to these foreign countries. This was not a biproduct of the
agreement, it was the intention. And our country over-delivered. This was clear
theft from the West, by western leaders and businessmen, dressed up in social
justice language. Isn't that always the way?
They even stated their goals to push more women into the
workforce to achieve their leveling of all societies across the world,
“30. That in order to render
really effective the full utilization of their available human resources,
conditions should be created by the developing countries which make possible
the full integration of women in social and economic activities and, in
particular, in the industrialization process, on the basis of equal rights…”[5]
Feminism was never about equality and justice. It was
always about mobilizing the “human resource” potential of all nations so that
those at the top could profit from all countries equally. That was the
only equality they really cared about.
The whole document reads like a quasi-Marxist declaration
of how the elites will achieve "equality" throughout the world. But you could also read
it as a grand crony-capitalist strategy outlining how western elites could gain
access to cheaper workforces around the world. Which is precisely what happened.
Western countries lost a lot of their advantage over the rest of the world, and
now if you turn on the Australian media on any given night, you are likely to
hear about how China’s rapidly growing technology and industrial base creates security concerns for the United States and Australia. But the very elites who complain
about this are the vert elites who created the problem, or at least their
heirs. We gave that technology and knowhow to these countries, and are now
falling behind as a result.
But now you know. Now you know how you were robbed, how
every western country was robbed by its own leaders, and how our prosperity and
intellectual heritage was given away. It was not an accident, it was a
deliberate strategy of picking apart western manufacturing and technology and
giving it to countries that are now leaping ahead of our own.
List of References
[1] https://www.unido.org/sites/default/files/2012-10/Lima%20Declaration%20and%20Plan%20of%20Action%20on%20Industrial%20Development%20and%20Co-operation_26.3.1975_0.PDF
