NEW ECONOMIC MODEL TO REBUILD AUSTRALIA
by Patrick J. Byrne Tensions with China and the covid19 crisis have caused Australians to ask, what have free trade agreements delivered for them? Have they left the nation strategically vulnerable? Can they be renegotiated? Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a false optimism that the age of hostile ideologies was over and that free trade policies would cause authoritarian states like China to evolve into capitalist democracies. On the back of this thinking, Australia’s free trade purists pressed for the unilateral cutting of tariffs and for free trade agreements (FTAs), arguing that consumer welfare would be…