The Shifting Power Relations in Australia’s Economic Success Story: From Neo-Liberalism to Neo-Conservatism

Abstract

The Australian economy has experienced a period of sustained growth that has few parallels in the advanced industrial world. The economy has grown steadily over the last fourteen years, and it has been argued that this success story can be attributed to sound economic management and the raft of micro-economic reforms that have been adopted progressively over the last twenty years. Initiated by the Federal Labor government, fol -
lowing Labor’s election in 1983, the ‘reforms’ have been pursued more vigorously and broadly by the Howard coalition government since its election in 1996. The deter mina - tion to maintain the pace of ‘reform’ has accelerated as the Howard government has tied the promise of continued economic growth to further and even more radical changes to the industrial relations system, as well as welfare and taxation.