Some readers will recall the hubristic note penned by George Megalogenis in 2012 called The Australian moment which claimed “Australia has been able to weather recent world economic problems relatively unscathed”:
He examines how we developed from a closed economy racked by the oil shocks, toughed it out during the sometimes devastating growing pains of deregulation, and survived the Asian financial crisis, the dotcom tech wreck and the GFC to become the last developed nation standing in the 2000s. As a result, whatever happens next, we’re as well positioned as any to survive the ongoing rumblings of the Great Recession. Drawing on newly declassified documents, fresh interviews with our former prime ministers and a unique ability to bring the numbers to life, Megalogenis describes how, at just the right time, the Australian people became more farsighted than our politicians.
We stopped spending before the rest of the world, and at the top of a boom voted out a government that was throwing around the biggest bribes ever offered. The Australian Moment is packed with original insight, challenging our often partisan selective memories and revealing how our leadership and community have underestimated each other’s contribution to the nation’s resilience.
As history has shown, at that very moment Australia stood at the precipice of a lost decade of economic waste and political carnage. Why? Because the only thing that we had going for us was China and it was about to sour badly into its first round of commodities crushing reform.
Our carpet-bagger pollies dealt with that bust by unleashing an unprecedented wave of mass immigration policy which led to further Chinese economic integration, sent living standards further backwards over a decade than did the Great Depression, and completely ignored the strategic implications of a rising Xi Jinping.
In short, Megalogenis’ backward-looking tome had no idea what it was talking about. The “Australian moment” should have been called the “Australian fuck up”.
But, today, it is worth reviving a similar notion.
Contrary to 2012, Australia is today leading the world. It is doing so on in an epochal theatre of such far-reaching consequences and with such boldness and speed that we should all stop and marvel for a moment.
To wit, I give you Scott Morrison’s inflammatory new speech at the UN on China:
The global strategic environment has rapidly changed, indeed deteriorated in many respects, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region where we live here in Australia.
The changes we face are many, whether it’s tensions over territorial claims, rapid military modernisation, foreign interference, cyber threats, disinformation and indeed, economic coercion.
We must reinforce a sustainable rules-based order, while ensuring it is also adaptable to the great power realities of our time. Our voice is clear, it’s direct, it’s respectful, it’s constructive.
…Australia supports the calls for a stronger, more independent World Health Organisation, with enhanced surveillance and pandemic response powers. This should be the duty of every single member of the WHO, to share that ambition for a WHO that can seek to protect us all in these circumstances.
…[it is] essential that countries pursue interests in ways that are mutually respectful and support stability and security [to see] a global order where sovereign nations can flourish, free from coercion, because of collaborative and purposeful action.
Bravo Scomo. Cometh the moment, cometh the real estate agent!
This is uniquely powerful diplomacy for three reasons. The UN appearance adds to our leadership of the Quad, AUKUS, special appearance at the G7, plus front running in the Pacific pushback against Chinese aggression:
From the US President to the Austrian Chancellor and the Swedish, Japanese and Indian prime ministers, leaders from across the political spectrum, Australia’s supercharged role in underpinning security in the Pacific was welcomed and appreciated.
The press pack struggled to think of any Australian prime minister who had had so many high-level meetings with world leaders in such a short space of time.
Second, the Morrison Government has completely outflanked China. Australia is now the leader of global liberal resistance to its coercive tactics while China is begging for entry into the TPP, which it cannot gain without Australian permission.
Either China gives away coercive economic policies against Australia or it is pushed out of the regional trade architecture. With a bit of luck, the US will rejoin TPP and Australia blockade China come what may.
What fantastic outcomes given we need to escape the tyrant’s clutches as soon as possible to dodge the unAustralian future so horrifyingly described in Xi Jinping’s 14 conditions to end democracy:
China’s anti-Magna Carta and Australia’s very assertive response to it is a monumental historical turning point for the world. We have literally pivoted from being overly committed to an autocratic China to being at the epicenter of resistance to it ethically, strategically, militarily, diplomatically, politically, and, soon enough, economically.
This is the real Australian moment.
