The New Hungarian Quarterly, 1982 (23. évfolyam, 88. szám)
Halász Zoltán: Terra Australis
ZOLTÁN HALÁSZ: TERRA AUSTRALIS 149 stimulating industrial activity, more efficient protective tariffs in favour of the processing industries, the more effective utilization of mineral resources for the benefit of the Australian national economy, the creation of new job opportunities, etc. Of course, a lot depends on whether William Hayden will still be leader of the ALP at the time of the elections, or whether it will be his great rival, the dynamic and intellectual Robert Hawke. A change may obviously result in a modification of the party programme. “The most important question in Australia today is to define its own identity, to decide on its place in the world,” says J. W., who was a senator during sixteen years and is at present a leading columnist of the Murdoch press; who—true to Australian traditions—enjoys considerable independence in what he writes. As an economist his starting-point is that the composition of Australian foreign trade has decisively changed since the Second World War. True, the ousting of Britain as dominant trading partner began already between the two world wars (Britain’s ratio dropped from 70 per cent early this century to 50 per cent by the late 1940s), but the change assumed dramatic proportions after the war: the share of Great Britain in Australian exports was just 20 per cent in 1964 and only 4 per cent in 1978-79. Britain has been replaced by Japan which is now the biggest buyer of Australian iron ore, wool, and coal (buying coal worth $5,000 million) as well as becoming an important export market for numerous other Australian products. At present about one-third of Australia’s yearly exports is taken up by the Japanese market, while 20 per cent of all Australian imports is of Japanese origin. The United States is the second most important trading partner; of the Common Market countries the most important after Great Britain is the Federal Republic of Germany. “The long term, more than current practices, points towards the Pacific area,” says J. W. “It is characteristic that, e.g., the most important export market for Australian industrial products is already New Zealand, and the volume of trade with Hong-Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia is growing year by year.” Another aspect of Australia’s reorientation is the rethinking of attitudes towards the aboriginals. I talked of this to many people of many kinds: both whites and aboriginals. The picture I have been able to assemble for myself is certainly not clearcut, but one can definitely perceive a widespread improvement, a growing readiness to recognize the rights of aboriginals, parallel with a growing number of court decisions granting compensation for past and present wrongs. In Canberra I had the occassion to talk to Eric Willmot, principal of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.