ABSTRACT
In development, the ‘trade not aid’ case should be seen as a red herring, like the Third World Marshall Plan before it. The requisites for development are social change, in particular the reform of land ownership, investment and planned industrialisation. Those countries which are attempting export-oriented industrialisation without having broken the power of their landed elite will find the effort futile, with mass poverty in the countryside dominating the use of development funds, and the flow of landless to the city swamping any attempt to move industries up market. The Jackson Report may have some impact on the administration of Australia’s aid program, and the structure of Australian Development Assistance Bureau. It will not quell demands from the manufacturing sector that the aid program should in part serve Australian trade policy. And, like many similar reports before it, its well intentioned but politically naive and incorrect advice will fail to influence the processes which determine Australia’s trade policies.
