ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the political economy of Australian migration and multiculturalism as a nascent form by tracing a shift in Australia’s economy towards the ‘tiger’ economies of Asia. Australia’s economic and political engagement with Asia and Australia’s productivity as a feature of a competitive globalising market economy are explained. Trade and commerce data and regional economic engagement strategies together provide a detailed case for understanding Australia’s place in the global political economy of transnational production. Extant economic, social and political historical relations within and between Australia and Asia-Pacific nation-states conditioned advances towards a more global free market economy. The chapter discusses how the global political economy of regional low wage, high-growth competitors in Asia was construed by successive governments as a significant economic and moral challenge facing Australia’s workforce planning.
