Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

ddoener about 2 hours ago 7 commentsRead Article on independent.co.uk

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bjt12345•about 1 hour ago

The Australian government has always taken "great interest" in what Canada does in regards to policy - they practically copy Canada all the time, even my Economics lecturer made a point about this. This isn't news.

Australia also has a huge problem with exports. For decades, China had huge demand for Australia's resources, particularly Iron Ore. However China is reducing this, so Australia needs a new plan.

kimos•24 minutes ago

There are many obvious differences, but Canada and Australia share many characteristics and I find myself comparing to Aussies. Similar population, massive landmass, population mostly contained in narrow stripes at the edges, ex UK colony, middle power, etc..

willsmith72•24 minutes ago

you might be overstating the problem. for sure there's overreliance on China which is decreasing slightly (1-3% from what I remember), but Australian exports are still increasing because of the US, India, Japan and many others

FlowingRiver•about 1 hour ago

It is an interesting position we are in here, I suspect we will do the usual thing and walk the middle road. Australia, is part of the Commonwealth, huge trade partner with Asia and allies with the US. Why not throw Canada into the mix some more.

This setup is why I call this place an equal opportunist whore. If we can do business with you, we will. I also call it the worlds largest Mining town, but that just acknowledging the reality of the place a little.

As much as many are going against the US, I don't think there is much constitution at the top here to make such a bold move. We will just be pottering around down here hoping all the bad stuff passes us by as nobody notices us.

akudha•26 minutes ago

India does the same. They try to be friendly (or at least on business terms) with as many countries as they can and stay out of global conflicts as much as possible. They were buying oil from Russia well after the Russia-Ukraine war started. It also worked well for India as they were able to get rock bottom prices.

From a purely economic standpoint, this would make sense. Not sure what to feel about the ethics of it though - at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil. One can argue the Ukraine's problems are not India's problems. One could also argue it would be nice to not fund shitty wars, even a little, even indirectly.

Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.

triceratops•3 minutes ago

> at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil

It's weird India gets held to this standard. Don't European countries still buy some natural gas from Russia?

bGl2YW5j•about 1 hour ago

I'm Australian and am increasingly ok with this approach. I'm growing slowly out of a protectionist mindset, toward one of cautious, and considered collaboration. Singapore follows this approach and it has worked well for them so far.

xdennis•32 minutes ago

Singapore is a city, Australia is a continent. Singapore is a poor analog for pretty much every other country. It was founded precisely because it sits near a busy sea route. It makes sense for Singapore to be very open to trade. That does not mean it works for Australia.

(I'm not arguing that the reverse is true, just that Singapore proves nothing.)

senectus1•29 minutes ago

its not just a city

its an island and a country on it's own.

but its posistioning is relevent yes.

XorNot•about 1 hour ago

Which is exactly the sensible plan.

I want a government which does the cost effective thing, not one which tries to make statements with bold headlines.

I want boring government policy which sensibly hedges against future risk in correct appreciation of our unbelievably fortunate geopolitical luck.

nl•about 1 hour ago

Just to be clear on this - Australia is primarily interested in methods of reducing trade barriers, not any sort of political union.

Australia is economically served well by free trade: most of its production is low cost, high quality primary production of mining outputs and agricultural goods (grains, wool and meat) where if price and quality are the primary selection criteria it wins.

The downside of this is that Australia hasn't really got any significant manufacturing or advanced technology industry.

But it has made Australia one of the best performing economies of the past 25 years.

someperson•27 minutes ago

A big part of what makes Australia a better performing economy is maintaining high population growth rate of 1.5%, mostly through immigration.

Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/aus...

PorciiVorbesc•10 minutes ago

>Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.

Which high performing economy DOESN'T struggle with housing affordability?

>mostly through immigration

*SKILLED immigration

ernsheong•about 1 hour ago

They should resurrect the Commonwealth into a stronger union of sorts instead of just playing sports every four years.

temp3452•about 1 hour ago

handing over control of immigration to brussels - cfmeu will not like it, so it won't happen. they are the govt after all.

jojobas•less than a minute ago

Nobody in Australia should like it.

smcin•39 minutes ago

CFMEU sounded like some EU thing, but it's not, it's Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU), one of Australia's largest blue-collar trade unions.

dude250711•about 1 hour ago

Do it. Make it less embarrassing for UK to come back too somehow.