The leasing of Darwin’s Port to the Chinese.

.

Keating did not abandon neoliberalism, he embraced it. (the Hawke- Keating 'wages accord' was however a successful agreement - for a time - within Neoliberal parameters. But then unmanaged global neoliberalism ravaged Australia as tariffs were removed.

"True capitalism"? - your mean growth via the free market, guided by an 'invisible hand'? It's a Libertarian fantasy! (I've already exposed the fantasy of Libertarianism in a previous post).

Fact: Chinese 'state' capitalism worked very well for China, with growth of c.10% for at least two decades, until the GFC - an external shock caused by an unregulated, neoliberal disaster in the US (the subprime loans fiasco). And now compounded by American paranoia over loss of global hegemony to China, and the Trump-initiated trade war.

No, China adopted a 'state capitalism' model, under the control of the communist party. Nothing liberal about it.

again you have misread the reality (as expected from Libertarian proponents of the 'invisible hand', free market mythology.

The ANC wanted universal above poverty participation in SA economy (see article 25 of the UNUDHR); of course that's an aspiration; but to blame that aspiration for the subsequent corruption and continuing poverty - which existed under Apartheid - in S.Africa, is simplistic at best.

All refuted above; you are confusing ' liberal socialism' with state-directed capitalism. Meanwhile, the world is currently burdened - and heading to recession - by the Neoliberalism that has been adopted globally since the collapse of Communism in the USSR.

So the threat is not with the Chinese Communist party, but with the current ruling neoliberal system... though no doubt western paranoia can force Chinese 'communism' to become a real threat....just as Trump is inadvertently snuffing out aspirations for political freedoms among those who would resist the impositions of the theocratic rulers in Iran, with his misguided policies.

 

It happened because current neoliberal orthodoxy means governments everywhere are subject to misplaced/unnecessary enforced austerity, ie governments everywhere are broke.
In the NT case, the government (thought it) needed Chinese money to pay for necessary public services in the NT.

Except China, the US and Japan, who are apparently ignoring their massive (public AND private) debts, while most other governments think they must achieve fiscal (public) surpluses, as per neoliberal orthodoxy. Meanwhile the globe is heading to another neoliberal caused recession.

The truth is: currency issuing governments can never run out of their own currency....time to study MMT, which is attracting attention around the globe.

https://leftfootforward.org/2018/10...ically-change-how-we-think-about-the-economy/

Basic proposition: most nations have sufficient real resources to enable above poverty, full-participation (ie zero underemployment) in their economies.

 

Here's Keating on Neo -liberalism... I accept your apology

Paul Keating says neo-liberalism is at 'a dead end' after Sally McManus speech
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ter-sally-mcmanus-speech-20170329-gv9cto.html

 

Not so fast... I understood your statement: "Yes neoliberalism is a failure.. even Keating jumped ship" to apply to the Hawke-Keating government years(1983-1996.
That Keating now agrees (in 2017) that the current neoliberal "trickle down" is at a "dead end" (ie the free market, free trade, "invisible hand" capitalism, as opposed to Chinese "state- directed" capitalism, which is also running into trouble since the neoliberal GFC) only bolsters my argument.

I haven't yet read the point Sally McManus was making: I will look into that to see what she was saying....I suspect she is also blinded by the fiscal austerity dogma imposed on governments by neoliberalism. (That dogma is the reason why the Left doesn't win elections lately - the electorate want something more than fiddling with taxes, to bring about the eradication of the scourges of homelessness and under-employment plaguing the western democracies, and leading to political dysfunction in those democracies.... Hong Kong'ers should be careful what they wish for....

So...care to address some of the rest of my post.......?

 

Just as I thought:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ter-sally-mcmanus-speech-20170329-gv9cto.html

Earlier in her speech (Mcmanus) had declared that "the Keating years created vast wealth for Australia but it has not been shared".

While many saw her remarks as a partial slapdown of the economic reforms of the Hawke/Keating years, Mr Keating told Fairfax Media he supported some of her assessments.

"Liberal economics had [in the past] dramatically increased wealth around the world, as it had in Australia – for instance a 50 per cent increase in real wages and a huge lift in personal wealth," Mr Keating said......"But since 2008, liberal economics has gone nowhere and to the extent that Sally McManus is saying this, she is right.".

"We have a comatose world economy held together by debt and central bank money, Mr Keating added*.

"Liberal economics has run into a dead end and has had no answer to the contemporary malaise."

Mr Keating's response will surprise many who have seen him as a hitherto staunch defender of open markets, and key force in modernising the Australian economy. He also presided over some of the federal government's earliest privatisations and the floating of the dollar.

His shift in rhetoric will be grist to union attacks on the government and the business community over growing job insecurity and flat-lining wages."

…..

[I would locate the beginning of the neoliberal 'rot' to an earlier time than the GFC, ie, the Reagan-Thatcher years, when a global oil shock and destruction of the industrial base in the West produced the highly resented "1st world rust belt", as western companies closed in the face of competition from low wage economies in Asia, or moved to take advantage of those low wages for their own profit.]