Globalisation and Rising Inequality in Australia
Is Increasing Inequality Inevitable in Australia?
Tom Conley Griffith University

Introduction
I want to dedicate my government to the maintenance of traditional Australian values. And they include those great values of mateship and egalitarianism.1 10 years ago a Mitsubishi type development would have flattened people psychologically. Now they take it in their stride … 2

Policy-makers and commentators have long been cajoling Australians into accepting that they are a part of the global economy, which means an acceptance of a whole range of ‘new realities’. One of the major themes of the pro-globalisation position is that Australia has accepted these new realities and adjusted well to globalisation by embracing economic liberalism. The results, it is argued, have been overwhelmingly beneficial. John Howard points out the Australian economy has grown for fourteen years straight – a remarkable achievement by any standards. This success story of growth has tended, however, to override more disaggregated, negative analyses of social outcomes in Australia. A less sanguine part of this new globalising ‘reality’ appears to be an acceptance of rising inequality. Indeed, it is often implied that rising inequality is a spur for growth. The argument is that everyone is better off, it’s just that some people are better off than others. While commentary is often not explicit about the association of globalisation and rising inequality, occasionally it is:
The other thing we have to face up to is that in the end we have to be a productive and competitive society and greater inequality might be inevitable.3

Others argue that rising inequality is not a problem if poverty is not rising. Edwards, for example, maintains: “increasing inequality is not of itself a bad thing, if even the poorest are markedly better off as a