Analysis Of Neoliberalism By The Hawke-Keating Labour Governments

“By 1990, no Australian child will live in poverty.”. This was the enthusiastic, over reaching and misapprehended statement made famous by then Prime Minister Bob Hawke during his 1987 election pledge. As was noticeable throughout the late twentieth century, and as is still evident in today’s society, this notion didn’t completely achieve what it had hoped to. This, however, is despite the many aims and initiatives put in place by the Hawke and Keating Labor Governments during the decades of the 1980s and 90s.

The Hawke and Keating Governments were two successive Australian Labor Party (ALP) Governments, who were in Parliament for over a decade combined. This time period is usually referred to as the Hawke-Keating Government era. Its beginnings

They had hoped to do this particularly by holding a strong focus on social justice and social and economic equity, specifically through a lens of poverty. They had both planned and implemented a generous number of policies and initiatives in the high hope of achieving this. As predicted though, some of these aims and methods of achievement were more successful than others, making for an interesting discussion on how overall successful the two Governments were in reducing the wealth inequality gap between the rich and poor

The aim of this so called ‘restructuring’ was to enhance the nation’s economic efficiency, productivity and industrial competitiveness (both domestic and international). These three aims were said to be achieved through a number of methods. These included floating the dollar – which Hawke and Keating achieved on December 12 1983, reduced taxation for high income earners, deregulation of financial institutions, a reduction in government deficits, privatisation, reducing tariffs and import restrictions, and business deregulation (Beder, 2009). This method came about due to the ‘New Right’ and neoliberalism revolutions in the United States and Britain at the time, with the idea that a competitive society would benefit the society as a whole. It was also common consensus that as the nation got wealthier, strong investment and expenditure would benefit not only the wealthy, but also the poor, as it would directly or indirectly lead to employment expansion, the creation of jobs, and a happier, wealthier, prospering nation. The suggested way of achieving this was though the use of financial, free and global