AIIA ACT - Professor Ross Garnaut presents: The Rise of Preferential Trade 2001-2015: What has it done to the national interest?
The ACT Branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs hosted a presentation by Professor Ross Garnaut AO, Professorial Research Fellow, University of Melbourne. Professor Garnaut assesses what the early 21st century retreat from multilateral free trade has actually done for the Australian national interest and its implications for development in the Asia Pacific region.
The Western Pacific region was strongly committed to multilateral free trade until the end of last century, with the high point being China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation in late 2001. Australia was influential in leading the region towards preferential trade from early in the century, with commencement of negotiations on a free trade agreement with the United States and then with China. Others joined the new trend and moved faster, until the region was an impressive spaghetti bowl of trading arrangements. There is current effort to straighten the spaghetti with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Each step in the triumph of preferential trade was acclaimed for its benefits to participants’ economic welfare.
Professor Ross Garnaut AO is a Professorial Research Fellow in Economics at the University of Melbourne (since 2008). Earlier at the Australian National University he was Distinguished Professor of Economics (2007-2013) and before that longstanding Head of the Division of Economics in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. He has been awarded the degrees honoris causa of Doctor of Letters from the Australian National University and Doctor of Science from the University of Sydney. He is an Honorary Professor of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and of Renmin University, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Economics Society and a Distinguished Life Member of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society. Professor Garnaut has been Chairman of the Australian Centre for International Economic Research (1994-2000) and Trustee (2003-2006) and Chairman (2006-2010) of the International Food Policy Research Institute. He was the senior economic policy official in Papua New Guinea’s Department of Finance in the years straddling Independence in 1975, principal economic adviser to Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke 1983-1985, and Australian Ambassador to China 1985-1988.
Professor Garnaut is the author of numerous books, monographs and articles in scholarly journals on international economics, public finance and economic development, particularly in relation to East Asia and the Southwest Pacific. Recent books includeThe Great Crash of 2008 (with David Llewellyn-Smith, Melbourne University Publishing 2009) and Dog Days: Australia After the Boom (BlackInc 2013). He is the author of a number of influential reports to Government, including Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy (Australian Government Publishing 1989), The Garnaut Climate Change Review (Cambridge University Press 2008) and The Garnaut Review 2011: Australia and the Global Response to Climate Change (Cambridge University Press 2011).
Professor Garnaut chaired the boards of major Australian and international companies continuously from 1988 to 2013, including Lihir Gold Ltd (1995-2010); Bank of Western Australia Ltd (1988-1995); Primary Industry Bank of Australia Ltd (1989-1994); Papua New Guinea Sustainable Development Limited Pty Ltd (2002-2012) and its subsidiary Ok Tedi Mining Limited; Lonely Planet Pty Ltd; Aluminium Smelters of Victoria Ltd.
Produced by Chris Farnham and Gayan Vithanage
Edited by Gayan Vithanage