Havachat: Free, fair or foolish? The Australian-US FTA - Day 2

But this is not the main game. Today is 1780 in economic time. That was when Britain industrialised. The rest of the world ultimately followed. Those who were slow to industrialise remained poor. Today, the US is leading us into the Information Age. You know how quickly technology is changing everything, including the work place. Adapt or drop behind.

Fortunately, Australians like IT. We are adapting. If we want to succeed in the Information Age, we need to keep pace with the cutting edge of change. Then we will create new businesses and new jobs. The cutting edge of IT is the US. These are the reference points an FTA will give our companies. So set up, they will compete in any market in the world. Whose standards would you use?

You can sneer that this is acquiring Enron and Worldcom values. We don't have to look over the fence for that. We have HIH, we had Skase, we had Bond. And we always will and so will they. Was the whole US labor movement criminal like Jimmy Hoffa?

Ask your children and their friends where we should look to keep up to date with IT. They know where the future lies and it doesn't frighten them. They also know we don't have to become American to take the best from America.

Alan

Reader Poll: What do you think? Vote on the issue and make your view count, click here. (As you would expect from OLO this is not a "quickie" online poll. Your views will be properly analysed and represented).

Day 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5.