culture and way of life and its democratic form of
government are Western. In the 1990s it was
being inexorably drawn closer into Asia yet
remained apart. Although the ‘white Australia’
immigration policy was abandoned in the mid-
1970s, Asian resentment of Australian racism had
not disappeared. Nor was the multiracial Australia
universally accepted by Australians. No wonder
that the national identity and future of Australia
were hotly debated.
The elections of March 1996 brought a
Liberal–National coalition back to power and John
Howard became prime minister, having to cope
with Australia in recession. The conservative gov-
ernment passed tax reforms, privatised state indus-
tries and faced a tide of racist anti-multiculturism
which had, for a long time, brought to prominence
a new One Nation Party led by Pauline Hanson
directed against Asian immigration and the expan-
sion of the rights of Aborigines. The government
was struggling to bring into operation the Native
Title Acts passed in 1993 which recognised that
the interests and rights of the native people had
not been superseded. The basic issue was whether
pastoral leases on Crown land had expunged
Aboriginal land rights, land important in
Queensland Western Australia with mining inter-
ests. In 1995 the High Court confirmed that the
federal government, in applying the Native Title
Acts, could override state governments. The strug-
gle was not over. The amended Act of 1998 was
designed to make it ‘more workable’. Between
1994 and 1998 1,200 native title agreements were
reached between indigenous groups, pastoralists,
miners, industry and the government. The govern-
ment also acted on a shocking revelation that
Aboriginal children had been forcibly removed
from their parents during the years from the
1880s until as recently as the 1960s. The govern-
ment offered monetary compensation, but John
Howard refused a collective apology for the ‘stolen
generation’. Aborigine activists remained dissatis-
fied with government compromises.
In foreign affairs, Australia’s relations with the
Pacific countries deteriorated. John Howard was
opposed to the influx of refugees from the trouble
spots of Indonesia and East Timor which threat-
ened to descend into anarchy and bloodshed.
Helping the UN to restore order was a notable
achievement. By the time of the November 2001
election the granting of asylum to refugees had
become the big issue. John Howard earlier that
year had been expected to lose the election to
Labor. His high profile uncompromising stand on
refugees brought him the support he needed to
meet the challenge of the Australian Labor Party.
In August 2001, 430 wretched Afghan refugees
were stranded offshore and prevented from
landing. They were eventually sent to a detention
camp in the South Pacific paid for by the
Australian government. In the election the coali-
tion was able to retain office, the Australian Labor
Party had secured marginally more votes but the
National Party swung the balance. John Howard
continued as prime minister in the new millen-
nium. One issue likely to be revived is whether
Australia should become a republic severing the
link with the Crown. A referendum hotly fought
in 1999 rejected a change to a republic, but the
resignation of the governor-general appointed by
the queen on the advice of the Australian prime
minister raised what many Australians continued
to see as an outworn anomaly.
Not Sweden, but a small and remote British
colony in the South Pacific, New Zealand, can
make a good claim to being the precursor of the
welfare state. Since its foundations in the 1890s
when a Liberal government came to power and
passed welfare legislation, benevolent intervention
by the state to protect the poorer and weaker in
the community was a persistent feature of politics,
whichever party was in power, at least until the
early 1990s, through both good times and bad.
The Liberals, in power for twenty-one years
(1891–1912), were radical reformers. Compulsory
arbitration of labour disputes introduced in 1894
protected what were at that time weak trade
unions. A year earlier women had been enfran-
chised. In 1898 New Zealand pioneered the old-
age pension. The Liberals believed in democracy
and what in later times would be called ‘social jus-
tice’. They accepted capitalism, that is private own-
ership and the market, and had no socialist
aspirations, but wished to use the power of the
1
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