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Being “Asia-capable” means more than using chopsticks

Anthony Sharwood

by Anthony Sharwood

29 Oct 12:40pm

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Filed under: Asia, Asian Century, Australia, Economy

65 comments

Leaving aside the irony of the term “White Paper”, there are other reasons to be a little cautious, if not blasé, about the Australia in the Asian Century report.

So guess what we've just ducked downstairs to grab for lunch?

Basically, it is one of those big fat paper bricks created by bureaucrats which for now at least, appears to have no immediate practical application beyond starting a conversation about the kinds of real world initiatives we’d actually like to have one day.

Oh, there are stats and graphs and so forth. Some stats are rather eye-opening, such as the one that shows Asia’s food demand will double by 2050 – and that Australia will play a much bigger part in helping to feed Asia.

But for every hard fact, there are reams of fluffy wish-list points. To return to the above example, Australia will help boost the Asian food supply by “Maintaining the rural research and development corporation model to boost productivity through advances in collaboration, science and innovation.”

Um, yeah. You bet we will. So should we all buy tractors or should we just kinda hang back and wait for the “rural research and development corporation model” to plant the bok choy for us.

Much of the report’s jargon is of the cartographic variety. The authors are particularly fond of the terms “roadmap” and “pathway”. If this report is indeed a map, it needs more signs, more place names, maybe some contour lines. Because right now, the report comes across as little more than an echo of the kind of the broad statements about Asian engagement which then PM Paul Keating made two decades ago.

And if you don’t believe me that it’s all a bit vague but don’t have time to read the thing yourself, take the word of business commentator Alan Kohler, who unloaded on it today on the Business Spectator website. Among his better one-liners are:

“The white paper is just another wish paper”

and:

“Here’s [my wish] for Australia in the Asian Century: every Australian will be really smart and work really hard and speak fluent Mandarin or Indonesian, and have an Asian pen friend. “

and:

“The panel led by Ken Henry has produced a paper that is a mile wide and an inch deep. It could be seen as framing the national agenda and providing a roadmap for all future policies, except that it mostly restates what has already been said over and over: that Australia needs to lift productivity, be fairer, be smarter, be better educated, etc etc, blah blah.”

It really is worth reading the Kohler column in full. That said, it’s worth having at least a cursory glance at the white paper. Though details are lacking, it is gratifying that someone in Canberra is doing some serious thinking about our economic future beyond the next electoral cycle.

I mean, the Socceroos now have to qualify for the FIFA World Cup through Asia, and many of us know our jiaozi from their inferior southern cousin, the siu mai (pictured above). But what next?

You tell us. Beyond the ability to use chopsticks (or not), are you ready for the Asian Century? To use the PM’s favourite new phrase, do you feel Asia-capable?

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65 comments

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    • Tony of Poorakistan says:

      11:52am | 29/10/12

      I’d rather my kids spoke French and I would much rather spend my holidays in Tuscany or Britain. 
       
      I’d also like to keep *some* manufacturing in Australia, rather than return to an agrarian economy,  and stop selling off our agricultural land to the Chinese and becoming their gardeners. 
       
      I don’t have any objection whatsoever to making education a business and selling that to the Asians, as long as they return home when they are done.

      Reply

    • Uncle Bruce says:

      01:02pm | 29/10/12

      “Stop selling off our agricultural land to the Chinese and becoming their gardeners. “

      I think you will find that the people keenest to sell to the Chinese are ‘proudly’ Australian! All those true blue hard done by farmers who had to be held to the floor kicking and screaming to sell their land to China. Poor them, they need protecting from their greedy-selves.

      One day people will wake up and realise the single biggest danger to Australians is the greed of their own people.

      I’m looking for an apartment to buy and I’ve been beaten at five auctions by Australians approx 30 years older than me. In this country when you get screwed it’s more likely to be by Uncle Bruce than Mr Chan.

    • Audra Blue says:

      01:10pm | 29/10/12

      I’m not interested in being “Asia-capable”, I’m an Aussie and that’s the way it will stay.  Why can’t they be “Australia-capable”?  When they come here to study and live, most of them don’t bother to learn English but if I went there, I would be expected to knuckle down to their way of life.

      I don’t see the same courtesy being extended to us.  We’re just “more tolerant” because we don’t want anyone to be offended.  Big whoop.  I’m offended when they don’t even try to fit in.

      Gillard will probably be voted out in the next election anyway, so I’m not overly worried about anything she says or does right now.

    • jade (the other one) says:

      01:19pm | 29/10/12

      @Audra Blue - perhaps you would like to detail your in-depth understanding of the English Language entrance requirements for students from Asia? And the ways in which the Australian tertiary education system bends itself to the almost polar opposite Western education system to accommodate Asian learners?

      Oh what’s that? You are just spouting bigoted garbage about a subject you actually know nothing about? I never would have guessed!

    • Jack says:

      01:27pm | 29/10/12

      It’s cute that you think that Chinese are coming here for the actual education they receive, not as a backdoor to family migration.

    • Haxton Waag says:

      01:30pm | 29/10/12

      @Uncle Bruce: I wouldn’t worry about danger to Australians. When the Chinese invade and about 200 million of them come here to live, we will be in about the same enviable position as the aboriginals.

      ...

      I wonder if this will get printed.

    • SydneyGirl says:

      02:02pm | 29/10/12

      Uncle Bruce that is true.  Didn’t they have that Dairy Farmers story and all its careful efforts to appear 100% Australian?

      Audra Blue, I agree. Lets also include all the European wait staff who while more polite than the locals speak barely comprehensible English. And lets recall the Australians who seem to have swamped Asia, particularly Singapore and HK, on the grounds that they are not locals.

      When will folk understand that the regional location of Australian (actually scratch that - the fact that it is really the a…e end of the world) means that the composition of the country is forever changing and that modern business dictates cross country travel and immigration. Or that all of us have some place to return to, perhaps Tony can relocate to France though I don’t think they particularly want English folk there?

      PS: I am an Asian immigrant, my father came here on his own merit, and I think a lot of true blue Australians are badly in need of an education that allows them to use their own language properly.  Many of us surprise speak several languages fairly fluently so it an’t be that hard to learn the one.

    • Dman says:

      02:30pm | 29/10/12

      @ Tony

      Why would you rather your kids speak French? As far as “useful” second languages go, and given out geographic location, speaking an Asian language would be far more practical than a European one (apart from English obviously).

      You also seem to think that it’s somehow “better” to have a manufacturing-based economy than an agrarian-based one. Why? Our farms and agricultural methods are among the most advanced on the world, and definitely a strength we should build on.

    • Expat Ozzie says:

      03:52pm | 29/10/12

      Audra Blue: “Why can’t they be “Australia-capable”?”

      This comment just comes across as petulant and immature. Many of them are becoming Australian capable. Allot of the parents have their kids tutored in English or speak English themselves. Many kids are sent overseas to Australia, Briton and the US to achieve their degree’s. Besides there are far more of them then us and if we want a slice of the pie the we need to get with the program.

      “When they come here to study and live, most of them don’t bother to learn English”

      Uni’s have strict requirements for English language competency.

      “but if I went there, I would be expected to knuckle down to their way of life.”

      I live in Malaysia and in general I’m only expected to follow the law like any other individual. I haven’t had to bend to “their way of life” at all. In fact I can still buy Australian milk, Australian cheese and even Vegemite and I can watch the Australian channel with Q&A etc! Haven’t had to change to much at all.

      “We’re just “more tolerant” because we don’t want anyone to be offended.”

      Yes you are showing an incredible degree of tolerance here aren’t you. I’d actually say the people in my street here are far more tolerant then most Australian’s I know. Most of the locals I have met speak at least 2 languages. My daughter’s teacher speaks 5 her baby sitter speaks 4. If the bilingualism of a population was a measure of tolerance I’d say Australia would come out looking decidedly intolerant.

      I’m actually offended when I read deeply ignorant comments such as yours Audra Blue. Since I moved overseas my whole perspective of Australians has changed. Sadly people like you just make my home country look like a pack of inbreeds.

    • Angus McGee says:

      04:48pm | 29/10/12

      “Uni’s have strict requirements for English language competency.”

      You just showed how little you know about universities in Australia. This is most definitely not the case. Although there are some international students who speak great English (especially Singaporeans and Malay’s) there are many more who struggle through university with only a cursory knowledge of the English language. One only needs to look at how many advertisements there are around campus offering “proof reading” of assessments.

    • AdamC says:

      11:55am | 29/10/12

      It’s like I say on the open thread, succeeding in the Asian century will be no different from succeeding in any other century.

      Just as other changes in history have presented commercial opportunities to entrepreneurs, the rise of Asia could be a boon for Australian business. The government’s role is to create a policy environment that encourages and enables Australian (and overseas) firms to take advantage of the opportunities. So far, this government has been busy doing the exact opposite of that.

      Reply

    • neo says:

      12:03pm | 29/10/12

      I wanna learn Mandarin, gonna be the most useful language in the world soon.

      Reply

    • Meg says:

      12:17pm | 29/10/12

      So the Japanese I learnt at high school is now null and void then? Kuso! (crap in Japanese)

    • Jack says:

      01:40pm | 29/10/12

      Just like all those people who started learning Russian in the 70s.
      Or Japanese in the 80s.
      Or Arabic in the 90s.
      Or Indonesian in the 00s.

      The ‘most useful language in the world’ is going to be:
      a) the official language of 54 countries (and half as many NSEs) and spoken as a first or second language by close to two billion people
      b) the official language of four countries (arguably 3, and isn’t isn’t even close to universal in it’s home country) and spoken by half as many people as above

      and that’s without even looking at the actual distribution of speakers, and thereby including the roughly half billion rural villagers who a westerner would never deal with in any context.

    • fml says:

      01:44pm | 29/10/12

      I want to learn mandarin just so I don’t need subtitles when watching firefly.

    • morrgo says:

      03:46pm | 29/10/12

      The problem is, most Mandarin teachers are from China: being from a very different learning culture, they cannot teach Aussies.

      Rote learning and disciplined obedience to the teacher, however uninspiring, do not fit in Australian schools.  Employing Chinese Mandarin teachers who can only work on this basis has been a failure in my children’s school and will be an even larger failure in the Asian Century.

    • subotic says:

      12:03pm | 29/10/12

      My kids are half Asian, and I speak 1 Asian language & 1 Asian dialect.

      That’s my bit done, right?

      Reply

    • tez says:

      01:58pm | 29/10/12

      Do your kid speek your language if so they and kids like them can be the new wheelers and dealers or ambassadors or foreign ministors that we will need.

    • tez says:

      02:56pm | 29/10/12

      lost my glasses spelling not so good

    • Tubesteak says:

      12:16pm | 29/10/12

      You should know by now that looking like you’re maybe possibly thinking about doing something is the same as doing something.

      Governments have been on that footing since Adam was a boy.

      Reply

    • Joan says:

      12:32pm | 29/10/12

      Asia report will be just another Gillard file that goes missing.  What happen to the Henry Tax report and Gillard Slush files gone missing.

      Reply

    • Richard M says:

      02:49pm | 29/10/12

      The Henry tax Report is well on the way to being implemented.  The rest is puerile rubbish.

    • Joan says:

      03:52pm | 29/10/12

      Richard M:  with respect to Henry Tax -  Gillard Swans mining tax collected no tax and company tax reduction never got off starting line.  Gillard slush fund files gone missing just like implementation of anything Gillard touches. Gillard one big flop worse than Rudd as PM - even Crean reckons chnage to Gillard big mistake.

    • PJ says:

      03:58pm | 29/10/12

      As usual Joan on the money!

      Gillard’s ‘Asian Century White Paper’ is no more than re-hashed Rudd and the type of reactionism Lindsay Tanner diagnosed was the disease of the new Labor Party.

      Gillards ‘Asian white Paper’ is a knee jerk reaction to negative the criticism of former Labor MP Lindsay Tanner book ‘Politics with Purpose’.

      The book maintains that modern Labor is “under the sway of politics without purpose” and “politics without purpose is pointless.”

      Tanner hammered the Gillard Government for “reactionary Labor policies”, which “have mostly been in response to external political circumstances.”

      To back his claims of a purposeless, reactionary Labor Government, Tanner cites the Climate Change policy; where both Gillard and Swan vehemently denied policy plans, then changed and now are walking the policy back. Another example cited is Illegal Immigrants by boat, where firm Borders were promised, but now after repeated failures, the Gillard Government is canvassing for no action through it’s media.

      The sacking of Rudd, it’s claimed, was a mistake and pure Labor reactionary politics, because of a few bad polls.

      And in response to Tanner’s accusation of a Government with no vision, we now have the ‘Asian Century White Paper’, which basically outlines the inevitable, that Australia will become more Asian without any action from a clueless Government.

      The ‘puppet muppets’ in the media are hailing this paper like it was Einstein’s E=MC2, rather than re-hashed nonsense of an inevitability.

      The suggestion that the Gillard Government thought of re-hashing this White paper vision last week is born out by the strong moves towards the US and Europe recently in Foreign Policy matters. We have two US bases now and a ramp up coming to have 25,000 US marines within the near future. Hardly the incentives towards Asian alliances.

    • Casual Observer says:

      12:33pm | 29/10/12

      Not that anyone care, but the last line in the article read: Comments on this (job) post will close at 8pm AEST, thanks to Google translate lol

      Reply

    • Gordon says:

      03:16pm | 29/10/12

      Which is where he got it from in the first place. Asia ready? no problem!

    • Alan says:

      12:55pm | 29/10/12

      Another “White Paper”, another colossal waste of time and money. Everybody knows that histrory will repeat itself and nothing will come of this meaningless bunch of motherhood statements

      Reply

    • Nilbog says:

      01:26pm | 29/10/12

      Why wasn’t it a “yellow paper” if it was about the Asian century? Little mistakes like that can be costly.

    • BruceS says:

      12:58pm | 29/10/12

      Thank you Anthony, for an informative article. The white paper sounds like the usual disingenuous verbosity, so beloved of the Left. I think we are expected to believe that this strategy is something “enlightened, progressive and new”.

      Reply

    • Richard M says:

      02:52pm | 29/10/12

      For “informative article” read, “I agree with this shallow rubbish because I hate the Government”.
      Grow up.

    • Zeta says:

      01:04pm | 29/10/12

      It only says ‘Comments on this post eight pm’, not comments close on this post at eight pm.

      Reply

    • earl says:

      01:07pm | 29/10/12

      As an Asian immigrant to Australia, I find it interesting that there is so much talk about further engagement via language and cultural exchange when in other ways Australia is spitting in the eye of her neighbours. E.g. accepting more asylum seekers from the middle east while reducing and refusing skilled migration from her actual neighbours.

      Language being essential is a con job. Honestly everyone in the world is xenophobic to the extent that they all prefer people with cultural and belief compatibility rather than just language compatibility. E.g. when it comes to business, it is respect for hard work, honesty and diligence that unites rather than just being able to ask for directions or order a meal. Likewise this is the only way to bridge the cultural divide which cannot otherwise be conquered, because essentially people from different cultures will always remain different. It doesnt mean that you cannot befriend them but it means that the true basis for intercultural relationships is on common ideals rather than some superficial similarities.

      Reply

    • jade (the other one) says:

      01:24pm | 29/10/12

      But language is one significant medium through which culture is expressed. For instance, having a knowledge of Japanese which encompasses keigo shows the learner the importance of hierarchy, politeness, and humility to the Japanese people. Important concepts if you want to be successful in business.

      I’m not suggesting that it’s the be all and end all, but you can’t discount language studies as completely irrelevant. Provided those studies focus on language as it is used, and not on archaic structures and formal functions that bear little resemblance to the everyday language people of that background use.

    • Markus says:

      01:30pm | 29/10/12

      But as you should know though, there is more to learning a second language than just typing phrases into a translator program and memorising the answer.
      Truly learning another language takes context, both historical and cultural, and with it comes an understanding of the cultural ideals behind the language itself.

      So while you may not necessarily share another country’s ideals, through learning the language you can at least come to recognise and/or appreciate them.

    • Haxton Waag says:

      01:32pm | 29/10/12

      Don’t forget keeping your lips firmly zipped when any faint idea that the government isn’t doing the best possible job arises.

    • Jack says:

      01:54pm | 29/10/12

      130k skilled migration (plus another 15k for regional SM)
      60k for family reunification visas (almost exclusively families of the above)
      56k additional intake in 457 visas
      ... and 13,799 humanitarian visas.

      Spitting in their eye? We are practically buying them in bulk.

    • Zoe says:

      02:28pm | 29/10/12

      I don’t think the point of learning an Asian language is for everyone to become fluent a) there are too many languages b) I would rather rely on a professional translator than my own amatuer language skills if I was negotiating a business deal (if my high school French is anything to go by).  There are at least two benefits to studying asian languages in high school.  Firstly, a number of people will go on to study it seriously and be able to provide professional translation services and secondly (and probably more importantly) it is a good way to learn about and understand the culture of our future trading partners.

      By the way there isn’t a word for “Asia” in any of the individual “Asian” languages.  They are all derived from European languages.

    • earl says:

      03:12pm | 29/10/12

      @ jack, one the main non mining drivers to economic growth has been education, tourism and importation of new tax payers via the skilled migration programme. All countries are competing for human capital which ultimately is far more valuable and sustainable than any other resource. I put it to you that our skilled migration is set too low and has been further declining - c.f. recent issues with students completing university and being forced to leave.

      Language if it is unused is forgotten and truly is irrelevant. How many of you learnt a second language in school and due to disuse cant speak it anymore?

    • Diogenes says:

      03:56pm | 29/10/12

      Today in the staffroom we had hearty belly laughs about the teaching languages part of the paper, especially the bit about their being no money for teachers and that it would done via the NBN.

      We are glad that our Asian collegues will give up their time for free(remember no money for teachers !)

      Our kids being taught by someone 5000 k away ?  Who is going to make sure they are not playing games instead ? Which bit of the curriculum will we take out to make the time?  Who will ensure the quality of teaching ? Will we have Naplan for languages ?

      We had an even bigger laugh when we realised the huge culture clash thats going to happen when a teacher who is normally treated as godlike is exposed to our kids who respect nobody, and who don’t spend 6 hours a day being tutored.

      They say that in Australia around 25% of new teachers resign within 2 years. We think our overseas collegues will be doing well to last 6 months.

    • Haxton Waag says:

      05:49pm | 29/10/12

      @St Michael: I checked the link. The guy has delusions of grandeur; so far up himself, it’s dark. That in itself is enough to ignore his ill-edited rant.

    • maria says:

      01:35pm | 29/10/12

      Labor promised us to be a clever and knowledgeable country by banning the teaching of english grammar and vocabulary in our schools for many decades.

      What has happened to the clever and knowlegeable country we supposed to be?

      In the meantime the Cambridge Advanced learner’s Dictionary has joined the Macquarie Dictionary in redefining the word “misogyny ” because Julia Gillard has told to Tony Abbot he is a hypocritical misogynist in parliament.

      I’m wondering when these five spin doctors will tell us that democracy means “people power” without any preferences or government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is
      vested in the people and exercised directly by them and NOT Government by a few which is an oligarchy (from Greek ????????? (oligarkhía)....
      (it is one of those big fat paper bricks created by bureaucrats ....
      where the bloody hell are the people??????)

      Democracy means a system
      that makes it possible to get rid of a government without spilling blood.

      Reply

    • Rolls Canardly says:

      01:56pm | 29/10/12

      I think, “Asia-capable” has at least twice the gravitas of, “Moving forward”.
       
      What annoys the sh*t out of me, is that some clown on a seven figure salary within the PM’s office has come up with this catchy little number, and to hear Gillard say it on the radio this morning just reminded me of a set of lips moving behind a cardboard cut-out hoping nobody would notice. Cringeworthy at best, but you can bet your last dollar that this latest bit of fluff will be heralded on tonights ABC news and 7:30 as a triumph for Gillard, resurgent in the polls, and back on track to thwarting the political ambitions of the egregious Dr No.

      Reply

    • wolfie says:

      02:06pm | 29/10/12

      One of the big fallacies is that many seem to think that Asians are the victims of of racist views. In some cases this is true but I can tell you from many years of experience and exposure to Asian countries that Asians are much more racist towards the white race than many people believe. Amongst the Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Malaysian mindset for instance I can observe a deeply rooted form of rejection and arrogance towards the white race that is almost hard to comprehend. We are seen as being inferior and repulsive in almost any area of life. But at the same time we are seen as useful and desirable for our capabilities in modernizing and improving the lives of so many. In many cases we are simply seen as a huge ATM. I am sure that in part there are historical reasons for this mindset. We were, and still are in some cases, also some of the most brutal and nasty nations to grace their shores - but then history is full of terrible injustices and we have to move on.  Australians, Europeans, Americans are some of the most tolerant and accommodating countries in the world. Go to any Asian country and try to find Government initiatives to integrate foreigners who wish to live in Asia. You simply won’t find them. Whites will never be allowed to choose to integrate in Asia in any big way. We are simply not welcome and we are not seen to match up to their standards.
      On the surface it is all smiles but in reality it is quite different. This is the simple truth. While I have been living in Asia for many years I always know that I am not part of the local society in a full way. there are so many other qualities in Asian life that are desirable and in some cases even preferable to the West. on a day to day basis Asia is a very pleasant place to be in.
      But trying to get residency in any of these countries is almost impossible. It usually involves a lot of money and so as a result only deep pockets are welcome. So if you wish to stay it involves continuous jumping through hoops for short periods of residency.
      I think the Australian initiative is laudable but in my opinion somewhat naive and misguided. Better to show courtesy and respect without compromising your integrity and make this a two way street. In the end we need each other and the rules of the game should try to reflect this.

      Reply

    • Expat Ozzie says:

      04:44pm | 29/10/12

      wolfie: “Go to any Asian country and try to find Government initiatives to integrate foreigners who wish to live in Asia.”

      Malaysia my second home comes to mind right off the bat.

    • overthecringenow says:

      02:23pm | 29/10/12

      We don’t want to be Asia’s foodbowl.  How about protecting our assets for our children and not making it so hard for them to get a start in their own country first. What is this cultural cringe this government has with it’s own people. It will be impossible for any politician to be relevant to Australia if they keep putting their own people’s needs last. If you want respect, listen to them when they tell you they are hurting. 

      Respect Australia first.
      Respect her history.
      Respect her people.
      Respect their wishes.
      Listen to them.

      Reply

    • GROBP says:

      02:54pm | 29/10/12

      @overthecringenow

      Really well said.

      This government is a joke as is LNP. For Gods sake will someone step up and tell Australians the truth about where we’re heading.

      Disaster is where we’re will certainly end. Why if we’re going to be the food bowl of Asia would we be selling farm land to foreigners? It’s just talk, BS distraction while the government steals the rest of our wealth while we look the other way.

      The best thing we can do is…...Sign the petition, better still print off a copy and get ten mates to sign it (I presently have no affiliation with them).

      https://www.population.org.au/

    • GROBP says:

      02:35pm | 29/10/12

      And there we have it. The very final sign Asia is sure to crash. The government’s realised it’s growing - decades after it HAS.

      You know the government initiated Japanese lessons to capatalise on their prosperity just before it crashed.

      Reply

    • Patrick says:

      02:37pm | 29/10/12

      I just want to clear up any confusion or misunderstanding here about foreign students-
      “most of them don’t bother to learn English” and “We’re more tolerant” This is utter crap. I am an Australia student currently in China studying Mandarin and have many Chinese friends in Australia studying English. The first sentence is blatant ignorance, those Asians who can’t speak English are in the process of learning, not all of us can master a language by looking at a textbook. When I speak mandarin (often quite broken) here in China I get encouragement, polite correction and often amazement that I have bothered to learn the language. I can hardly say any Australian gives the same to an Asian student - most anyway. Oh - I won’t bother mentioning how much money international students (mostly Asian) pour into our Universities either.

      I am very proud of Australia but for some reason a lot of Aussies have some sort stigma or prejudice against Asia, take a look around how many things on your table are Australian made? -  We seem willing to take but not as willing to give back. I understand Gillards paper is (just like everything of hers) watered-down and lacks substance, I suggest if you would like to read a plan worth considering you check out Kevin Rudd’s lectures on his twitter - that guy could have taken us far.

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      02:50pm | 29/10/12

      Australia historically saw itself as a European outpost in Asia. In fact, until the 1960s, most Australians were very happy to keep Australia entirely white. I am glad that has changed and have been a beneficiary of our open, merit-based migration program. (My boyfriend is Malaysian Chinese.)

      However, I do think a good grasp of English is vital for international students. They may have improved it since, but the IELTS (an English language assessment used in the international education space) used to be notoriously inadequate.

      International students are shooting themselves in the foot if they pay lots of money to study here without a very srong foundation in English language.

    • Patrick says:

      03:02pm | 29/10/12

      Please tell me you deliberately spelt ‘strong’ incorrect.

    • Angus McGee says:

      04:51pm | 29/10/12

      Perhaps he just missed a key? Only someone devoid of anything worthwhile to add would point out spelling on the internet.

    • Richard M says:

      02:45pm | 29/10/12

      How utterly typical of the Australian media is this article.  A Government is, for once, spending a large amount of time and effort looking at Australia’s future in a broad, in principle way, with much deep thinking about and analysis of the issues, and proposals, necessarily aspirational at this stage, as to how we should proceed.  The response from Mr Sharwood is a sneering, shallow, ignorant, cynical, lazy dismissal in a few hundred stupid, biased, poorly written words.
      It has been said that we get the politicians we deserve, but do we get the journalism and media commentary we deserve? 
      Of course, the usual suspects on this site will respond with their usual stream of bile and invective against the Prime Minister.
      How very useful and inspiring.
      On the one hand, this nation is fortunate to be served by many federal public servants of the highest calibre, who are recognised as such around the world.  The White Paper is yet more evidence of that.  On the other, it is cursed with the worst, shallowest, most sensation-seeking, laziest, most puerile, most trivialising and most generally irresponsible media in the world.  This article is yet more evidence of that.

      Reply

    • GROBP says:

      02:47pm | 29/10/12

      .............“Australia needs to lift productivity, be fairer, be smarter, be better educated, etc etc, blah blah”..............

      So what should the government be doing to facilitate that? Everything it’s not doing. There’s so much personal debt, how can productivity improve? How can productivity improve when what we do work to pay off a house, when what government does is sell productive assets to fund middle class welfare so we can pay more to the banks for more and more expensive housing?

      Their solution is the short term thinking increase population.

      Be smarter? OMFG. There could not be a more ridiculous government on the planet.

      What’s going on in Australia is infuriating.

      Reply

    • P. Walker says:

      02:56pm | 29/10/12

      Forget the language, I’m all for that extra $10,000 a year that Juliar is prominsing!!  She’s got my vote for sure, (VTIC)

      Does she really think we are that Fg stupid?

      Reply

    • GROBP says:

      03:04pm | 29/10/12

      ..........“Does she really think we are that Fg stupid? “.............

      Yep, we’ve proven it over and over and over ...................and…..

      God help our kids with the mentality/intellect of the average voter.

    • Steve says:

      03:08pm | 29/10/12

      We are 12 years into the Asian Centrury and we need a White Paper to tell us the things we should do to make the best of it!  The Productivity Commission and the Henry Tax Review already told us what needs to change. 

      And a quarter of the Asian Century will be past before the transformation will be completed so that we are ready for the Asian Century.

      These grand overarching themes really are for simpletons and the politicians who feed off them. 

      The White Paper does not tell the Government anything new about what changes should be made, nor will it help businesses plan for selling into Asia.  What businessperson would make investments based on anything the White Paper says?

      Reply

    • daniel says:

      03:24pm | 29/10/12

      As someone studying agriculture, I was looking forward to the release of the white paper to see what their plan was for Australia to become the food bowl of Asia and more importantly, what it’d mean for me.

      Instead, it just left me with a sense of “but that’s what everyone wants”. The government has been aware for too long of the small enrolment numbers in agricultural courses and the high demand for graduates of said courses yet has done nothing to address it.

      The white paper was nothing more than a thought bubble.

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      03:41pm | 29/10/12

      Daniel, your observation holds across the board in this country. Despite our massive investments in education, we seem to have constant skills shortages in many key sectors.

      I agree that, if we are to become Asia foodbowl, it would be sensible to develop and maintain a highly skilled agricultural workforce. (A combination of mechanisation and guest workers can take care of the manual side of things.)

    • Nikki says:

      04:06pm | 29/10/12

      What’s the point of learning one of many Asian languages when English is still the most widely used language in international business? I’d rather my kid spend her time at school learning things that are definitely going to be of use, instead of wasting time on something that ‘might’ be of use if she one day decides to do business with one particular Asian country.

      Reply

    • biff says:

      04:06pm | 29/10/12

      I thought ALP explorers Hawke and Keating discovered Asia. Just how many times will the ALP discover Asia?

      Reply

    • xar says:

      04:22pm | 29/10/12

      I wish we had some real focus on LOTE. It frustrates me that school language programs are all over the place, what use is a few years of one language, then a couple of years of not being offered any language because a teacher can’t be found, followed by starting another completely different language, followed by forgetting what little you managed to pick up because there are no opportunities to keep or develope skills outside of expensive courses and a few cultural hubs in a few major cities iof you are lucky…..it is such a waste of time, and while I appreciate it is difficult to co-ordinate sufficient numbers of teachers in one language or another other countries manage it and the sooner the ball gets rolling the easier it becomes long term!

      Reply

    • bananbender says:

      04:55pm | 29/10/12

      Maybe the authors of the report should look at an atlas. They might realise that all of Asia is in the Northern Hemisphere and none of it is anywhere near any major Australian city. 

      Tokyo is closer to Helsinki than Sydney.
      Seoul is closer to London than Melbourne.

      The USA (Alaska) is a mere 80km from Asia (Siberia).

      Some other relevant facts:

      Every major scientific discovery is published in English language journals.

      All high level business in India is conducted in English. (One of my Indian friends at university spoke fluent English but couldn’t speak Hindi).

      Virtually every educated person in India, the Phillipines, Malaysia and Singapore speaks fluent English.

      Reply

    • Dman says:

      06:46pm | 29/10/12

      You’re the one who needs to look at an atlas. If you did, you’d know that the majority of Indonesia (an Asian country in case you didn’t know) lies in the Southern Hemisphere. And that several major south-east Asian cities are in fact far closer to Sydney or Melbourne than they are to Europe or the USA.

    • stephen says:

      05:16pm | 29/10/12

      The only people who should be studying asian languages specifically for business purposes would be businessmen.
      And if school students want to study them, then they can be examined and be assessed according to the normal procedures of school examinations.
      But there is no reason why the truckie, the dry-cleaner, the cabbie, and so forth, should be expected to learn anything else but english.
      Asian business men and women, when they come here to sell or buy, will stay in hotels with english speaking staff, and it would be impertinant of them to expect anything else - as much as it would be for an english speaker to demand a strine waiter in Bangkok.
      Culture, and a country’s traditions and history should be honoured, and to demand, as the ALP is saying in this White Paper, that all flanelette shirts be burned, the bbq set up for fish only and all Oz movies now be subtitled in english coz the Chinese prefer them made in their tongue, reeks of a complete misunderstanding of the complex relationship Capitalism should have with Cultures ; indeed, it is this ignorance which is the main cause of the EU’s troubles.

      This paper is another stupid, irrelevant, dumb, timewasting, paperwasting, brainwasting load of cobblers.
      Well done Gillard !

      Reply
 
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