Exactly what do we export? Even Australian legal firms are now outsourcing their work to other countries.

Perhaps the author could look around their office and see how much has been made in this country. Even 50% of paper is imported, together with the photocopier and the photocopier toner.

I much prefer the perspectives on "free" trade presented in the book The Case Against Free Trade: The Globalization of Corporate Power.
Plus the work of William Greider via When Corporations Ruled the World, and the work of Thom Hartmann, and many others too.

Has anyone ever noticed that the current economic success stories have largely achieved this success because they have ALL been able to import massive amounts of raw materials from SOMEWHERE ELSE---more often than not via very exploitative methods.

A classic example of the SOMEWHERE ELSE syndrome is the USA. I dont know is this figure is still accurate but it used to be said that the USA with 5% of the worlds population consumes 20% of the worlds resources

Try to imagine then a world where ALL successful countries and regions achieve their success by importing most of their raw materials from SOMEWHERE ELSE. Or that all countries lived by the population/resource ratios that the USA does.

This is of course impossible. There are not enough somewhere elses for this to happen.

Free trade is a fine goal if everyone plays by the rules, but many of our trading partners do not. The real benefits do not flow unless you can also achieve balanced trade.

Our persistent current account deficit is an indication of serious trade imbalances that have persisted for many years. They obviously cannot be sustained indefinitely.

So before you rail against "a return to atavistic policies" you should give thought to how we might achieve balanced trade with partners who do not want it. We need policies for balanced free trade, not what we have now.

Hypocrisy abounds, with anti competitive prescriptive regulation and uncompetitive regimes in state labor,the greens domestically, and the needs of the nation to trade with other country's in their desire to advance prosperity internationally, bound in face saving hype, under the nimby,global warming toy,and nefarious left wing fear and control slogans.

Free trade,eh?

Australia has been selling off the farm for decades.The result has been a massive current account deficit and a mindless consumer society addicted to Chinese rubbish.

Get real.Australia can't sustain a resource export economy for much longer.That is entirely apart from the issue of leaving future generations with some hope of a decent life.

We need to create a sustainable economy and lifestyle.If this means protection of local industry then so be it.Free trade,like globalization,deregulation,privatization on and on ad nauseum,are idealogies.Like religion,irrelevant in this age of harsh reality.

Dallas grow up, we're you trying to write a poem or something?

The short sightedness of off shoring, the reality is no large Country can run its economy on service industries only. In our greed fuelled by creating wealth by increasing demand (housing, shares, futures and what not) we have forgotten that, that kid of wealth is an illusion. Gone in a puff of fear.

Question how much of a banks staff can be off shored before it ceases being an Australian bank?