It is an interesting position we are in here, I suspect we will do the usual thing and walk the middle road. Australia, is part of the Commonwealth, huge trade partner with Asia and allies with the US. Why not throw Canada into the mix some more.
This setup is why I call this place an equal opportunist whore. If we can do business with you, we will. I also call it the worlds largest Mining town, but that just acknowledging the reality of the place a little.
As much as many are going against the US, I don't think there is much constitution at the top here to make such a bold move. We will just be pottering around down here hoping all the bad stuff passes us by as nobody notices us.
I'm Australian and am increasingly ok with this approach. I'm growing slowly out of a protectionist mindset, toward one of cautious, and considered collaboration. Singapore follows this approach and it has worked well for them so far.
Singapore is a city, Australia is a continent. Singapore is a poor analog for pretty much every other country. It was founded precisely because it sits near a busy sea route. It makes sense for Singapore to be very open to trade. That does not mean it works for Australia.
(I'm not arguing that the reverse is true, just that Singapore proves nothing.)
I've never really understood the protectionist mindset. It kinda only makes sense to me as a fading shadow of WWII paranoia. The invasion of Australia by a foreign adversary has never been something I've worried about (but, maybe, that's _because_ of the alignment with the US). I've also struggled with the practical logistics of it.
India does the same. They try to be friendly (or at least on business terms) with as many countries as they can and stay out of global conflicts as much as possible. They were buying oil from Russia well after the Russia-Ukraine war started. It also worked well for India as they were able to get rock bottom prices.
From a purely economic standpoint, this would make sense. Not sure what to feel about the ethics of it though - at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil. One can argue the Ukraine's problems are not India's problems. One could also argue it would be nice to not fund shitty wars, even a little, even indirectly.
Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.
Russian natgas is laundered through third parties, whereas India is laundering Russian oil. Not saying I support any of these sanctions or tariffs, but India is making bank selling Russian oil to Europe right now, so there is going to be some political blowback. Malaysia also.
Russian crude made up 35-40% of India's oil imports in 2024. I'm sure it is not much different at present. Although a bill just passed through congress that will allow Trump to put up to a 100% Tariff on Indian imports.
With the strait of Hormuz closed, Russia now accounts for more than 50% of India's oil imports. If the tariffs work, the strategic petroleum reserves of the rich countries will deplete even faster, and when the reserves are gone, those rich countries will pay more for non-Russian oil than India can, so India is going to eventually have to buy the Russian oil and take the tariff hit.
Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.
It helps to be familiar with realism in international relations theory starting with Machiavelli and Hobbes, and postwar realism which developed over the Cold War. The ethics have been debated for centuries and the mainstream interpretation is that leaders have a fiduciary obligation to the population they are responsible for, which fundamentally changes ethical considerations.
It’s a completely different moral question when you’re responsible for a billion people, many of whom may suffer or die due to the cost of fuel. It is in principle a violation against their own people for Indian leaders to prioritize Ukraine’s people over their own.
But there's also no fundamental need for a bold move either. Country relationships are almost entirely based on trade. It's 'nice' when there are ideology and policy overlaps, but they would get overlooked if there were serious trade disputes (although it's less likely to happen as it's easier to form trade agreements with the like-minded).
The relationship with the US is deteriorating entirely due to trade. The Iran war is an example of this because it completely fucks international and internal logistics. I don't think Australia, politically, cares if the US bomb Iran or even commit war crimes there, but the fact it affects trade (via oil prices and all the ripple effects of that) is the reason for at least preparation of an 'exit relationship' stance (and, of course, the other trade circus sideshows Trump is putting on, vis a vis tariffs).
I'm not sure Australia does much trade with Russia, hence Australia can support Ukraine until the cows come home, without risking trade margins.
Just to be clear on this - Australia is primarily interested in methods of reducing trade barriers, not any sort of political union.
Australia is economically served well by free trade: most of its production is low cost, high quality primary production of mining outputs and agricultural goods (grains, wool and meat) where if price and quality are the primary selection criteria it wins.
The downside of this is that Australia hasn't really got any significant manufacturing or advanced technology industry.
But it has made Australia one of the best performing economies of the past 25 years.
The high performing economies that didn't make it illegal to build are high performing because of that.
This is why the highest standard of living on the planet, with the highest GDP over the largest population... is in Texas.
The fact the people there aren't pathologically conservative/authoritarian in the "build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything" sense is the precise reason why that is.
I don't know what metric you're using, but it ranks 37th of the 50 states just behind Arizona on the Human Development Index which ranks health, education, income. Texas at 0.917 is above the EU average (0.915) but below many others including the top Iceland (0.972), Norway (0.970), Australia (0.958), Canada (0.939), Japan (0.925) and the US as a whole (0.938)
So while Texas is indeed the wealthiest per GDP per capital (using your "over the largest population" filter) ($91,594 / 31.71M pop), it has a much lower HDI than countries with much lower GDP per capita, like Japan ($35,973 / 123.29M pop). In other words Texas out-earns Australia per head by 38% but trails it by 0.041 on HDI
HDI uses the log of income, so extra dollars count for less, and Texas lags on the life expectancy and schooling components.
For example, if we take the life expectancy in isolation to see the dragging metric, Texas is ranked 46th in the world at 79.1 years (2022 data), just behind 45th Estonia at 79.3 years (2024 data), but a long way behind 6th Australia (84.1 years) and 3rd Japan (84.9 years).
(edit: I used Japan as illustrative of a large population with a low GDP per capital to highlight that GDP isn't everything, and Australia as that's the country of question in this tread)
GDP per capita is mostly static since a large increase pre-COVID during the explosive China growth years 2005-2020.
Most variations since are exchange rate variations more than actual changes in GPD vs population (GDP is usually denominated in USD)[1],[2]
Low GPD per capita is definitely NOT correlated with high migration, which decreased in the years GPD per population decreased[3]
If anything low migration is inversely correlated with higher GDP over the last 25 years: high immigration is correlated with higher GPD per capita - but I don't think one should draw a causal link here: the cause of GDP growth in AUstralia is generally accepted as increased raw material exports to China, and that has led to higher employment.
CFMEU sounded like some EU thing, but it's not, it's Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU), one of Australia's largest blue-collar trade unions.
The Australian government has always taken "great interest" in what Canada does in regards to policy - they practically copy Canada all the time, even my Economics lecturer made a point about this. This isn't news.
Australia also has a huge problem with exports. For decades, China had huge demand for Australia's resources, particularly Iron Ore. However China is reducing this, so Australia needs a new plan.
There are many obvious differences, but Canada and Australia share many characteristics and I find myself comparing to Aussies. Similar population, massive landmass, population mostly contained in narrow stripes at the edges, ex UK colony, middle power, etc..
you might be overstating the problem. for sure there's overreliance on China which is decreasing slightly (1-3% from what I remember), but Australian exports are still increasing because of the US, India, Japan and many others
That's a brilliant move by von der Leyen and Mark Carney (I guess he's in on it as well).
There is currently no such status as "associate member" defined in the EU treates although the idea of special status for not being a complete member was floating around for a while now.
Just calling it a "unique alliance" or "deepening of their relationship" wouldn't have had such a public effect.
Half of the right wing influencers on X is going bananas because when the US was "offering" Canada to join them, they said a firm "NO" but for the EU they are opening the door.
Trump even said when the Canada joins the EU as associate member, it could be considered a hostile act.
All that for a status nobody knows yet what it will entail. More than a simple trade deal, for sure, but also a lot less than a proper membership.
There is this Venn diagram[1]. Canada could shift into the Council of Europe like Georgia or join Schengen with an independent currency like the Swiss. The latter would be a nice arrangement for Canadian passport holders.
Canada doesn't share a land border with any Schengen countries, so I'm not sure how valuable passport-free travel would be - you're already taking a transatlantic flight, it's not like passport control is a huge additional hassle.
However, I could see a big argument for a labour mobility agreement similar to the NAFTA model, where EU citizens in a long list of professions have the right to work in Canada and vice-versa.
While there isn't an official "associate member" status, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland all have custom deals with the EU so this just codifies what already exists in an ad-hoc form.
The only bit the EU is rowing back is that they mentioned during BRExit that there would be no more custom deals so this simply a case of the realpolitik winning out.
I'm sure the UK will be looking at this very carefully as well.
Consent makes all the difference. Trump's talk of forcing Canada to become the 51st state via economic pressure stiffened the spines of Canadians and made it impossible for the Carney government to accept the same sort of deal other countries were getting. At the same time, it made closer relations with Europe look like a solution.
The reality is that the joining the EU as full members involves too great a sacrifice of sovereignty for middle powers like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.. Brussels is too far away and the EU itself barely functions with the members it already has. There is, however, broad will among middle powers to work together more closely than they do now. This associate EU member thing needs to strike a balance where countries who join it can cooperate and contribute without feeling like the EU is becoming another U.S..
As an Australian, I have noticed a shift personally in feeling like I identify more with "European" culture, compared to 10 years ago I felt like we were the 51st state and I felt very close with the US.
This seems to be shared by others, I remember reading there was a survey that asked Australians who they felt our closest international friend was. The US was the top answer for over a decade, having stolen the crown from the UK I think in the late 90s or something. Recently though, it switched to New Zealand.
From the American side it felt like we had more cross-pollination with Australia in the 90s than in the decades following. Disney even had a studio out there that animated some of the TV shows it aired in the US (and presumably in Australia too).
Apart from the "Crocodile Dundee" and "Men at Work" phenomena in the late 80s, there is no real cultural pollination between Australia and the US, as far as I can tell. It's too far away and there are no real reasons for Americans to visit, nor are there enough internationally notable Australian music brands, films, or products that give visibility to the country, which is one price of being a commodity producing nation rather than finished goods. We know about Japanese and British prodigious cultural output, Japanese manufactures, German cars and Swiss machine tools and watches, but what product makes Australia stand out? Coal, copper, etc.
Didn't Australia used to have an auto industry? I kinda feel like Australia stopped producing culturally relevant output in the late 80s or 90s.
Haven’t Australians just moved to US - Keith Urban, Chris Hemsworth, Russel Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and the list goes on … it’s not the same way as Japanese’s or Korean output, because English as the native language makes the transition seamless and doesn’t stand out.
Oh! I forgot JIRA and Atlassian are Australian too :D Now you really can’t deny you haven’t felt the Australian influence in your life. Lol
In the 80-90's, the most popular destination for Australians was the UK: Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue, Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance fame) and many others moved up there.
You rely heavily on Australia for both blockbuster and character actors. If they aren’t already British or Irish or Canadian, they are likely Aussies (or New Zealanders - sometimes seems like you barely have any actors of broad ability who you haven’t imported).
Margot Robbie, Geoffrey Rush, Hugh Jackman, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Chris Hemsworth (all three Hemsworths!), Toni Collette, Hugo Weaving, Eric Bana, Rose Byrne, Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, Judy Davis, Anthony and Jonathan LaPaglia, Poppy Montgomery, Rachel Griffiths, Miranda Otto, Portia De Rossi, Jacob Elordi… the list goes on and on and on (and includes the late Heath Ledger and Errol Flynn). These are just the easiest ones to name!
Directors: absolutely loads of them actually but notably Baz Lurhmann, Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford.
Films: Mad Max series, Gallipoli, Dead Calm, Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla Queen of The Desert, Walkabout, Picnic At Hanging Rock, Sirens, The Piano, Rabbit Proof Fence, Lantana, Moulin Rouge, The Babadook, Daybreakers, The Great Gatsby. (Baz Lurhmann obviously ranks high here)
Again just the easiest ones.
(Also if you have never seen it: Mary & Max. Thank me later)
Also: Bluey!!!!
Now stop making me defend Australians, I’m British.
There was a really great writeup by someone who worked in that Disney animation shop on a blog I once stumbled on - he wrote about how he took on the 'job of a lifetime' as a teenager while his mother was terminally ill and how that impacts your priorities.
Incredibly moving read that I unfortunately can't find now, but it covered how the Sydney office ended, from memory it was a combination of CGI changing the industry, and cost - Australian wages weren't cheap and the studio was mostly used for producing direct-to-video sequels which was a market that dried up.
The actual big influence on the Australian-American cross pollination though, I suspect, was Rupert Murdoch's expansion into the American film and TV industry. For all his faults, he was a big champion of talent from his homeland in both his movies and Fox TV network. Even the infamous Simpsons Australia episode was likely influenced by the big influence of Australians at Fox at that time.
As a German guy who backpacked through Australia for a while when I was studying the drinking culture definitely made you guys seem European I can you tell you that much, I didn't feel far from home
I'm surprised - aren't AU & NZ super close culturally and aligned politically? I would have thought the US, CA, et al would be vying for a distant second.
Not only close, but NZ was originally slated to join Australia and is indeed named in the original Australian Constitution (that created federation) as one of the original 7 states.
Australia's alignment with the US was a major consequence of World War 2 and the aftermath of that.
Pre WW2 we were basically in lockstep with the UK. However after Singapore fell to the Japanese it became increasingly obvious that the UK could not be relied upon to defend Australia. At the time most of the elite Australian troops were fighting in North Africa (El-Alamein, Tobruk etc). and there was a genuine perceived threat that Australia could be invaded. PNG which was Australian territory at the time was invaded. The Japanese bombing of Darwin only intensified this.
Almost overnight our foreign policy swung behind the US instead. Post WW2 this led to things like the ANZUS Treaty. It is the reason there are US military bases in Australia and the reason why we have followed the US into all of their wars which we arguably had no business involving ourselves in (Vietnam, Iraq etc.).
Personally I feel the recent actions of the US are not beneficial to Australia's interests at all. Trump has squandered an awful lot of accumulated goodwill already, even if another government is elected in US a lot of damage has already been done.
I've been thinking the silver lining of the current situation is that we'll be less inclined to send troops to aid US in their latest Middle East boondoggle, in the expectation of reciprocation in the future.
In other online spaces, I've seen some conservative commenters from the US asserting that America is so powerful, the rest of the world has no choice but to go along with them, and therefore there is no need to maintain good relationships and the US should do what most immediately benefits itself at all times. Certainly, there are some areas where we simply have to play along with the US, but I think they are underestimating the amount of things where they will no longer be our first choice to deal with.
The problem with deciding you're so powerful you can force everyone to follow you is you actually have to force everyone to follow you and it turns out that's super expensive and costs you a lot of power in terms of committed assets to do it.
Having spent a lot of time in the UK, EU and US, I feel Sydney is way more like California than say London or European cities, in terms of living, shopping and culture. Even things from the US are coming here, like the growth of Halloween.
If you walk into a shop, the US is much more like Australia in terms of service and attitude (even though retail staff are paid vastly differently).
I always thought this was due to TV and Australia having remote branches of many US retail chains.
Outside of California, it's similar but diverges a lot in areas like socialism. In the recent 20 years Australia has pretty much become more like the EU in terms of socialism.
This may be partially why the US dispatched the LA Rams and the SF 49ers. Even though McDonald's has hundreds of US bases in Australia, the corp lacks a rushing and passing game. I don't see the NFL being successful there, but time will tell. Interesting note, in SE Asia, I watch NFL commentators based in the UK. It's strange seeing NFL talk with a British accent. And TIL. I always thought the Hungry Jack's was a Burger King knockoff, but apparently it's actually Burger King with a different name.
It's because the British heritage involved committing huge crimes against the indigenous folks that we haven't really acknowledged and haven't dealt with. We can't move on until we do. So we're kinda stuck.
I think it's fairly well acknowledged, but there is no 'dealt with' that fits into any kind of reality I'm familiar with.
My purely observational understanding is that there are fundamental incompatibilities between aboriginal and 'western/British' culture. "Ownership" of land as probably the primary example. I don't know how that gets 'dealt with'.
I don’t know the discussion in Australia, but in Alaska (also having an indigenous population with land ownership) they found solutions. Regional “native corporations” were given large amounts of valuable land, natives were given preferential resource rights (fishing, etc).
Not everything is perfect (far from it), but a lot has been done.
As an Australian, I don't think our 'heritage' is of much consequence. Current constituency and overall stability matter more, to me.
If you mean 'our British heritage' as in, the percentage of the Australian population with British backgrounds, then that counts towards 'current constituency' in my definition.
This is unfair to the aboriginals, however, and that's a circle I believe is impossible to square.
Canada is just trying to encourage Europe to invest in Canada which is fine I suppose… all the power to Europeans if they want to invest their money here instead of the US… but I am not holding my breath
US GDP is mostly imaginary and not tangible. It's dependent on both international respect for intellectual property laws (reason for the anger toward China), and the natural resources of other lands (that have had their governments blamed by the current administration actively misleading US citizens about provenance of what is needed to sustain American life)
Intellectual property laws being recognized, US fiat currency, etc. vs. the hard value of natural resources of these other countries (that the US would prefer to try to annex and loot since the former is not a base you can build on)
When you're deciding on long term trade and economic policy, are you thinking about fabricated valuations of US tech companies, or whether you have energy, minerals, and food supply that have an actual value attached?
GDP is not "imaginary" or "not tangible" anymore than an accounting statement of profit and loss is imaginary. It is a very real thing but you have some subtle approaches about how you measure things like depreciation or what accounting rules you follow. The fact that a lot of people don't understand this stuff doesn't mean it is arbitrary or has no meaning. There are also huge teams of accountants that spend tens of thousands of hours getting these statistics, and their work is much maligned by the smarmy internet posters who think they know better at how to determine profit and loss.
GDP is just national value added, and was developed in the early 20th century and broadly used during the Great Depression to measure economic activity. It is good at what it does. People have taken it to measure military power, wealth, success, happiness, capability to build a specific thing, fertility, etc. That is the fault of people not understanding what GDP is or what it was meant to measure, it's not the fault of the metric itself, or the carefully developed system of accounting conventions that were developed over a hundred years of refinement.
I really think there should be mandatory accountancy training in universal education to get people to understand this stuff. The millions of hours saved in online arguments alone would make this a good investment.
Having said that, the valuation of tech companies is based on market sentiment, not accountancy rules. I don't pretend to understand how many of the companies on the equities exchanges are valued, they all seem to be too pricey for me. That, too, has nothing to do with GDP.
I'm guessing Canada and Australia would go for an EFTA 'lite' type deal. As EFTA doesn't require a customs union it's probably the easiest to implement and build up from.
I think they amended EFTA to require free movement which was a no-op as all the EFTA countries had free movement with the EU. I could see the EU agreeing to a NAFTA style workers visa if they really wanted push the freedom of movement side hence the 'lite' bit.
canada already has CETA for EU trade and CEFTA for trade with the EFTA. it seems like "associate membership" must mean something that goes beyond just a free trade agreement, because that already exists.
As yes, I was wondering when my Federal government’s sense of FOMO would compel it to needlessly yap into the void like anybody cares. I see today was the day.
Anyone in academic international relations knows Realism is the only thing that matters.
I suppose since HN is a Western tech website, they don't know international relations and believe in International Relations Idealism/institutionalism.
It's genuinely US vs China now.
You can go full neutral Ukraine and see how that works out. You can side with China who has 0 political freedom and did 100,000,000 forced abortions.
Gosh if Kamala was elected, there'd still be a war in Iran, but we'd pretend it's different. Obama bombed Syria and no one cared.
The orange man is unbelievably incompetent, but this happened in Athens with Alcibidies and Cleon. Do we hate giving the uneducated masses a vote?
I love Australia. Amazing country. Great people. I'd move back in an instant if given the opportunity. As an American, I always felt welcome there, but haven't been there since 2016. It'll be interesting seeing how attitudes have changed when I'm back visiting in 2028.
This and Canada are just kneejerk reactions against the chaos of the Trump administration. While that makes sense, my prediction is that in the short-term it won't amount to much. In the long-term, history books will write about these years as redefining the world order that's existed largely since 1945.
As for Canada, nobody really knows what associate membership means. Given that EU freedoms are reciprocal I just don't see this going anywhere. Plus there's been a free trade deal with the EU on the table for a decade that hasn't been ratified.
As for redefining the world order, that's what this war of choice in Iran will amount to. In the short-to-medium term it's going to redefine the Gulf security architecture. The refusal to restrain Israel probably means Russia will swallow the eastern chunk of Ukraine they occupy.
And of course the big winner in all of this is China who have had to do absolutely nothing.
Empires don't die overnight and they die violently. This is going to be bad but I honestly see no way the US can restore its position as the global hegemon. It's influence has peaked. And I don't believe anything will reverse that.
So I don't know what this means for Australia. It has operated essentially as an American colonial outpost since the Cold War. The geography was once much more important to cover the sky for receiving satellite communications.
Selling raw resources is ultimately untenable for an economy (IMHO) but Australia has gone down the path of turning the entire economy into a massive Ponzi scheme of housing, like almost every other developed nation. When housing is the only logical investment, it dominates capital and lending and productive output falls off a cliff, which is exactly what happened.
Do it. Make it less embarrassing for UK to come back too somehow.
It is an interesting position we are in here, I suspect we will do the usual thing and walk the middle road. Australia, is part of the Commonwealth, huge trade partner with Asia and allies with the US. Why not throw Canada into the mix some more.
This setup is why I call this place an equal opportunist whore. If we can do business with you, we will. I also call it the worlds largest Mining town, but that just acknowledging the reality of the place a little.
As much as many are going against the US, I don't think there is much constitution at the top here to make such a bold move. We will just be pottering around down here hoping all the bad stuff passes us by as nobody notices us.
Which is exactly the sensible plan.
I want a government which does the cost effective thing, not one which tries to make statements with bold headlines.
I want boring government policy which sensibly hedges against future risk in correct appreciation of our unbelievably fortunate geopolitical luck.
I'm Australian and am increasingly ok with this approach. I'm growing slowly out of a protectionist mindset, toward one of cautious, and considered collaboration. Singapore follows this approach and it has worked well for them so far.
Singapore is a city, Australia is a continent. Singapore is a poor analog for pretty much every other country. It was founded precisely because it sits near a busy sea route. It makes sense for Singapore to be very open to trade. That does not mean it works for Australia.
(I'm not arguing that the reverse is true, just that Singapore proves nothing.)
its not just a city
its an island and a country on it's own.
but its posistioning is relevent yes.
What do you reckon would work well for Aus?
I've never really understood the protectionist mindset. It kinda only makes sense to me as a fading shadow of WWII paranoia. The invasion of Australia by a foreign adversary has never been something I've worried about (but, maybe, that's _because_ of the alignment with the US). I've also struggled with the practical logistics of it.
India does the same. They try to be friendly (or at least on business terms) with as many countries as they can and stay out of global conflicts as much as possible. They were buying oil from Russia well after the Russia-Ukraine war started. It also worked well for India as they were able to get rock bottom prices.
From a purely economic standpoint, this would make sense. Not sure what to feel about the ethics of it though - at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil. One can argue the Ukraine's problems are not India's problems. One could also argue it would be nice to not fund shitty wars, even a little, even indirectly.
Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.
It's weird India gets held to this standard. Don't European countries still buy some natural gas from Russia?
Russian natgas is laundered through third parties, whereas India is laundering Russian oil. Not saying I support any of these sanctions or tariffs, but India is making bank selling Russian oil to Europe right now, so there is going to be some political blowback. Malaysia also.
Russian crude made up 35-40% of India's oil imports in 2024. I'm sure it is not much different at present. Although a bill just passed through congress that will allow Trump to put up to a 100% Tariff on Indian imports.
With the strait of Hormuz closed, Russia now accounts for more than 50% of India's oil imports. If the tariffs work, the strategic petroleum reserves of the rich countries will deplete even faster, and when the reserves are gone, those rich countries will pay more for non-Russian oil than India can, so India is going to eventually have to buy the Russian oil and take the tariff hit.
It helps to be familiar with realism in international relations theory starting with Machiavelli and Hobbes, and postwar realism which developed over the Cold War. The ethics have been debated for centuries and the mainstream interpretation is that leaders have a fiduciary obligation to the population they are responsible for, which fundamentally changes ethical considerations.
It’s a completely different moral question when you’re responsible for a billion people, many of whom may suffer or die due to the cost of fuel. It is in principle a violation against their own people for Indian leaders to prioritize Ukraine’s people over their own.
But there's also no fundamental need for a bold move either. Country relationships are almost entirely based on trade. It's 'nice' when there are ideology and policy overlaps, but they would get overlooked if there were serious trade disputes (although it's less likely to happen as it's easier to form trade agreements with the like-minded).
The relationship with the US is deteriorating entirely due to trade. The Iran war is an example of this because it completely fucks international and internal logistics. I don't think Australia, politically, cares if the US bomb Iran or even commit war crimes there, but the fact it affects trade (via oil prices and all the ripple effects of that) is the reason for at least preparation of an 'exit relationship' stance (and, of course, the other trade circus sideshows Trump is putting on, vis a vis tariffs).
I'm not sure Australia does much trade with Russia, hence Australia can support Ukraine until the cows come home, without risking trade margins.
Just to be clear on this - Australia is primarily interested in methods of reducing trade barriers, not any sort of political union.
Australia is economically served well by free trade: most of its production is low cost, high quality primary production of mining outputs and agricultural goods (grains, wool and meat) where if price and quality are the primary selection criteria it wins.
The downside of this is that Australia hasn't really got any significant manufacturing or advanced technology industry.
But it has made Australia one of the best performing economies of the past 25 years.
A big part of what makes Australia a better performing economy is maintaining high population growth rate of 1.5%, mostly through immigration.
Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/aus...
Which high performing economy DOESN'T struggle with housing affordability?
*SKILLED immigration
The high performing economies that didn't make it illegal to build are high performing because of that.
This is why the highest standard of living on the planet, with the highest GDP over the largest population... is in Texas.
The fact the people there aren't pathologically conservative/authoritarian in the "build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything" sense is the precise reason why that is.
Texas has the world's high standard of living?
I don't know what metric you're using, but it ranks 37th of the 50 states just behind Arizona on the Human Development Index which ranks health, education, income. Texas at 0.917 is above the EU average (0.915) but below many others including the top Iceland (0.972), Norway (0.970), Australia (0.958), Canada (0.939), Japan (0.925) and the US as a whole (0.938)
So while Texas is indeed the wealthiest per GDP per capital (using your "over the largest population" filter) ($91,594 / 31.71M pop), it has a much lower HDI than countries with much lower GDP per capita, like Japan ($35,973 / 123.29M pop). In other words Texas out-earns Australia per head by 38% but trails it by 0.041 on HDI
HDI uses the log of income, so extra dollars count for less, and Texas lags on the life expectancy and schooling components.
For example, if we take the life expectancy in isolation to see the dragging metric, Texas is ranked 46th in the world at 79.1 years (2022 data), just behind 45th Estonia at 79.3 years (2024 data), but a long way behind 6th Australia (84.1 years) and 3rd Japan (84.9 years).
(edit: I used Japan as illustrative of a large population with a low GDP per capital to highlight that GDP isn't everything, and Australia as that's the country of question in this tread)
Per capita GDP is falling with every new migrant. I don't think it's the kind of GDP growth anyone wants to have.
This isn't really right.
GDP per capita is mostly static since a large increase pre-COVID during the explosive China growth years 2005-2020.
Most variations since are exchange rate variations more than actual changes in GPD vs population (GDP is usually denominated in USD)[1],[2]
Low GPD per capita is definitely NOT correlated with high migration, which decreased in the years GPD per population decreased[3]
If anything low migration is inversely correlated with higher GDP over the last 25 years: high immigration is correlated with higher GPD per capita - but I don't think one should draw a causal link here: the cause of GDP growth in AUstralia is generally accepted as increased raw material exports to China, and that has led to higher employment.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...
[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/gdp-per-capita
[3] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/aus...
handing over control of immigration to brussels - cfmeu will not like it, so it won't happen. they are the govt after all.
CFMEU sounded like some EU thing, but it's not, it's Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU), one of Australia's largest blue-collar trade unions.
Nobody in Australia should like it.
That seems harsh, despite all the hot weather
They should resurrect the Commonwealth into a stronger union of sorts instead of just playing sports every four years.
The Australian government has always taken "great interest" in what Canada does in regards to policy - they practically copy Canada all the time, even my Economics lecturer made a point about this. This isn't news.
Australia also has a huge problem with exports. For decades, China had huge demand for Australia's resources, particularly Iron Ore. However China is reducing this, so Australia needs a new plan.
There are many obvious differences, but Canada and Australia share many characteristics and I find myself comparing to Aussies. Similar population, massive landmass, population mostly contained in narrow stripes at the edges, ex UK colony, middle power, etc..
you might be overstating the problem. for sure there's overreliance on China which is decreasing slightly (1-3% from what I remember), but Australian exports are still increasing because of the US, India, Japan and many others
That's a brilliant move by von der Leyen and Mark Carney (I guess he's in on it as well).
There is currently no such status as "associate member" defined in the EU treates although the idea of special status for not being a complete member was floating around for a while now.
Just calling it a "unique alliance" or "deepening of their relationship" wouldn't have had such a public effect.
Half of the right wing influencers on X is going bananas because when the US was "offering" Canada to join them, they said a firm "NO" but for the EU they are opening the door.
Trump even said when the Canada joins the EU as associate member, it could be considered a hostile act.
All that for a status nobody knows yet what it will entail. More than a simple trade deal, for sure, but also a lot less than a proper membership.
There is this Venn diagram[1]. Canada could shift into the Council of Europe like Georgia or join Schengen with an independent currency like the Swiss. The latter would be a nice arrangement for Canadian passport holders.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1qbq43v/european_in...
Canada doesn't share a land border with any Schengen countries, so I'm not sure how valuable passport-free travel would be - you're already taking a transatlantic flight, it's not like passport control is a huge additional hassle.
However, I could see a big argument for a labour mobility agreement similar to the NAFTA model, where EU citizens in a long list of professions have the right to work in Canada and vice-versa.
While there isn't an official "associate member" status, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland all have custom deals with the EU so this just codifies what already exists in an ad-hoc form.
The only bit the EU is rowing back is that they mentioned during BRExit that there would be no more custom deals so this simply a case of the realpolitik winning out.
I'm sure the UK will be looking at this very carefully as well.
to be fair until we know what associate member means, there might not be any contradiction to the UK position
Consent makes all the difference. Trump's talk of forcing Canada to become the 51st state via economic pressure stiffened the spines of Canadians and made it impossible for the Carney government to accept the same sort of deal other countries were getting. At the same time, it made closer relations with Europe look like a solution.
The reality is that the joining the EU as full members involves too great a sacrifice of sovereignty for middle powers like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.. Brussels is too far away and the EU itself barely functions with the members it already has. There is, however, broad will among middle powers to work together more closely than they do now. This associate EU member thing needs to strike a balance where countries who join it can cooperate and contribute without feeling like the EU is becoming another U.S..
As an Australian, I have noticed a shift personally in feeling like I identify more with "European" culture, compared to 10 years ago I felt like we were the 51st state and I felt very close with the US.
This seems to be shared by others, I remember reading there was a survey that asked Australians who they felt our closest international friend was. The US was the top answer for over a decade, having stolen the crown from the UK I think in the late 90s or something. Recently though, it switched to New Zealand.
I don't believe that. Can you find this survey you were talking about?
Basic web search for “australia survey closest international friend” returned https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/charts/australias-best-friend...
From the American side it felt like we had more cross-pollination with Australia in the 90s than in the decades following. Disney even had a studio out there that animated some of the TV shows it aired in the US (and presumably in Australia too).
Not sure what changed.
Apart from the "Crocodile Dundee" and "Men at Work" phenomena in the late 80s, there is no real cultural pollination between Australia and the US, as far as I can tell. It's too far away and there are no real reasons for Americans to visit, nor are there enough internationally notable Australian music brands, films, or products that give visibility to the country, which is one price of being a commodity producing nation rather than finished goods. We know about Japanese and British prodigious cultural output, Japanese manufactures, German cars and Swiss machine tools and watches, but what product makes Australia stand out? Coal, copper, etc.
Didn't Australia used to have an auto industry? I kinda feel like Australia stopped producing culturally relevant output in the late 80s or 90s.
Haven’t Australians just moved to US - Keith Urban, Chris Hemsworth, Russel Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and the list goes on … it’s not the same way as Japanese’s or Korean output, because English as the native language makes the transition seamless and doesn’t stand out.
Oh! I forgot JIRA and Atlassian are Australian too :D Now you really can’t deny you haven’t felt the Australian influence in your life. Lol
That's a good point, the US might just be sucking all the culturally relevant output out of the country.
That is a relatively recent change.
In the 80-90's, the most popular destination for Australians was the UK: Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue, Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance fame) and many others moved up there.
Don't forget Bluey :)
(which like most good Australian innovations only became global when it was licensed to another country, in Bluey's case the BBC/UK)
US Childrens television is full of Commonwealth media. TVO in Ontario is an absolute childrens media powerhouse.
This cultural sharing and integration has been a massive strength, and I'm horrified that we have people that want to throw it away.
Re autos, IIRC Holden shut down in the late 2000s. But the Australian economy (and Canadian, for that matter) is just houses and holes.
Holden, truly an incredible brand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Ute
You rely heavily on Australia for both blockbuster and character actors. If they aren’t already British or Irish or Canadian, they are likely Aussies (or New Zealanders - sometimes seems like you barely have any actors of broad ability who you haven’t imported).
Margot Robbie, Geoffrey Rush, Hugh Jackman, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Chris Hemsworth (all three Hemsworths!), Toni Collette, Hugo Weaving, Eric Bana, Rose Byrne, Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, Judy Davis, Anthony and Jonathan LaPaglia, Poppy Montgomery, Rachel Griffiths, Miranda Otto, Portia De Rossi, Jacob Elordi… the list goes on and on and on (and includes the late Heath Ledger and Errol Flynn). These are just the easiest ones to name!
Directors: absolutely loads of them actually but notably Baz Lurhmann, Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford.
Films: Mad Max series, Gallipoli, Dead Calm, Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla Queen of The Desert, Walkabout, Picnic At Hanging Rock, Sirens, The Piano, Rabbit Proof Fence, Lantana, Moulin Rouge, The Babadook, Daybreakers, The Great Gatsby. (Baz Lurhmann obviously ranks high here)
Again just the easiest ones.
(Also if you have never seen it: Mary & Max. Thank me later)
Also: Bluey!!!!
Now stop making me defend Australians, I’m British.
There was a really great writeup by someone who worked in that Disney animation shop on a blog I once stumbled on - he wrote about how he took on the 'job of a lifetime' as a teenager while his mother was terminally ill and how that impacts your priorities.
Incredibly moving read that I unfortunately can't find now, but it covered how the Sydney office ended, from memory it was a combination of CGI changing the industry, and cost - Australian wages weren't cheap and the studio was mostly used for producing direct-to-video sequels which was a market that dried up.
The actual big influence on the Australian-American cross pollination though, I suspect, was Rupert Murdoch's expansion into the American film and TV industry. For all his faults, he was a big champion of talent from his homeland in both his movies and Fox TV network. Even the infamous Simpsons Australia episode was likely influenced by the big influence of Australians at Fox at that time.
As a German guy who backpacked through Australia for a while when I was studying the drinking culture definitely made you guys seem European I can you tell you that much, I didn't feel far from home
I'm surprised - aren't AU & NZ super close culturally and aligned politically? I would have thought the US, CA, et al would be vying for a distant second.
NZ is always the correct answer but is rarely given because it's taken for granted.
If they'd only just admit they didn't invent Pavlova, it would definitely be obvious. But the Kiwis are a stubborn bunch...
NZ isn't big enough to think about. Don't tell them because they get very upset.
Not only close, but NZ was originally slated to join Australia and is indeed named in the original Australian Constitution (that created federation) as one of the original 7 states.
Australia's alignment with the US was a major consequence of World War 2 and the aftermath of that.
Pre WW2 we were basically in lockstep with the UK. However after Singapore fell to the Japanese it became increasingly obvious that the UK could not be relied upon to defend Australia. At the time most of the elite Australian troops were fighting in North Africa (El-Alamein, Tobruk etc). and there was a genuine perceived threat that Australia could be invaded. PNG which was Australian territory at the time was invaded. The Japanese bombing of Darwin only intensified this.
Almost overnight our foreign policy swung behind the US instead. Post WW2 this led to things like the ANZUS Treaty. It is the reason there are US military bases in Australia and the reason why we have followed the US into all of their wars which we arguably had no business involving ourselves in (Vietnam, Iraq etc.).
Personally I feel the recent actions of the US are not beneficial to Australia's interests at all. Trump has squandered an awful lot of accumulated goodwill already, even if another government is elected in US a lot of damage has already been done.
I've been thinking the silver lining of the current situation is that we'll be less inclined to send troops to aid US in their latest Middle East boondoggle, in the expectation of reciprocation in the future.
In other online spaces, I've seen some conservative commenters from the US asserting that America is so powerful, the rest of the world has no choice but to go along with them, and therefore there is no need to maintain good relationships and the US should do what most immediately benefits itself at all times. Certainly, there are some areas where we simply have to play along with the US, but I think they are underestimating the amount of things where they will no longer be our first choice to deal with.
The problem with deciding you're so powerful you can force everyone to follow you is you actually have to force everyone to follow you and it turns out that's super expensive and costs you a lot of power in terms of committed assets to do it.
Having spent a lot of time in the UK, EU and US, I feel Sydney is way more like California than say London or European cities, in terms of living, shopping and culture. Even things from the US are coming here, like the growth of Halloween.
If you walk into a shop, the US is much more like Australia in terms of service and attitude (even though retail staff are paid vastly differently).
I always thought this was due to TV and Australia having remote branches of many US retail chains.
Outside of California, it's similar but diverges a lot in areas like socialism. In the recent 20 years Australia has pretty much become more like the EU in terms of socialism.
As an American, I identify more with European culture compared to 10 years ago.
This may be partially why the US dispatched the LA Rams and the SF 49ers. Even though McDonald's has hundreds of US bases in Australia, the corp lacks a rushing and passing game. I don't see the NFL being successful there, but time will tell. Interesting note, in SE Asia, I watch NFL commentators based in the UK. It's strange seeing NFL talk with a British accent. And TIL. I always thought the Hungry Jack's was a Burger King knockoff, but apparently it's actually Burger King with a different name.
The current government seems to be quite determined to pretend our British heritage isn't a large and important part of us. I don't understand it.
It's because the British heritage involved committing huge crimes against the indigenous folks that we haven't really acknowledged and haven't dealt with. We can't move on until we do. So we're kinda stuck.
I think it's fairly well acknowledged, but there is no 'dealt with' that fits into any kind of reality I'm familiar with.
My purely observational understanding is that there are fundamental incompatibilities between aboriginal and 'western/British' culture. "Ownership" of land as probably the primary example. I don't know how that gets 'dealt with'.
I don’t know the discussion in Australia, but in Alaska (also having an indigenous population with land ownership) they found solutions. Regional “native corporations” were given large amounts of valuable land, natives were given preferential resource rights (fishing, etc).
Not everything is perfect (far from it), but a lot has been done.
Yeah, other ex-British colonies with similar problems are doing great work in reconciling their differences. We could learn from them.
As an Australian, I don't think our 'heritage' is of much consequence. Current constituency and overall stability matter more, to me.
If you mean 'our British heritage' as in, the percentage of the Australian population with British backgrounds, then that counts towards 'current constituency' in my definition.
This is unfair to the aboriginals, however, and that's a circle I believe is impossible to square.
Canada is just trying to encourage Europe to invest in Canada which is fine I suppose… all the power to Europeans if they want to invest their money here instead of the US… but I am not holding my breath
What money? Their economic growth is half of the US and with strong headwinds. EU GDP is also smaller than the US by far.
You should read more Krugman. There's a whole argument about this.
US GDP is mostly imaginary and not tangible. It's dependent on both international respect for intellectual property laws (reason for the anger toward China), and the natural resources of other lands (that have had their governments blamed by the current administration actively misleading US citizens about provenance of what is needed to sustain American life)
Intellectual property laws being recognized, US fiat currency, etc. vs. the hard value of natural resources of these other countries (that the US would prefer to try to annex and loot since the former is not a base you can build on)
When you're deciding on long term trade and economic policy, are you thinking about fabricated valuations of US tech companies, or whether you have energy, minerals, and food supply that have an actual value attached?
GDP is not "imaginary" or "not tangible" anymore than an accounting statement of profit and loss is imaginary. It is a very real thing but you have some subtle approaches about how you measure things like depreciation or what accounting rules you follow. The fact that a lot of people don't understand this stuff doesn't mean it is arbitrary or has no meaning. There are also huge teams of accountants that spend tens of thousands of hours getting these statistics, and their work is much maligned by the smarmy internet posters who think they know better at how to determine profit and loss.
GDP is just national value added, and was developed in the early 20th century and broadly used during the Great Depression to measure economic activity. It is good at what it does. People have taken it to measure military power, wealth, success, happiness, capability to build a specific thing, fertility, etc. That is the fault of people not understanding what GDP is or what it was meant to measure, it's not the fault of the metric itself, or the carefully developed system of accounting conventions that were developed over a hundred years of refinement.
I really think there should be mandatory accountancy training in universal education to get people to understand this stuff. The millions of hours saved in online arguments alone would make this a good investment.
Having said that, the valuation of tech companies is based on market sentiment, not accountancy rules. I don't pretend to understand how many of the companies on the equities exchanges are valued, they all seem to be too pricey for me. That, too, has nothing to do with GDP.
Hope this means less friction for EU/AU tech companies. Navigating different privacy laws is a pain.
Like ordering the submarines from France... again?
At least there's a chance those ones might actually turn up. They'll still be useless, but at least we'd actually have them.
I'm guessing Canada and Australia would go for an EFTA 'lite' type deal. As EFTA doesn't require a customs union it's probably the easiest to implement and build up from.
I think they amended EFTA to require free movement which was a no-op as all the EFTA countries had free movement with the EU. I could see the EU agreeing to a NAFTA style workers visa if they really wanted push the freedom of movement side hence the 'lite' bit.
If .ca and .au did arrange free movement in and out of the EU (and with each other?), that would really be the cherry on the Brexit cake.
canada already has CETA for EU trade and CEFTA for trade with the EFTA. it seems like "associate membership" must mean something that goes beyond just a free trade agreement, because that already exists.
As yes, I was wondering when my Federal government’s sense of FOMO would compel it to needlessly yap into the void like anybody cares. I see today was the day.
Okay but the world doesn't work like this.
Anyone in academic international relations knows Realism is the only thing that matters.
I suppose since HN is a Western tech website, they don't know international relations and believe in International Relations Idealism/institutionalism.
It's genuinely US vs China now.
You can go full neutral Ukraine and see how that works out. You can side with China who has 0 political freedom and did 100,000,000 forced abortions.
Gosh if Kamala was elected, there'd still be a war in Iran, but we'd pretend it's different. Obama bombed Syria and no one cared.
The orange man is unbelievably incompetent, but this happened in Athens with Alcibidies and Cleon. Do we hate giving the uneducated masses a vote?
Are we really going to pretend the 51st state rhetoric would be the same with any Democrat in the White House?
No, I but I do think they've had some dogshit candidates picked for them, especially recently
Still more democracy.
And rethoric doesn't matter in international relations. It's empty posturing. When is France going to send troops to Ukraine?
Sorry pals, this is one of the failings/successes of k12. We are taught Idealism. Words don't matter.
It's wild the disconnect between people who study international relations and highly educated westerners.
Can I move to Asutralia now... please
Spelling the country's name correctly is one of few prerequisites.
Maybe if Australia created very strong trade ties with Taiwan, we would change the name of the country to Asustralia.
I do believe they were talking about Asutralia, not Asustralia. A common misunderstanding. Taiwan might not need to be involved.
I love Australia. Amazing country. Great people. I'd move back in an instant if given the opportunity. As an American, I always felt welcome there, but haven't been there since 2016. It'll be interesting seeing how attitudes have changed when I'm back visiting in 2028.
ill swap places with you, if you like, lol
This and Canada are just kneejerk reactions against the chaos of the Trump administration. While that makes sense, my prediction is that in the short-term it won't amount to much. In the long-term, history books will write about these years as redefining the world order that's existed largely since 1945.
As for Canada, nobody really knows what associate membership means. Given that EU freedoms are reciprocal I just don't see this going anywhere. Plus there's been a free trade deal with the EU on the table for a decade that hasn't been ratified.
As for redefining the world order, that's what this war of choice in Iran will amount to. In the short-to-medium term it's going to redefine the Gulf security architecture. The refusal to restrain Israel probably means Russia will swallow the eastern chunk of Ukraine they occupy.
And of course the big winner in all of this is China who have had to do absolutely nothing.
Empires don't die overnight and they die violently. This is going to be bad but I honestly see no way the US can restore its position as the global hegemon. It's influence has peaked. And I don't believe anything will reverse that.
So I don't know what this means for Australia. It has operated essentially as an American colonial outpost since the Cold War. The geography was once much more important to cover the sky for receiving satellite communications.
Selling raw resources is ultimately untenable for an economy (IMHO) but Australia has gone down the path of turning the entire economy into a massive Ponzi scheme of housing, like almost every other developed nation. When housing is the only logical investment, it dominates capital and lending and productive output falls off a cliff, which is exactly what happened.