iscover
Former prime ministerial aspirant turned Canberra University vice-chancellor Bill Shorten has provided a pointed warning for Australian policymakers: our holiday from history is over, and we need to prepare accordingly.
It has long been said that Australia’s geographic location, or the “tyranny of distance” as it is colloquially known, has shielded us from the risks of great power competition, ambition and hostilities for much of history.
Today however, the reality is vastly different. No longer is the Indo-Pacific an economic, political or strategic backwater, rather it is the epicentre of great power competition and ambitions for the future of international affairs.
Despite these challenges, Australia has enjoyed the benevolent protection provided by the post-Second World War “rules-based” order built upon the shoulders of the Pax Americana or “American Peace”; now however, America and its global order is facing very real challengers.
During this near century-long period, Australia’s economy exploded and generations of Australians were lifted into the middle class on the back of the voracious demand of our Asian neighbours and the broader global stability and “norms” that enabled our wealthy, yet comparatively barren continent the opportunity to build a nation – widely considered the envy of the world.
However, the rise of the People’s Republic of China, India and other smaller, yet equally important Indo-Pacific nations, including our nearest neighbour, Indonesia, Thailand and long-standing allies Japan and South Korea has served to transform the region into a powder keg of economic, political, ethnic, historical and strategic ambition, competition and focus.
These nations, in large part, haven’t forgotten that international relations and global power dynamics is inherently and inescapably competitive, something Australia seems to have conveniently, or perhaps inconveniently, forgotten and something that is now bringing the chickens home to roost.
Highlighting this is former Labor leader turned university vice-chancellor Bill Shorten in an address to the Australian Institute of International Affairs in which he painted quite a powerful image of the challenges the nation faces.
Shorten said, “For the better part of three decades, Australia has enjoyed a holiday from history. We’ve operated on the assumption that the strategic currents of our region were predictable, that our prosperity was assured, and that the great challenges of national resilience and sovereignty were problems for other less-fortunate nations. That holiday is now over. We find ourselves in a world of escalating strategic competition, where economic resilience is a core pillar of national security.”
Rather than a sunbaked daze on a sunbed, Australia as a nation now faces an immense challenge to our future peace, prosperity and stability, or more simply put, a Bintang hangover on a return flight, with an epic sunburn.
Shorten recognised this, stressing that as a nation, we have significant structural vulnerabilities, particularly unpacking the economic complexity challenges of the nation, saying, “Australia, in this new, demanding environment, is carrying a profound structural vulnerability. For all our wealth, for all our talent, our economy is dangerously simple. The Harvard Kennedy School’s Economic Complexity Index – a powerful predictor of a nation’s resilience – ranks Australia an alarming 105th in the world out of 145. Our near neighbours are Botswana, Panama, Namibia and Togo.
Going further Shorten added, “This is not an academic curiosity; it is our central strategic problem. We have become a nation with a world-class campus but no factories: a quarry but no forge.”
This economic fragility has gained increasing recognition from segments across the Australian political landscape, but especially in the strategic policy community, particularly given the mounting tensions transforming the security environment across the Indo-Pacific, yet it remains something that still seems to be unaddressed by the nation’s policymakers.
Shorten hinted at this, adding, “The structural fragility of our economy is the single greatest threat to our long-term security.”
One of the key mechanisms for reversing the vulnerabilities associated with our lack of economic complexity that Shorten advocates for (perhaps unsurprisingly) is Australia’s widely-recognised higher education sector and institutions, and reinvigorating and reshaping them to become more “match-fit” to the challenges facing the nation today.
Shorten explained this, saying, “We must break the monopoly of the three-year degree as the primary unit of educational currency. The future of learning is not monolithic; it is modular. We must continue to build a system of stackable credentials and accredited units, that lead to subject credits, that lead to sub-degree qualifications, that lead to degrees. This is not about devaluing a full university education; it is about creating multiple, flexible entry pathways and exit points to achieve it.”
He elaborated further, saying, “Imagine a Defence industry worker in Adelaide. They don’t have three years to learn about quantum mechanics but they have a wealth of skills and experience and 4–6 weeks to complete a micro-credential co-designed with industry and Defence to fill identified gaps.”
Shorten added, “That credential could be stacked to others, give them credit towards a graduate certificate in strategic technologies, which in turn could set them on the path to a master’s degree if that is what they need. This is a system that builds skills at the speed of relevance, providing the workforce for AUKUS Pillar II not in a decade, but now. This is a recognition that today not only school leavers can benefit from university.”
This will only become more important as the national economy “rewires” as part of the AUKUS program and the demand for both technical and academically qualified workers becomes critical, and the evolving nature of technologies, platforms and capabilities require evolutionary learning.
Shorten detailed this further, adding, “The ramping up of defence manufacturing will call for skilled workers in professions including scientists, engineers, project managers, technicians, welders, construction workers, electricians and metal fitters. Harmonisation of the VET and higher education sectors becomes even more of an imperative against the backdrop of national security needs. National security doesn’t ask if you went to uni or TAFE or how long you studied. It just needs the right skills to uphold it.”
This approach will support the development of a sovereign skills base that will be increasingly relevant to sustaining the nation’s economic stability, something Shorten highlighted, saying, “Reimagining our modern universities is not simply an educational reform; it is a national security and foreign policy imperative. The new architecture which comes from the questions I have asked is designed to rebuild our sovereign capability from the ground up, addressing the three critical missions our nation requires of its universities.”
Each of these factors, Shorten argued, will have “profound and lasting consequences for our national security, economic prosperity and social stability”, adding that this will position future generations of Australians, much like that of their post-war forebears, to build, or in this case, rebuild modern Australia, albeit as a far more competitive, resilient and less structurally fragile nation.
Shorten finished his speech, adding, “Don’t just do what’s doable. Do what needs to be done.”
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
