How Ethical is Australia? An Examination of Australia’s Record as a Global Citizen

The Australian Collaboration is a collaboration of leading national community organisations. The participating organisations are:

* Australian Council of Social Service;
* Australian Conservation Foundation;
* Australian Consumers Association;
* Australian Council for International Development;
* Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia;
* National Council of Churches in Australia; and
* Trust for Young Australians.

A new venture for the Collaboration is the Public Interest Series, a joint venture with the publishing house Black Inc., publishers of the award winning Quarterly Essay. The aim of the Public Interest Series is to publish short books on topical issues such as aspects of democracy, the environment, social justice and Indigenous issues and policy. The books will be written by prominent researchers and thinkers but are designed for a general readership.

How Ethical is Australia? How Ethical Is Australia?, written by internationally renowned philosopher and author Peter Singer and Canberra researcher Tom Gregg, is the first book in the new series. It assesses how well Australia is performing as a global citizen. It examines five areas of government policy with a global impact – foreign aid, the United Nations, overseas trade, the environment and refugees. Our record in four of these areas, the authors say, is not one ‘of which any nation would be proud’.

The essay makes a powerful statement about Australia’s responsibilities and opportunities as a global citizen. How Ethical is Australia? argues that the Australian Government ought to do more than pursue narrow short term interests. Government policy should be informed by an ‘enlightened realism’ that marries national self interest with purposeful action to reduce poverty world wide and protect the global environment. Such enlightened realism is not only essential for the achievement of a better world but is also in Australia’s long term interest. Although the analysis concentrates on the performance of recent Australian governments, the arguments apply more generally to any future government of Australia.

Why is it that Australia only gives about one-third of the internationally agreed target to foreign aid? Why is it that, since 1998, UN human rights treaty committees have been critically scrutinising Australia’s human rights record and our treatment of people seeking asylum? Why is it that Australia, with the world’s highest per capita greenhouse emissions in the developed world, is not more committed to their reductions in the face of potentially devastating climate change? The book examines these and similar questions.

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The Australian Collaboration website is: www.australiancollaboration.com.au