If you go and ask the “average” Australian on a Melbourne or Sydney street who owns the banks and large public companies in Australia, most will answer “Australians through superannuation and mutual funds”. This belief gives Australians a sense of pride in “Australian private enterprise”, and may even assist Australians grudgingly accept high bank charges and interest rates; “after all we own the banks”. However if one examines the annual reports of most of the large Australian public companies, names like HSBC, JP Morgan, Citibank, and BNP are very prominent in the tops 20 shareholders lists. There has been a major shift in the Australian corporate ownership-scape over the last decade. And a silent one at that.
Category: Murray Hunter
Murray Hunter has been involved in Asia-Pacific business for the last 30 years as an entrepreneur, consultant, academic, and researcher. Murray is now an associate professor at the University Malaysia Perlis. He’d been also a visiting professor at a number of universities and regular speaker at conferences and workshops in the region. Murray is the author of a number of books, numerous research and conceptual papers in referred journals, and commentator on the issues of entrepreneurship and development in a number of magazines and online news sites around the world.
Over the last nine months the insurgency in the Deep South of Thailand has escalated dramatically. Just within the last week two bombs went off in Narathiwat province, another bomb exploded within the Pattani commercial centre, and five people were…
If a frequent traveler to Thailand goes around the country today, a rapid rise in the prominence of Muslims will be noticed, stretching from Chiang Rai in the north of the country right down into the south of…
When Malaysia faced the Asian economic crisis back in 1997, the then Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamed called on his old friend Tun Daim Zainuddinto head the National Economic Action Council (NEAC) set up under the Economic Planning Unit…
The policy you have when you don’t have a policy Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered a statement about the country’s national security policy to a carefully selected crowd of defense, public service, and academic personnel at the Australian National University late last month. The 58 page paper titled Strong and Secure: A Strategy for Australia’s National Security supersedes the last one given by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd back in 2008 and is considered a supplement to the White Paper, Australia in the Asian Century presented by Premier Gillard last October. The paper outlines the country’s assessment of priorities, risks, and capabilities.
In the rapidly urbanizing ASEAN region today upward career mobility requires a diploma, degree, and some form of post graduate qualifications to get promotions, particularly within the desirable publicly listed companies in the region. Upon…
The national narrative is the source of power What society discusses and the way society speaks about these issues constitutes what could be called the national narrative. The national narrative encapsulates societies shared assumptions, beliefs, and values about people, issues, events, and situations. Consequently there are a number of national narratives that continually run; such as ideas and realities about the society we live in. The national narrative creates a mental map of our reality. It tells us what is, what should be, what things are like, and what we should value and talk about. The national narrative encapsulates our existence, what is possible and not possible. Narrative tells us how to interpret things and bonds people together in society. Narrative sets our beliefs and values and is a powerful influence upon our actions.
Power and Australian Politics – Living in a temporary world Australia appears to have a vibrant representative democracy. The Australian political system is centered upon parliaments around the country and which party commands the majority of seats in each legislature and forms a government. If the government doesn’t perform to the satisfaction of the public, electors in the next election have the opportunity to vote out the government and install another one in its place. Over the last few decades this has been the pattern where both major parties have each spent time in government and opposition. Democracy seems to be well in Australia.
An inconvenient question The question of “who rules Australia?” is always answered with pet ideas and different theories. We can see symbols of power all around us, but the exercise of real power and influence is rarely a public event. Defining and identifying who really rules Australia is like trying to pinpoint where consciousness exists within our brain. It is complex and illusive. We may have some idea about different entities who potentially exercise power, but can’t put any single entity under any precise scrutiny. Besides the formal means of power through authority, ownership and control over regulation, etc., much power is the result of inducement, compromise, promises, flattery, coercion, threats, favors, and even goodwill. Making the situation more complex is that different groups exercise power and influence over different aspects of society.
The Next Few Days May Determine Obama’s Legacy Before His 2nd Term Begins & Whether Clinton Will Make a Run to the Presidency in 2016 US President Barak Obama is about to make a well planned trip to Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. One would suspect that Obama’s trip was timed to maximize his exposure to and start the work to create momentum for his legacy in Asia. However although Obama may return home with a number of planned trade agreements, it will be very difficult for Obama to make any strategic ground with the conservative ASEAN nations he will visit. It is yet to be seen if the Obama administration really understands the dynamics of the ASEAN region and their reluctance to be dragged into a choice between the US and China. In fact his trip to Asia is also a risk for him with the decision to visit Burma. If the Thein Sein regime fails to progress and human rights abuses continue to occur with ethnic groups like the Roghani people, this leg of the trip could actually prove to be an embarrassment in the future.