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Kohler's 31 years: the stories the ABC missed
Finance presenter Alan Kohler reflects on three decades covering Australia's economy, and the consequential policy shifts he and others failed to see coming.
In brief
Finance presenter Alan Kohler reflects on three decades covering Australia's economy, and the consequential policy shifts he and others failed to see coming. Alan Kohler retires from the ABC after thirty-one years, reflecting on major economic policy decisions of the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands that…
Thirty-one years at the ABC
Alan Kohler is retiring from the ABC after thirty-one years, mainly on television and recently writing columns and doing podcast interviews for the broadcaster.
Joining Kerry O'Brien's team
Kohler joined Kerry O'Brien's team on the new national seven thirty Report in December nineteen ninety-five as business and economics correspondent after editing The Age.
The stories he missed
Looking back, Kohler now understands that the next ten years were more about the stories he missed than the ones he got. Many people missed the significance of what Howard was doing.
Howard's quiet legacy
While Howard arguably changed Australia as profoundly as Keating and Hawke did, he did it with less fanfare than the reform era of the nineteen eighties.
The Kyoto Protocol snub
In nineteen ninety-seven, the world agreed protocols to combat global warming by reducing carbon emissions. John Howard refused to sign in nineteen ninety-eight, saying Australia as a fossil fuel exporter would be damaged.
Thirty years of energy paralysis
Howard's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol set the country up for thirty years of debilitating political conflict and energy-policy paralysis that is still going.
The capital gains tax discount
In nineteen ninety-nine, replacing indexation of capital gains with a fifty percent discount was sold as stimulating investment. Instead, with negative gearing, it created a potent incentive for geared property investment.
Twenty-five years of house price surge
The capital gains tax change kicked off twenty-five years of a nation-altering surge in house prices. Twenty-six years later, those distortions have finally been removed and house prices are falling.
Housing and the immigration auction
The increase in house prices is one reason Australian politics has descended into an unedifying immigration auction, because housing construction could not keep up with a boom in migration.
Student visas become residency pathway
On July first, two thousand and one, the Howard government made foreign student visas a pathway to permanent residency and removed old categorisation of countries, levelling the playing field between European and Asian countries.
Three million temporary migrants
From two thousand and five on, there was a huge increase in both temporary and permanent migration. There are now nearly three million temporary migrants in Australia, more than ten percent of the population.
China joins the World Trade Organization
On December eleventh, two thousand and one, China joined the World Trade Organization after fourteen years of negotiation, welcoming the world's largest pool of labour and manufacturing into the global economy.
Manufacturing left behind in the West
Manufacturing industries everywhere else, especially in the United States, were on borrowed time after China's WTO entry. Large parts of that country were left behind and eventually voted for Donald Trump.
Australia's commodity boom and dependence
Australia walked into the greatest commodity boom in its history, with resources and trade patterns beautifully paired to China's industrialisation: iron ore, coal, energy, alumina and other inputs for a newly urbanising manufacturing superpower.
In short
Alan Kohler retires from the ABC after thirty-one years, reflecting on major economic policy decisions of the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands that reshaped Australia but went largely unnoticed at the time.
