(Informaci\u00f3n remitida por la empresa firmante)<\/p>\n
\nLos Angeles\/DNA, 25 de abril de 2025 (News Aktuell).- Australia boasts some of the world\u2019s most sophisticated political institutions and one of its wealthiest economies. But this veneer of success masks deeper structural issues \u2014 and a \u201cticking time bomb\u201d of overreliance on extractive industries must be addressed under Australia\u2019s next government, a new report recommends.<\/p>\n
Cracks have begun to show in the country\u2019s fa\u00e7ade of optimism, prosperity and progress, according to an Australia BGI Report on the country\u2019s governance performance, released eight days before the May 3 election.<\/p>\n
According to the report, the country\u2019s economy continues to rely heavily on environmentally harmful extractive industries, while economic centralization in only a handful of cities has driven up housing costs. Racial tensions, including the displacement of Indigenous populations, remain unresolved.<\/p>\n
This is resulting in \u201crising political polarization, deepening inequality and heightening exposure to the deeper geopolitical tensions emerging between the U.S. and China,\u201d said the report.<\/p>\n
Based on the Berggruen Governance Index (BGI), the report was conducted by researchers from the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute think tank, the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Hertie School, a German university.<\/p>\n
According to the report, Australia has long benefited from favourable economic, geopolitical and demographic conditions. Its cities are ranked as some of the most livable in the world and it scores highly on almost all governance measures in the BGI, which analyzes the relationship between democratic accountability, state capacity and the provision of public goods.<\/p>\n
But the country isn\u2019t exempt from the same challenges to democracy, prosperity, and social cohesion that similar countries are facing, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Eroding public trust in government is providing \u201cthe backdrop for a hotly contested federal election,\u201d during which the centre-left Labor Party under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is seeking to defend its majority against Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the centre-right Liberals.<\/p>\n
While the Labor Party was previously projected to lose after a lacklustre post-pandemic economic recovery, it has recently risen in the polls \u2014*a reversal mirroring a similar trend in Canada, in which U.S. President Donald Trump has amplified negative associations with conservatism. Now, the Australian Labor Party is projected to win by a slim margin.<\/p>\n
Another factor influencing the election is rental affordability, which reached its worst level on record in 2025, according to the REA Group, a company in the real estate industry. This trend is pushing younger voters toward the Australian Green Party, which has made reform on the housing market a central part of its policy agenda, the Australia BGI Report said.<\/p>\n
However, in the 2022 election, 12 per cent of the national vote translated into just 2.5 per cent of seats for the Greens \u2014 a pattern that \u201ccould repeat itself in 2025 due to the country\u2019s preferential voting system.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAustralia\u2019s electoral system uses a preferential voting system rather than the \u2018first-past-the-post\u2019 method common in many other Anglophone democracies, which conceals a \u201cdarker history of Indigenous dispossession and racial discrimination.\u201d It\u2019s also one of only 22 countries in the world that require citizens to vote.<\/p>\n
However, the stresses that have plagued Albanese\u2019s government \u201cwill persist regardless of who prevails in May,\u201d said the BGI report.<\/p>\n
Australia generally resembles wealthy Western European and North American countries on the 2024 Berggruen Governance Index, scoring highly on democratic accountability. It\u2019s ranked as one of only 25 \u201cfull democracies\u201d by the Economist Intelligence Unit.<\/p>\n
But, despite ranking 9th globally in GDP per capita, Australia ranks only 99th worldwide in the Economic Complexity Index (ECI).<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAlthough Australia is blessed with bountiful natural resources, its political economy is also constrained by this very endowment,\u201d said the Australia BGI Report. \u201cIts reliance on extractive industries has reduced the incentive to diversify and weakened other parts of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIron ore, coal, petroleum, gold, and other minerals comprise the five largest products sold abroad, accounting for more than half of all exports.<\/p>\n
Instead of moving away from this reliance, \u201cAustralia has in many ways doubled down,\u201d said the report. Australia is the world\u2019s largest coal exporter and accounts for more than half of the world\u2019s lithium, with most of it going to China for battery manufacturing.<\/p>\n
Therein lies another issue. While Australia is increasingly economically dependent on China, it has also long relied on the U.S. security guarantee. In the context of a growing U.S.-China rivalry, this puts Australia in a precarious position, said the report, being \u201ceconomically tethered to one superpower, while militarily aligned with another.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nTo move past these problems, Australia will have to \u201cleverage its impressive state capacity and strong educational system to develop a more advanced services sector and more complex manufacturing,\u201d said the Australia BGI Report.<\/p>\n
The next government will need to focus on the \u201cdomestic essentials of growth\u201d such as housing market reforms, as well as building economic complexity, to ensure internal and external stability, the report\u2019s researchers conclude. Only with a more complex economy \u201ccan Australia ensure future growth and reduce vulnerability to foreign powers like China and the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nContact:<\/p>\n
\nDemocracy News Alliance, Christian R\u00f6wekamp, roewekamp.christian@dpa.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Informaci\u00f3n remitida por la empresa firmante) Los Angeles\/DNA, 25 de abril de 2025 (News Aktuell).- Australia boasts some of the world\u2019s most sophisticated political institutions and one of its wealthiest economies. But this veneer of success masks deeper structural issues \u2014 and a \u201cticking time bomb\u201d of overreliance on extractive industries must be addressed under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-noticias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webciudadana.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}