Bretton Woods remembered

By Alex Millmow
Updated April 23 2018 - 8:32pm, first published September 15 2014 - 12:00am

In November, Australia will proudly host the next meeting of the G20 economies in Brisbane. This was supposed to be Kevin Rudd's finest hour even if he had much earlier had to admonish President George W. Bush about what the G20 actually stood for. It was Peter Costello that first suggested the idea of a G20 summit to discuss the concerns of the world's strongest economies. Paul Keating could boast that his contribution to international economic architecture was the formation of APEC. Even earlier Billy McMahon had pushed for Australia joining the OECD club in 1971. What goes on in forums like the G20 is unusually as dry as dust but without them our economic prospects and standard of living would be much less than it is. Trade, investment, capital flows, immigration, and ideas would all be hindered if we did not have open economies.

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