Austrade

This extended role since its establishment has increased the international competitiveness of Australian businesses post globalisation, a vision arranged by John Dawkins, former Trade Minister under the Hawke government.Dawkins was a key proponent for focusing on markets that needed assistance and has stressed the importance of directing attention to sunrise industries in order to help them compete on a global scale.According to Ferris in Chung and Mascitelli (2017), under these goals; the Australian economy and many around the world have naturally shifted their dependence on agriculture and slowly transitioned to manufacturing, following a similar journey to China's economic breakthrough.The timing of this although not coincidentally aligns with that of China (globally the largest Asian market) which implemented their renowned Open Door Policy in 1978 in hopes of attracting new investment ventures.[12] Following World War II, both Doug Anthony and John McEwen who were instrumental in Austrade's rapid growth saw an opportunity to target the issue of Australia's balance of payments as the forefront of broader objectives.Mascitelli (2015) writes that at the time of its establishment only 137 out of 1327 staff were Trade Commissioners, outlining the fact that it has become a blueprint for developing commissions under limited resources and personnel as well as being absent from a sprawling bureaucracy.However, there have been difficulties in managing Austrade in that its "effectiveness depends on the closeness of the working relationship between government – basically the trade minister – and the organisation's leadership" (Adams, as cited in Chung and Mascitelli, 2017, p. 419).Schedvin (2008) references the environment within which the Trade Commissioner Service operated changing fundamentally and permanently in the 1970s as a sign of the inevitable shift that Austrade similarly experienced.Chung and Mascitelli highlight Austrade's unique and dynamic role in the Australian context due to its position of being a government agency that works alongside businesses with the aim of developing their international competitiveness.[14] Austrade provides advice to exporters on prospective markets and opportunities; on-the-ground support in target countries; trade exhibitions; and assistance in finding potential investors.[15] Austrade provides information and advice to assist Australian companies in exporting goods and services to markets including Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Russia.Landis, a correspondent with offshore initiatives with regions such as Latin America and South Asia describes how an extensive review found that Austrade was too ambitious in priorities and did not direct engage enough with growth markets.Brewer (2010) says that Austrade's focus on tackling large economies led to the program employing “aspirational” targets that were not tangible within an organisation in the long run and that they were simply publicising unrealistic prospects.[33] Schedvin provides further historical insight in his Emissaries of trade piece on how legislation has changed over time whereby the Commonwealth government initially took over the responsibility from independent agencies in the 1920s before Austrade's official enactment in 1985.granted special access privileges and funds totalling $394,009 to the fraudulent company Firepower International, which also provided employment to two former senior Austrade managers in Europe and Russia.[45] However, perceived legitimation of Firepower's activities by Austrade undoubtedly helped promote tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent share sales to the Australian public "without proper disclosure documents in breach of the Corporations Act".][48] in the scandal, Austrade did not initiate prosecutions against Tim Johnston and other Firepower principals, as it had previously done against relatively minor perceived offenders such as Western Australian town planner and inventor Paul Ritter, who was imprisoned in the late 1980s on charges of making inappropriate export-grant applications.