| The first decade of the21st century has witnessed the development of globalization because of which countries around the world increasingly integrate into the world economy. As one of the significant driving forces, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) contributes a lot to the growth of the world economy. Although it can be traced back to the18th century when Great Britain was accelerating its Industrial Revolution, the real and rapid development of international direct investment did not unveil until the end of the Second World War. Australia, as one of the British colonies in the colonial era, used to utilize foreign capital to develop its national economy since the commencement of the white settlement on the continent in1788. After the foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia in1901, independent foreign investment policies gradually took shape and gained tremendous improvement in the post-war era.However, a chronological survey of the development of foreign investment policies of Australia reveals that the Australian official attitudes towards, and policies of, foreign investment were not always consistent. Even after approximately200years of settlement, there were no specific laws issued by the government to supervise foreign investment before the1970s. From the1970s, nonetheless, the government not only introduced laws and established institutions to govern foreign investment, but also improved the policies over FDI in comparatively short periods. What were the policies of the Australian governments from Ben Chifley to John Howard in the post-war era when FDI developed rapidly? What were the characteristics of them? What were the reasons behind the changes of the policies?Based on the definition of foreign investment, the theories of FDI as the theoretic foundation, and relevant historic reviews and official statistics, this dissertation is intended to explore the Australian governments’ attitudes towards and policies over FDI from1945to2007, and analyze the reasons behind the changes and the impacts of the alterations on the inward FDI polices of Australia, so that the questions proposed above can be answered. In general, Australia has experienced three stages in relation to its FDI policies in the phase under study, namely, the open door period, the restriction period and the liberalization period, and shifted from a welcoming stance to the coexistence of encouragement and examination. Though the Prime Minister and the Treasurer played important roles in FDI decision making, the more deeply-rooted reasons affecting the FDI policies were the dual impacts of the economic need for foreign investment and the growing economic nationalism. The approach of coexistence of encouragement and examination maintained at the end of the Howard government in2007resulted from a compromise between the two elements. |
