Australia's commitment to the APEC goal of free trade and investment remains firm. The difficult fact that has to be faced is that the correct response to globalisation is more liberalisation, not less. More change, not less. More willingness to embrace new ideas, not less. Yet this goes against the grain of people's instincts.
People prefer stability to change.
Security to uncertainty. They want to know that the work they have will continue, that the skills they have acquired will remain relevant and valued. And that their children will have a future in which they can also be secure. The challenge is not to unnecessarily restrict the pace of liberalisation but to do whatever government can to bring people along with it. It is important that the pace of liberalisation is not so swift as to create community resistance or community-destroying economic and social dislocation.