Since the early 1980's and the promotion of multiculturalism as a formal policy by the Australian Government, there has been remarkable changes in Australian culture. One of these changes has been the emergence of a new category of Australian literature - that of "multicultural writing". Two major reasons for this emergence have been: (1) the significant increase in funds given to ethnic writers by the Australian Council since the 1970's; (2) the increased awareness of members of migrant and ethnic minority communities of their own languages and cultural backgrounds. The increase in such writing has also led to increase in such writers being politically or socially active, which in turn has had a significant effect on Australian mainstream society. This paper provides an introduction to multicultural writing in Australia taking into account its problems and its future role, not only in Australian literature but also in Australian society in general.1) Definition of Multicultural writing. There is, as yet, no clear definition of "multicultural writing". In this paper, I define "multicultural writing" as the writing of people for whom English is not their first language and/or whose themes reflect their migrant experiences, ethnic background and cultural conflicts (including Aboliginal writers). 2) Multicultural writing and the Australian Government. Since 1973, the Literary Arts Board of the Australian Council has been active in providing financial help to authours and publishers, which has helped promote the works of many ethnic writers. 3) Examples of Ethnic Writers. Writers whose first language is not English: Rosa Capiello and Dimitris Tsaloumas. Writers who are of ethnic minority heritage: Angelo Loukakis and Sally Morgan. 4) Multicultural Writing and Ethnic Feminism. Many works dealing with the problems of sexism, racism, and class faced by ethnic minority women in society have been published (e.g. Sneja Gunew) 5) The Effect of Multicultural Writing on Anglo-Celtic Writing. Almost all recent books on Australian literature (both history and criticism) contain chapters on feminists and multicultural writers and writings. Such inclusion foresees a change in the categorization of Australian literature from 'Commonwealth' or 'post colonial' to 'poliethnic' or 'omnicultural'. 6) Multicultural Writing and Language. While English is still the dominant language in Australian society, there is now opportunity for writers to write in languages other than English. This in turn has the potential of encouraging linguistic diversity in Australia. Translation should be made much account of. Discussion: Some Problems and Future Possibilities. At this stage it is still not certain whether the influence of multicultural writing will result in the subclassification of Australian literature (e.g. Italo-Australian or Greco-Australian literature), or the incorporation of such literature into mainstream literature thereby changing the entire character of mainstream literature. Further, there is a danger that multicultural writing, with its sometimes political emphasis, may be used by and for certain groups for their own purposes, and thereby restrict the range of themes and topics covered. Despite this, multicultural writing has performed and can continue to perform an important role in facilitating communication and transfer of information from people of one cultural group to those of another group. This in turn facilitates multiculturalism generally. Finally, this study has important implications for homogeneous societies such as Japan who are trying to promote their own literature to other cultures, as well as for those faced with the possibility of greater cross-cultural interaction.

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This paper considers the reasons for Japanese direct foreign investment in Australia, the impact of Japanese investment on Australian policymaking and some of the reasons for opposition to direct foreign investment. An important question when thinking about direct foreign in-vestment is the question of why does not trade occur instead of direct foreign investment. In the case of Japanese direct invest-ment a number of answers are suggested: (1) there are times when trade may not occur in the absence of direct foreign investment, for example, the exploitation of large-scale and remote mineral reserves; (2) the existence of tariff and non-tariff trade bar-riers may make trade unprofitable, for example, the automobile industry; and (3) deregulation or changing consumer tastes may cause changes in national benefits - the distribution of these benefits may be altered by direct foreign investment. Recent Japanese securities investment has caused the Australian policy authorities to shift their attention from solely the Australian dollar/American dollar exchange rate to also con-sider the Australian dollar/yen exchange rate as well as emphasiz-ing the importance of stable macroeconomic policymaking. Even when the investment is in the national interest, opposi-tion to direct foreign investment may arise because there are (1) people who actually suffer a loss; (2) people who fear they will suffer a loss; (3) people whose expected benefits are smaller than expected.

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This study examines the skill formation process of production workers in the Australian vehicle building industry. Three main findings need to be emphasised. First, a new worker requires only a few hours, on average to become able to handle his new job at the rate of production. It takes only a couple of weeks for him even to master it so that he can do it at the same speed as his seniors. This implies that jobs in the vehicle building industry in Australia are simple and skill required to do these jobs is not complicated. Secondly, many workers continue to master new jobs during employment and they can do several jobs. Thirdly, there is also a large variety in the number of jobs which they can perform and the variety increases as soon as they are employed. This means that the selection of workers begins at an early stage of employment. The statistical analysis. also find that the skills of workers tend to be cumulative within a company - the skilled person is in-clined to stay with the firm which has given him his training. On the other hand, the level of skill of these workers is not co-related with their experience in the labour market. This implies that the skills in the vehicle building industry are more likely to be firm - specific than general. For this reason, the govern-ment policies to reinforce trainings within companies need to be considered as well as those which facilitate public training in order to raise the level of skill on the factory floors of the industry. The examination of the selection of workers finds that workers' ability is not known to other companies and it is assessed at each company. This implies that, if a wage scheme which reflects workers' ability wages and encourages workers to improve their skills is required, It needs to be determined on the basis of internal assessment.

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Traditionally, it has been pointed out that as economy develops further and further, the gravity of the economy shifts from the primary industries to the secondary industries, and from the secondary industries to the tertial industries. This is well known as "law of Colin Clark" or "Petty's law". Australia has ex-perienced the exceptional development process. That is to say, Australia has already attained the situation of "advanced society without the industrialization" where the tertial industries sector has rapidly expanded with prematured industries sector and matured primary industries sector. Australia has faced two paradox. One is the fact that Australia is suffering from the high unemployment rate although the population is too small to establish economic development. This is explained as follows. Traditionally it is said that at least 50 millions of population is necessary for establishing the industrial sector in a country. Australia has less than one third of this minimum i.e. 15 millions. In the case of industrial productions, the scale economies are especially important. Under the current population size, there are not sufficient demands for products and if the industrial production expands, there tend to be surplus of supply. Moreover Australia is isolated from the major countries importing the industrial goods. On the contrary, the areas, such as Asean and NICs, where the industrialization has developed steadily, are located near Australia. In this sense,the small scale of domestic market is one of the major bottleneck for the industrialization. On the other hand, Australia has been facing unemployment issues. As well known, the industrial sector has greater labour absorption ability or creates larger employment opportunities. The present industrial structure in Australia has more than 70% of tertial industries sector such as service sector and the primary industries sector takes second biggest share. Be-cause the industrial sector, which creates larger employment opportunities, cannot grow sufficiently due to population scarcity, Australian economy cannot employ even such a small population. This is the first paradox which Australia has faced. The second paradox is the fact that Australian economy has been in the situation of recession at the same time Australia has suffering from the inflation. According to the lessons of classi-cal economic theory, the inflation is caused by the situation that production increase cannot catch up the demand expansion through the economic boom. Current situation in Australia is different from these. Although consumer demands have been shrinking under the recession, prices have been rising supported by wages increase. These situation is rather common in many advanced countries. Under these situations, we should discuss about the economic development strategy both in short term and long term. As for the short term strategy, following the "comparative advantage theory", Australia should reenforce export growth of primary products taking into account the resources endowments. In this case, there are several problems. In the international side, major importers have imposed the import restrictions for the primary products and the competing exporters such as EC and USA have adopted the exportsubsidy scheme. So, the terms of trade have been deteriorated for the primary products. In addition to these, in the domestic side, the primary industries are not suitable to solve unemployment issues. As for the longer term strategy, Australia should reenforce the inchistrialization. However, the problem is not alternative selection, such as export expansion strategy of primary products or reenforcement of the import substituting industrialization, In other word, the inter-industries division of labour (or vertical division of labour). It is important to reenforce the intra-industries division of

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There are clear signs of evolution of the European type of 'liberal corporatism' in Australia during the 1980s under the Hawke Labor government. The Hawke government based its economic management on the Accord concluded with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Under the Accord ACTU gave commitments to wage restraint and showed readiness to cooperate towards improved productivity. As a result, the government could achieve impressive records in job creation and corporate profits. There was consensus among the government and union leaders that the Australian industry had to strengthen its competitiveness in order to overcome the economic crisis since the early 1980s. ACTU's dominant position and strong leadership in the trade union movement made it possible to maintain discipline for wage restraint for an unprecedentedly long period. In coping with workers' reduced real incomes, the Accord showed enormous flexibility by giving concessions in the areas other than wages such as tax cuts, social security benefits and superannuation. The broadened range of deals meant that ACTU could exert more influence than ever before on economic policy making through annual negotiations for review of the Accord. Thus the Accord worked to link between government and labour towards corporatist style cooperation over economic management. Business in Australia, however, have neither capacity nor intention tp commit itself to the corporatist style policy making. Australian management organisations are too fragmented to establish a single representative body. Some groups support the existing centralised wage fixation, while others advocate more drastic deregulation of labour market. Furthermore business leaders have strong doubt about benefits of cooperation with government and unions. Thus Australia is yet to develop a triparte policy making system commonly seen in the corporatist countries such as Sweden and Austria. It is the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) that makes up for the lack of business commitment. IRC's National Wage Case gives deliberation to a core part of the Accord such as the level of wage rises and the relevant improvement of productivity, and its decisions have usually approved the basic line of the agreements. Since IRC has the power to enforce its decisions on both trade unions and employers, the Commission plays the function of institutionalising the Accord and involving business indirectly in the process of the corporatist policy making. Thus so long as the trade union movement shows its willingness to maintain industrial harmony and cooperate for revitalisation of the economy, the existence of the independent arbitration body works to authorise ACTU's corporatist approach. There is a possibility of development of a certain kind of cooperation even under a government of the Liberal Party which currently advocates for drastic deregulation of labour market and reduced roles of IRC. In view of the strength of Australian trade unions, it would be quite difficult to maintain wage restraint and industrial harmony under a voluntary agreement system which bypasses IRC's certification. Without obtaining ACTU's certain commitments to cooperation, the system would cause wage explosion and industrial unrest which the already troubled Australian economy cannot afford to bear. In fact, the Confederation of Australian Industries appreciates the centralised wage fixation in that it prevents big unions from using their muscle for obtaining drastic wage rises. As the process of 'award restructuring' proceeds, there will be more room for flexible enterprise or workplace arrangements between individual unions and employers. The biggest danger lies in the case when short-term rises of primary products prices improve its terms of trade and people relax their sense of economic crisis. Unions may raise their claim for drastic wage

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This article attempts to clarify the significance of Japan-Australia relationships for each of both nations under the changing international circumstances. In the 1960s Japan and Australia established flourishing trade relations based on 'natural complementarity' between the two economies. The change in international politics and economy in the 1970s, however, challenged the validity of understanding Japan-Australia relations in the context of 'natural complementa-rity'. The oil crisis gave Australia a chance to raise a claim for 'appropriate' export prices of its primary commodities for Japan. At the same time, Australia was put in a danger of reducing its weight as a resource supplier for Japan as the latter transformed its economy into energy and resource saving structure and diversified its sources of resource supply. The Australia, Japan and the Western Pacific Economic Relations (1976; the Okita-Crawford Report) dealt with a problem of how to maintain and develop 'interdependent' Japan-Australia relations which had proved 'vulnerable' to short-term fluctuations in commodity market situations, as illustrated in the iron-ore cutback problems and the beef disputes. The Okita-Crawford Report took an optimistic view on long-term development of close lir}ks between the two countries on the ground of a high degree of economic 'complementarity'. On the other hand, it raised a warning against 'excessive politicisation' o economic affairs which might emerge in the exercise of 'resource diplomacy'. Such a cautious approach is best understood in the context of the argument presented by the former Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam that Australia should give Japan assurance of stable supply of resources lest it should repeat its prewar militaristic diplomacy in pursuit of overseas resources. Along with the above realisation of danger inherent in 'interdependent' economic relations, the Okita-Crawford Report emphasised the importance of establishing mutual trust and minimising political unrest between the two countries. The 1980s saw further changes in internationsl circumstances which gave another significant impact on Japan-Australia relations. A new study report entitled The Australia-Japan Relationships; Towards the Year 2000(1989) attempts to redefine Japan-Australia relations in the advent of new situations such as relative decline of US power, rising economic activity of the Asia-Pacific region and the diminution of the bipolar rivalry of the cold war period. The report points out the significant changes in Japan-Australia relations which have emerged since the mid 1970s. Firstly the bilateral economic relations centred on resource and agricultural trade have become more complex and diversified as shown in the increasing weight of investment and service trade particularly in finance and tourism sectors. Secondly there arose triangular trade among Japan, East Asia and Australia in the Western Pacific region as Asian NIES increased their weight as consumers of Australian resources. These developments have made Japan-Australia relationships more important, not less important, because the range of economic exchange has got broadened, sophisticated and deepened. The bilateral relations has become further important in view of Japan's increased regional and global role. Towards the Year 2000 recognises that Japan and Australia share common interest especially in maintenance of the open non-discriminatory interna-tional trade and economic system and stresses the need to strengthen political dialogue and cooperation between the two countries. It will be in Australia's interest to exert modest influence in the making of international trade and economic policy by giving support to Japanese initiatives there. Then what makes it beneficial for Japan to maintain and develop political

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