Study Nearing Completion

An ACCORD study to examine public policy affecting co-operatives over the past twenty years is nearing completion. This extensive study examines the broad public policy settings that have affected co-operatives and their development, changes in co-operative legislation and institutional structures within the co-operative movement.

The paper titled Co-operation or Competition: False Dichotomies and Lost Opportunities - A Review of Co-operation in Australia is being drafted by Garry Cronan, Senior Research Fellow/Executive Officer of ACCORD.

An abstract of the paper being prepared is given below:

Abstract:

Australia has experienced a period of sustained public policy reform over the last decade. It has been one of the leaders among industrialised countries in adopting neo-liberal economic reform, privisation and deregulation polices. Governments have embraced market processes as a co-ordinating mechanism for many forms of economic and social activity. Competition has become the dominant policy framework. While many of these changes have produced measurable success for some, a significant number of individuals and communities have felt disenfranchised by this process. These reforms have also appeared to discriminate against, or ignore, a set of institutions - co-operative and mutual organisations - which have often been the means by which communities or individuals protected or enhanced their responses to policy, and marketplace challenges. Australia has generally been reluctant to use public policy, to defend such forms of mutual self help or encourage new adaptations of these organisations. The dominance of the competition policy paradigm appears to limit the consideration of co-operative or mutual policy alternatives. Policies promoting co-operation are seen, by some, as being opposed to those based on competition. Australian Governments appear to have little awareness of the lasting benefits of this form of democratic self-help; it being lost to the current generation of policymakers.

This paper charts that experience. It seeks to provide an explanation for what appears to be the unique set of institutional characteristics at play in Australia, which helps explain why the general co-operative movement appears to be at its weakest point in a generation. Also discussed are a number of societal and marketplace trends which seem to reinforce or question these public policy directions. One is the rise of individualism in Australia. This appears to have called into question the relevance of established forms of collective action. In its wake, the nature of membership appears to be changing. Some suggest members are turning into investors - citizens into consumers. On the other hand, recent research is speaking eloquently of the contribution mutuality and co-operation can make to achieve competitiveness, business and community networks, trust, social inclusion, reciprocity and social capital. The latter part of the paper builds on this analysis and discusses co-operative policy opportunities, both lost and in prospect, for Australia.