Was Australia An Economy Or Industrial Downfall?

With military manufacturing and increased imports, one could certainly feel that Australia would have had either an economic or industrial downfall since the world was just recovering from the Great depression when the Second World War began in rapid succession. However, to all doubters and criticizers of the World, Australia flourished in military expansion. It enhanced its industrialist capabilities on a national level, prompting the construction of several industries in several fields one after the other and, in some cases, simultaneously. Of course, more construction and creation of factories and other industries in different sectors meant more economic growth for the country. This was observed as a true factor ever since Australia started
the rapid construction of industries since unemployment fell to an all-time high and inflation reduced just as much.
Employment was on the high since more and more workers were needed to boost up manufacturing of goods and supplies as well as production of armed products needed to be boosted as much as possible in as short periods of time as possible so that the Australian military could have the upper hand against rival militaries in several operations and so that the Australian military had adequate supplies to fight a war where soldiers didn’t starve or face malnutrition half the time like the case in many armed forces. This factor pushed Australian manufacturers to their limits and while the country was importing more goods than it used to in its history, the country was also exporting as many goods as possible to the entire world as well as its own military.
With the speed of industrialism increasing in Australia by ten folds, its aim of achieving military expansion was also coming through nicely by providing the military, which was active in all three frontiers, with rapid supplies of adequate equipment as well as other primary necessities.
This was also key in giving Australia other advantages over the armies their Military was continuously fighting. On the other hand, Australia was also strengthening its defence mechanisms and importing any gods available on the global market to provide adequate defences for the country itself from airborne warfare as well as landing operations and naval warfare. Although Australia failed to eliminate the threat of repetitive air raids from Japanese aircraft, it did manage to retaliate and cause casualties on the Japanese side. The Naval defence that was manufactured rapidly for Australia proved to secure Australian water territories from Germans and the Japanese through two major naval battles that were won by Australia along with its Allied
counterparts.
With a high level of confidence and morale in the Australian government as well as the people of the nation, new economic reforms were created that benefited the company’s industrial sector as mentioned above (Singh, 1998).
These reforms, however, also orchestrated improvements in infrastructure of the country through the reasons of defence mechanisms by building stronger buildings, factories as well as roads that were strong enough to withstand heavy bombings. Such improvement in infrastructure inevitably brought in more investors from the entire world and allowed Australia to flourish while it battled in the Second World War. These new improvements also made sure that Australia’s living standards rose instead of declining and with new infrastructures being deployed in all parts of Australia, it was only a matter of time before new social reforms were introduced within the country and rightly salvaged to secure more social facilities for the nation’s general
public.
While the economic, social and military reforms had provided Australia with adequate sources of prosperity and fame as well as recognition, Australia had one sector of institution that still needed threading. This institute was the political sector of the nation and though it had been outright correct in all its decisions as well as efforts in the war for a reasonable amount of time, it still had to manage its foreign policy, keeping in mind that all foreign policies dictated the best interest of Australia instead of other allies. This thought proved brilliant and was carried out in the exact manner that it required so effortlessly to do so.
Australia, being part of the British Commonwealth nations, at the time it joined the Second World War, realized that it needed to put its benefits on the table first rather than the benefits of other nations before Australia’s own. While this thought may have been deemed selfish by many when Australia decided to remove its air force from British air space and stopped its duty of protecting Great Britain, it did so in favour of garnering more advantages and benefits from the United States of America who actually gave thoughtful insight as well as numerous monetary benefits to Australia during the Second World War through the Roosevelt administration. Australia was already vary of the incapacity of Great Britain to fight the war against Germany all on its own and saw that the Great Britain’s armed forces were relying on American supplies and ammunitions themselves. This prompted Australia to rethink its foreign strategy to such a point that it would no longer need to serve under the British Commonwealth nations. This change in criteria and priority enabled Australia to begin friendly ties with the United States of America, an allegiance that still survives today and brings more benefits to both nations that they had ever predicted.
Once the allegiance was solidified, it was proven that monetary benefits were only part of the rewards that Australia could gain from United States of America as more military equipment, including aircraft and naval vessels, were exported to Australia as a form of relief during the Second World War(Gyngell & Wesley, 2007). Not only did these military benefits help Australia in succeeding with its goal of rapid peacetime military expansion but the monetary benefits that were provided with these military benefits, also provided vast amounts of financial growth for Australia and its various sources of reforms and policy making during the final years of the Second World War.
Policy making in the political department of Australia increased in sensitivity and in the welfare of the general public, allowing several departments to be funded with policies that benefited the society of Australia as a whole. Welfare benefits and welfare programs were only tip of the iceberg when it came to Australian policy making during the Second World War (Waters, 2011). There were way more benefits that swarmed the nation such as labour rights for increasing amount of labour workforce in the rapid pace of industrial construction and development as well as the lower wage rate policy that came due to the same reasons. With such political stability that was democratic in nature and made keeping in mind the benefits of the nation itself, it was apparent that more prosperity and increases in living standards were going to come into Australian lands after the war was over (Freestone, 2009).
These military, social, economic, financial and political reforms all suggest that the Second World war had a major impact on Australia and it was not only major in its importance but of the utmost essence to the residents that lived and thrived in Australia. Along with reason to believe that Australia was dominating its participation in the theatres of war and making a recognized name for itself in the world, it was also establishing sound industries in its country that were solving both economic issues as well as social issues through various policies and reforms. With these aspects kept in mind, there is no reason to debate that the Second World War was a failure for Australia in any circumstance.