Australians have been experiencing ‘intensified globalisation’ in the last twenty years. That is, our political leaders, ‘under the sway of neo-liberal ideology’, have made decisions that have ‘intensified’ the ‘widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide inter- connectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life’ (David Held). They have curbed the influence of arbitration and promoted enterprise bargaining and individual contracts. They have deregulated banking and capital flows, and reduced tariff protection. They have made the tax system less progressive. They have reduced spending on social welfare. And they have privatised and corporatised many government services and utilities. Moran, preoccupied with political economy, tends to take as given the technological features of ‘intensified globalisation’ (the indexer saw no reason to include ‘computer’, ‘telephone’ or ‘Internet’). His sense of globalisation resembles Paul Kelly’s account of the dissolution of the Australian Settlement. With Australians becoming more ethnically diverse and less economically secure, there are ‘feelings of vulnerability and disorientation among the populace’.