Weaknesses in Australia's commodity exporting economy combined with steadily increasing competition in world manufacturing put that strategy under great pressure in 1980s and finally, under the Hawke-Keating Labor governments (1983-96), both tariff protectionism and centralised wage fixing were wound back.
Weaknesses in Australia's commodity exporting economy combined with steadily increasing competition in world manufacturing thanks to the' NICs' (newly-industrialising countries) put that strategy under great pressure in the 1980s. Under the Hawke-Keating Labor governments (1983-96), both tariff protectionism and centralised wage fixing were wound back.