Georgina Murray - Capitalist Networks and Social Power in Australia and New Zealand

GEORGINA MURRAY

School of Arts, Media and Culture, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2017 by Routledge
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Copyright Georgina Murray 2006

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Murray, Georgina

Capitalist networks and social power in Australia and New Zealand

1.Elite (Social sciences) - Australia 2.Elite (Social sciences)

- New Zealand 3.Power (Social sciences)-

Australia 4.Power (Social sciences) - New Zealand

5.Australia - Politics and government - 21st century

6.Australia - Social conditions - Social conditions - 21st century 7. New Zealand - Politics and government - 21st century 8. New Zealand - Social conditions - 21st century

I.Title

305.52340993

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Murray, Georgina.

Capitalist networks and social power in Australia and New Zealand / by Georgina Murray.

p. cm. -- (Corporate social responsibility series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-4708-9

ISBN-10: 0-7546-4708-0

1. Elite (Social sciences)--Australia. 2. Elite (Social sciences)--New Zealand. 3.

Executives--Australia. 4. Executives--New Zealand. 5. Power (Social sciences)--

Australia. 6. Power (Social sciences)--New Zealand. 7. Capitalism--Australia. 8.

Capitalism--New Zealand. I. Title.

HN850.Z9E45 2006
306.3420993--dc22

2006020639

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-4708-9 (hbk)

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I would like to thank those who have read and commented on this work, or parts of this work, in its various incarnations. These include David Peetz, Christine Devine, Professor Frank Stilwell, Heather Peetz, Cecily Baker and Raymond Evans. You all made a great contribution. All of you helped to make it a much better piece of work than it would have been. Also, thanks go to those I worked with in Norway who were a constant source of ideas and stimulation: Sigmund Grnmo, John Scott and Ole Johnny Olsen. I would also like to thank the Centre for Work, Leisure and Community Research for its financial support, and in particular Elizabeth Ellis, Kay Bernicke and Professor Peter Brown. Others who have also helped and supported the book along the way are Meindert Fennema, Sue Jarvis, Beverley Jeppesen, Charles Crothers and Paul Turnbull. My thanks for inspirational teaching on this topic go to both David Bedggood and to James Devine. Thanks, too, for the love and friendship I received throughout the writing from Emma Left-Weatherley, Alaina Weatherley, Charlotte Weatherley, Lily Weatherley, Freya Weatherley, Scott Weatherley, Anna Haebich, Calum Hyslop, Vigdis Bjrkness, Nick Brander Peetz and most of all from David, whose love made focus a real possibility.

Being rich isnt what it used to be. Once upon a time there was a very wealthy establishment with a tightly knit network that ruled Australia and New Zealand with help from the mother country. But those days of wealth and power are gone anyone can become rich if they try hard enough or have the right breaks. No one feels any hostility towards the rich because everyone knows that they can be there too. There are no old networks of power to help them. These are gone. The new elite consist of left-leaning intellectuals and their sympathisers in the media, particularly the Australian ABC or the New Zealand NZBC. Or so we are led to believe.