In the period under review, 1966–70, Australia was singularly free from the ’constant balance of payments worries’ of the 1950s and early 1960s. The problem of external balance – of finding enough foreign exchange to finance an ever-growing import bill – which, in the preceding two decades and indeed in many earlier periods of Australian economic history, had never been far from the centre of concern of Australian economic policy-makers, all but vanished, at least for the time being. On the contrary, towards the end of the period, Australia, to her own surprise, found herself embarrassed by a plethora of foreign exchange, in a small way paralleling the discomfiture of the major surplus countries, Germany and Japan,

Australia has been a capital importing country almost continuously since 1788, Immigration and capital inflow, and the transfer to Australia of overseas business and technical knowledge associated with both, have been an important aspect of the building up of Australia’s economy and the development of its natural resources throughout Australian history. After a relatively low ebb during the depressed 1930s, both immigration and capital inflow revived after the second world war and played a major part in the two post-war decades of sustained rapid economic development.