Thread: Australia, the clever country , not !

Volume has a lot to do with it, but it is not the whole story. The costs of doing anything in Australia compared to most other places is also a major factor.

And I don't think you can blame the issue you quote with Thailand on a "week" or even weak willed Australian government.

The Australian market is simply not large enough to give the Australian government much leverage, and if they imposed a similar tax on Thai vehicles coming in here, the people who would be aggrieved would be the Australian buyers - and they vote, and there are a lot more of them than there are motor industry workers.

Australia is a higher per capita buyer of 4x4s, yes - but what matters is the numbers, not the per capita. However, I do agree that we really should have been designing and building our own (and it has been done, e.g Oka).

Why has this not been successful? Two reasons; the Australian car industry has always been almost entirely foreign owned and foreign controlled, and Australians have always been reluctant to support risky investments either by buying shares or not selling them to foreigners. And make no mistake - with viability dependent on government handouts, the motor industry has always been risky. Australian culture has always been biased against owners getting rewards commensurate with risks, so Australians tend to invest in property, not productive businesses.

Might have helped the car industry to survive if all our vast numbers of pollies and bureacraps in all our levels of over governance, had driven Australian made vehicles.
AlanH.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

But if you look at all of Australian history since 1788, by and large, the only times that manufacturing has been economically practical has been when it has been heavily protected either by tariffs or import restrictions, or when imports have not been possible (for example during two world wars). The reason for this has been that Australian living standards have been among the highest in the world, ever since the gold rush in the 1850s, and this living standard has been supported by high levels of primary production - gold (from 1852), wool (from the 1820s), grain (from about 1910), meat (from about 1880 with refrigeration), and more recently coal and iron ore, with contributions from a variety of other mineral and farm products.

This has echoes of Donald Horne's Lucky Country book. Australia has stumbled from one boom to another, wirh the governments and people usually wasting the opportunities.

I worked in Australian motor manufacturing. It burns me up to see the near total demise of an industry that employed many thousands. GM-H in its heyday employed 26,000 Australians. Add in the other local manufacturers and assemblers and their outside suppliers and there was a vibrant industry providing a decent wage to mainly breadwinners.

I get a bit angry looking at brands like Mazda who have been selling here for almost 60 years, all imports on wheels. Mazda are selling 200,000 plus vehicles annually in Australia and employ less than 300 workers. Ladbrokes , the betting shop, employ more than that in Queensland alone.

How many Australians are on unemployment benefits? How many haven't got full time work? How many Disability Pensioners could do part time light clean work in a modern factory? We should be exporting our unemployment by insisting that importers CKD assemble say 85% of their sales volume. No tariffs, no new taxes, just build them here and employ Australians and thus leave some of their profits here. This would be a boon to local industry as many small parts are not included in CKD packs and would be purchased here. The welfare bill would be drastically reduced. Can you imagine the benefit to a country city that a car plant & suppliers employing a few hundred bread winners would bring.

Originally Posted by Eevo

i dont agree.

consumers vote with their feet. if the consumes are not buying australian it's cause its low quality or overpriced. or both.

Consumers vote with their tightarse feet.

We make excellent quality stuff here. We grow some of the finest produce here too.
The trouble is, the supermarkets only stock sub par produce at inflated prices. I don't buy Californian oranges anymore because they're dry and tasteless. It's so hard to find a nice orange nowdays.
So, where are all our sweet juicy oranges going?
'It's like a licence to print money' — Citrus industry urges Government to help preserve China trade - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

And don't get me started on pinapples.

So, our high quality fruit , in a nutshell , is being marketed to asian countries , where the middle class wealthier people can afford to pay a premium price.
Our wonderful supermarkets , bleating and lying about fresh produce , then purchase cheap lower grade produce from the very same countries that we are selling our premium produce to , and put it on the shelves for us.
Somehow our wonderful government calls this fair trade.
Do our politicians consume this lower grade 'fair trade' produce or is it just for the plebians?

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

I worked in Australian motor manufacturing. It burns me up to see the near total demise of an industry that employed many thousands. GM-H in its heyday employed 26,000 Australians. Add in the other local manufacturers and assemblers and their outside suppliers and there was a vibrant industry providing a decent wage to mainly breadwinners.

I get a bit angry looking at brands like Mazda who have been selling here for almost 60 years, all imports on wheels. Mazda are selling 200,000 plus vehicles annually in Australia and employ less than 300 workers. Ladbrokes , the betting shop, employ more than that in Queensland alone.

How many Australians are on unemployment benefits? How many haven't got full time work? How many Disability Pensioners could do part time light clean work in a modern factory? We should be exporting our unemployment by insisting that importers CKD assemble say 85% of their sales volume. No tariffs, no new taxes, just build them here and employ Australians and thus leave some of their profits here. This would be a boon to local industry as many small parts are not included in CKD packs and would be purchased here. The welfare bill would be drastically reduced. Can you imagine the benefit to a country city that a car plant & suppliers employing a few hundred bread winners would bring.

Australia insisted on CKD assembly at a minimum for most cars from about 1914 to the early eighties - as the tariffs that enforced this were wound down. The result was that by then locally assembled cars were so expensive and backward in design compared to world prices that, for example, Mazda, was able to fully import cars, and sell competitively against local cars even paying the tariff. And, for waht it is worth, I do recall even hearing of Mazda until the late seventies; they may have been here, but in a very small way.

it is also worth pointing out that manufacturing has never employed a huge proportion of the Australian workforce - just that the major manufacturers such as motor vehicle manufacturers have large numbers of employees at a single location, giving the owners and unions a potent political weapon.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Australia insisted on CKD assembly at a minimum for most cars from about 1914 to the early eighties - as the tariffs that enforced this were wound down. The result was that by then locally assembled cars were so expensive and backward in design compared to world prices that, for example, Mazda, was able to fully import cars, and sell competitively against local cars even paying the tariff. And, for waht it is worth, I do recall even hearing of Mazda until the late seventies; they may have been here, but in a very small way.

it is also worth pointing out that manufacturing has never employed a huge proportion of the Australian workforce - just that the major manufacturers such as motor vehicle manufacturers have large numbers of employees at a single location, giving the owners and unions a potent political weapon.

JD, Mazdas were first sold here about 1961-62 and were well established with small and medium sedans by 1967. I first saw one at a Brisbane motor show about '62 on the Westco Motors stand. Our first thoughts were "Mazda? Light bulbs?"