one thing i notice is that everyone says "buy" australian
noone is saying "make"
so many things I buy have no australian equivalent.
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one thing i notice is that everyone says "buy" australian
noone is saying "make"
so many things I buy have no australian equivalent.
This issue with making things in Australia is amply illustrated on this forum - the number of people seeking the best overseas supplier greatly outnumbers those seeking a local supplier!
I'm all for buying locally made if its priced fairly and available, if we don't make I have no problem it being imported.
I do have a problem with companies that produced locally then moved offshore for cheap labour then import that product under a free trade agreement for bugger all.
Listened to Parliament the other night and typically a WA member was crowing about the resources sector propping up Australia.. which is correct.
But is it right?
Selling off our resources waaay too cheap enables Asia to make the goods we could make IF locals received the same sort of deals eg. on gas which we basically give away.
As my ex table tennis partner "the forestry man" ..a Chinese national employed to buy Tas forest products...said.. "Australians are stuuupid.. you give away your future".
Short term gain...long term pain.
Mining in all its forms only contributes 18% to the GDP.
Not so much. We sell resources to a resource hungry giant.
That giant consumes and returns a finished product, in the end having no resources.
Once the Iron is gone, and the scrap is sitting here and not in China, who do you think is in trouble?
The country with all the scrap? Or the country with 300+ Blast furnaces and no feed?
Here we are developing plans for 10 plants (EAFs) to switch to Scrap processing - local production.