Don't kid yourself that Asian imports are all rubbish, & you don't have to relocate. I could use various contract manufacturers to make anything I wanted, to my specification, in excellent quality, at a fraction of our prices.

I was producing & marketing high quality, mostly brass, water & energy saving gear in the mid/late 80s, long before the craze set in. It sold because it saved water heating costs mainly.

As competitors moved in I had to go to Taiwan for my products. They could supply for $2.00 into my store, excellent quality products that cost me $14.00 to make here.

The thing I could never understand was that, here the brass to make the $2.00 product, cost $3.10 here, over 50% more than a finished chrome plated & assembled product from Asia. Our manufacturers have no chance, with costs like that, not counting wages.

I believe a large part of our problem is transport. Incoming transport is so cheep today, that it adds very little to the cost of imports. Local transport is however ridiculously expensive.

It cost me $8.00 to deliver that $2.00 product to a customer around the corner, & $15.00 to a customer in Perth. In much of WA it was cheaper to buy most things from Singapore, than the Oz east coast.

Communications are another problem. No one wanted a call centre in India, when it cost $8.00 a minute for overseas calls. Now those costs, to large users, are less than me calling the next local area.

Here's an idea for our cash strapped lady in Canberra. Put a 500% tax on out going overseas calls, bring all those jobs back home, & get out of your financial mess, all at a stroke of the pen.

*They could supply for $2.00 into my store, excellent quality products that cost me $14.00 to make here.*

Hasbeen, its a great point to show that its silly to try and make
everything, as is often suggested by the protectionists.

Take a look at an Apple Ipad. The CPU is an ARM design, made by
Samsung. (Korean). There are parts from Japan, Germany, Taiwan,
and elsewhere in there. The whole thing is assembled in China.

Apple do the design work, write the software and do the marketing.
Consumers love them and Apple have 70 billion cash in the bank,
clearly they are doing well. In the late 90s they were close to
going bankrupt.

Building factories to try and make everything, would send you broke
in capital investments, trying to buy all the machine tools.

As manufacturing becomes more complex and automated, the capital
investment to make things has increased, the actual labour involved
has decreased. I love watching a tv series called "How Its Made".
Making something as simple as a pencil, just about totally automated,
requires a huge amount of expensive machinery. Now think of the many
products that we use, it is totally unrealistic to try to make them
all.

We need to find our niches, which will depend on the entrepreneurs
we have. The best we can do is provide them with the infrastructure
which is competitive and a labour force that is educated and keen.
At the moment we are doing neither, just trying to slug them with
a carbon tax, which will be another reason to forget Australia as
a place to make anything

Yabby,
Do tell what should be these “niche” markets?

In regards to entrepreneurs, it is an advantage to develop a product in Australia before exporting it.

Unfortunately the mentality in Australia has become “Australian made bad”, “imported good”, so entrepreneurs in Australia won’t get much help from the Australian public.

People such as yourself are creating the “Australian made bad”, “imported good” mentality.

There is actually a reason for this, vanna.

>>Unfortunately the mentality in Australia has become “Australian made bad”, “imported good”<<

It is, for many categories of goods, the reality.

Take a look at the products that we import. Then name one local manufacturer that comes close to the quality and value they represent. You might have the vestige of a case for imported fruit and vegetables, where the consumer is simply buying on price and/or out-of-season convenience.

But manufacturing? If you had had the opportunity to witness the German and Japanese manufacturing industries of the eighties and nineties, you would readily understand how rapidly we fell behind on automation, work practices, supply-chain management, market positioning etc. and, to be brutally frank, management in general. We were complacent - and protected - kidding ourselves that the tyranny of distance worked both ways, and that we would be left in peace.

It didn't. We weren't. And there's no easy way back. We simply do not understand the basics of business as well as our overseas competitors do. Until and unless we can discover something that we are good at that doesn't involve digging stuff out of the ground, we will continue to lag behind.

And no amount of government "assistance" is going to change that. For the simple reason that for decades there hasn't been a single politician that understands the problem. Let alone be able to work out a solution. They are either professional politicians or failed lawyers. Neither category could run a business if their arses were on fire.

Whilst I do not disagree Pericles the accuracy of your observation is based on us staying within the same economic paradigm.
What we tend to overlook is that is that our welfare/economy has become dependent on imports. Let us assume for the moment that due to some major catastrophe we could no longer import anything. How long would we be able to continue? All the IT equipment on which we rely is imported - it would not take long for us to come up with a list of goods that could be described as of strategic importance to our economy which we import.
As you rightly point out we will continue to import these if we cannot match the quality. But I think you would agree that there is no prima facie reason why could not only match the quality but exceed that quality.
Government does have a role here. Just go back to the aftermath of the Montreal Olympics. We did not win any gold medals. National calamity - so we invested in sport and now we pride ourselves on being among the top 10 nations in the world as far as Olympic medals are concerned. So perhaps the government needs to take the same approach to manufacturing - pronounce it a disaster that we are not winning enough gold medals and be determined to get us up higher on the medals table.
Note I am not advocating protectionism, tarrifs or anything like that - all I am saying is that if government and the Australian people saw this as a genuine problem and concern then we would find the solutions.

*so entrepreneurs in Australia won’t get much help from the Australian public.*

Not so Vanna, if they make a good product or provide a good service.

Cochlear implants have done pretty well. So have CSL with vaccines.
We build 100m$ ferries in WA, plus produce various equipment for
the mining industry and even agricultural industry, which we export.
But they are not things that you will see at your downtown store.
I used to see them at Perth airport cargo however, when I went
there three times a week. Even Carman exports her muesli to a whole
lot of countries now. Ask Pericles, its delicious :)

Baygon, you are correct, in Australia its only sports people or rock
stars who are seemingly lauded by the public. Plus Paris Hilton.
Exporters and export industries are not appreciated, I guess because
Australians have simply had it too good for too long. People only
seem to learn through a bit of pain, is my observation.

As to surviving without imports, well the whole world is interconnected now, so no country would survive too well.
Apart from North Korea.

Pericles is correct, Australian management was pretty shocking
when benchmarked. But I feel that competition is now changing that.
"She'll be right" doesent work anymore. They either sink or swim