http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12521#217048

Yabby, basic principles like 2 +2 =4 never change only technology does.

Are you seriously suggesting that we would not have any mobile phones in the land of OZ if we were still buying our telecommunications from the PMG department? Like my parents did in the 1960's an excellent service by all accounts & reasonably priced. i don't remember my parents complaining about the size of the telephone bill.

I bought a coffee from a masters degree barrista last week, i will be again on Monday, the poor bastard has a mountainous HECS debt to jump over & has learned more selling coffee than he ever did at UNI.

Soviet proverb, "the present we know, we are doing it, the future we know, we are building it, only the past keeps changing".

i repeat, what do you propose we do when the quarry runs out of rocks?

Greece & Dennmark are dumping EU subsidised food on our farmers right now, what do you propose doing about that for example?

Gold reserves are due to run out in 5 to 10 years?

Apart from a couple of tiny examples of niche manufacturing you still have not proposed ANY economy wide policies to do anything other than quarrying.

And don't forget "fire blight", ever since your marvelous globalised "free trade" began growing, diseases of all kinds have been arriving. Feral pests like "fire ants" arriving by accident since 1972, outnumber the introduced ferals like "cane toads" before 1972.

Formersnag, manufacturing has become so globalised and specialised,
that you could not afford to build the various factories required,
to make the parts for things like smart phones.

But let me give you an example of something that you can perhaps
relate to. Headers, used by farmers to harvest crops. We used to
make them, but they were simple, low capacity machines. In the end,
they simply could not compete with modern and complex technology
developed by John Deere. Deere have moved even further ahead. Today's
farmers need the best and most reliable equipment to harvest ever
larger acres. Why try and lumber farmers with second rate equipment
which will cut their efficiency? We are much better selling the
Americans lamb by the tens of thousands of tonnes, which we are better
at producing then them and buying their John Deere headers. Its a win
win.

There are heaps of niche industries developing, which you most likely
have never heard of. We export sandalwood oil to the perfume houses
of Paris, worth over 2000$ a litre. We have started exporting
truffles to France! The list goes on. What we need is alot more
entrepreneurs to develop new niche industries. Our policies should
be those that encourage them to thrive, not restrict their operations
with red tape.

Perhaps your Masters chappy did it in philosophy, not the wisest
choice. We need engineers, accoutants, doctors, dentists, even
line operators, for Aussies don't want the jobs or have never bothered
to gain the skills.

The question of wether fire blight comes into the country is a
scientific one. I have no problem buying goods from NZ, they buy
plenty of ours. As it happens, we also own a great many of their
big banks, who all send their profits back to Australia. Trade is
a two way thing