Bazz
There is a slight problem.

Only 1% of Australian land is suitable for long term, intensive agriculture.

That is, only 1% of land area has regular and reliable rainfall, and has deep, well drained soils that have enough fertility to last for many years without salination or errosion.

At 23 million people, we can't even feed ourselves over the longer term.

*This discussion is quite irrelevant, free trade and its stablemate
globalisation are already starting their decline.
Bunker fuel costs which are what oils the wheels of globalisation are
imposing greater burdens on shipping costs.*

I don't think so Bazz. You could look it up, but all the figures that
I have seen, seem to show that per tonne/mile, shipping is an
incredibly efficient way of moving things. Those large iron ore
carriers for instance, per tonne delivered around the world, use
very little fuel indeed, which is why it can be done so cheaply.
Even if that rates doubles, its still relatively cheap and more related to
the supply/demand of ships. Slowing ships down would
make sense at any time, depending on the daily charter rates.
Its pointless going flat out, if your ship sits idle at the other
end and you waste fuel. A bit like when you are driving. The flat
foot costs money and there needs to be a good reason to use it.

So ships at any time would calculate what the present most efficient
speed is, governed by the daily charter rate, which fluctuates wildly.

Most energy is actually consumed in the so called last mile. Bazz
drives 5km to the nearest McDonald's for his lunch. Work that out
per tonne/mile and you'll get a shock!

The Kiwis did a study on lamb. They could show that less energy
was consumed, growing a leg of lamb and shipping it to England,
then British farmers consumed growing it in England, due to their
higher intensity farming methods.

West Australia already sells wheat to Saudi Arabia, but I don't see
why it needs to be a swap for oil. The market does that far more
efficiently.

Vanna & Yabbie,
Thanks for the comments.
Well 1% seems a very small proportion, but never the less whatever it
is we need to keep it for our own purposes.
I have just read another article about Saudi's problem, they are
leasing land in Ethiopia to grow their wheat. The local farmers are
getting pushed off their land for the Saudis.
We will be in a bad oil supply position and we need to have some ammo
to enable us to get enough oil.
If we let China and Middle East countries control the land we could
go hungry and be using rickshaws, OH and I saw a pedal rickshaw being
used in Fremantle I think it was. Sign of the times ?

Yes Yabbie, water borne transport is definitely the most efficient.
That is why the canals were so sucessful until railways arrived.
But is was cheap energy that made that difference.
However the alternative to ships are aircraft.
The cost of shipping a container across the Pacific has risen so much
that bulky cheap products such as steel and furniture are already
returning to the US from China. It is the volume/price factor.
I recently was in a furniture shop to order a settee and I asked the
salesman how much in the showroom came from China.
His reply surprised me, only one set of table & chairs. Everything
else was local manufacture.
Might be interesting to have a look around in big retailer's showroom.

No everything will become local in the future.
Suggested reading;
"Your World is About to Become a Lot Smaller" by Jeff Rubin.

Yes Yabbie, we do not need to do a wheat/oil swap today, but tomorrow ?
We need to have control of the wheat to do the swap.

Australia is a large exporter of commodities. These exports increase the value of the Australian dollar making our manufactured goods uncompetitive. Commodity prices, unlike manufactured goods are highly volatile. Our economy could be booming for a decade and then struggle for the next fifteen years.

Protectionism is much more than just tariffs and quotas. The Asian tigers offer many inducements to entice foreign manufacturing investment.

Australian manufacturers are highly mechanised and leveraged operations. Hikes in interest rates to control inflation, a common phenomenon in the last 40 years, detrimentally affects manufacturers much more severely than people servicing sectors of the economy.

The Australian government's free trade agenda is causing unnecessary economic pain to Australians, by constricting the economy and increasing the nations population size.

tet,
You are correct.

Another characteristic of free trade is that local investment tends to drift to other countries, which may seem to be a better investment at the time, but this drift of investment to other countries then keeps back local industry.

What the worker may then have to do is to work longer and longer hours for less and less money, in the hope of attracting investment back into their region.

Great system, for some.