"They are right too, tariffs help generate jobs."

Only if you assume we don't export anything.

and by jobs I assume you mean here in Aus ? because the countries we import from, their citizens are unimportant of course.

If some of you people had any idea of the world, it would help. I have mentioned the facts on here before, but here it is again.

I had to go to importing brass products, because I couldn't compete with imports.

I had product produced to my design, made to my specification, chrome plated, assembled & packaged with my logo, ready to sell. These products, including all freight & importing costs, arrived into my store for just a little more than HALF the cost of the raw brass to make them here in Oz.

This is particularly galling when you consider the copper & zinc the Asian brass is made from is imported from Australia.

There is a great deal of subsidy going on in our competing countries. Being good at something doesn't work against their national interests.

With your attitudes the only employers left will be government. A quick glance at the numbers of useless bureaucrats employed by the previous Commonwealth & Queensland Labor governments indicate, this is Labors plan for our future.

Aidan
I agree with most of your posts, but surely your own logic suggests we should abolish tariffs unilaterally? The idea of continuing to shoot ourselves in the foot because it may prove a bargaining chip seems a bit daft

Rhian,
Abolishing tariffs unilaterally would be much better than doing nothing, but those aren't the only two options. It's not some hope that they can be used as bargaining chips; they are already being used as such, and the game is in session.

Hasbeen,
Even with tariffs it would be difficult to compete with the Asian brass manufacturers for the small domestic market, with buckley's chance of doing so in the large international market, so why bother? Instead we should do what we're genuinely good at, such as mining copper and zinc. If we keep monetary and fiscal policy set to prioritise employment, everyone in Australia can work on something worthwhile instead of doing low value jobs and forcing the public to pay a high price for the results.

Aidan Africa & Asia can mine copper, zinc, coal, & iron ore cheaper than we can, & damn soon will be doing a lot more of it.

Already exploration budgets for Oz have been slashed, & numerous projects have been put on hold. The Oz cost of labour is slowly killing that golden egg laying goose.

Just what do you expect us to be good at, in sufficient volume, to replace the mining jobs as the current mines run down?

Hasbeen, there are many things we're world leaders at, from food production to field robotics. And despite your claim, mining has a bright future in Australia, thanks to a combination of large amounts of high quality ore, automation, and innovation in the refining process. Automation and innovation also means we can succeed in high value manufacturing. And though electricity is currently expensive here, I expect that to change as we take advantage of our abundant solar energy to attract energy intensive industries here.

The recent drop in metal prices is down to a cyclical decline in the global economy. They will be back up soon, and go even higher as more countries industrialise.

Though there are many low value products that it would be pointless for us to make, there are no industry sectors that we don't have what it takes to compete in. However if we do find ourselves in the situation where our high labour costs make us uncompetitive, we can easily fix it by letting our dollar fall to a level where they are competitive again.