A great article, providing a most illuminating perspective on progress leading to our current sad, and highly challenging and dysfunctional, state of global affairs. Well done. But?

One problem. The unraveling masterpiece raced along with a great head of steam - only to come to an abrupt halt in mid-stride! Where are the answers to this (and our) global predicament? What are the solutions?

Alan B has put forward some good ideas, and maybe Dan's correctly identified failures in Aus' road to growth at any cost - such as "our once self sufficient industries sold off to the slave labourers in Asia" - may at least in part be addressed and corrected through Alan's direct approach to a restoration of self-sufficiency and self-reliance in Aus.

One suggestion though, Alan, please, we must keep Lake Eyre and precincts fresh water - using surpluses from the Northern wet season to flood your canal(s) and charge the Lake. To use salt water would not only wreak untold destruction on this inland ecosystem but fundamentally preclude the advantages of masses of fresh water for use in developing an astronomical inland agricultural Eden - with coincidental countering of part of Aus' climate-harmful emissions. Solar farms reaching to the horizon, state of the art greenhouses in abundance, inland rail bringing processed city waste to be used for fertilizer and/or combustion, and, in due course, villages, parks, swimming pools and some lucky folk just so happy to live away from the city turmoil.

Alan can see his Thorium reactors coming to life, the VLT running straight as a die from horizon to horizon, and scattered industrial parks building Eco-transportation, home-robots, shoes, clothing, building materials and everything any burgeoning city folk might need.
Magic.

We certainly have the job ahead of us. So, when do we start!
(Covid notwithstanding.)

Yes local production would be wonderful, but it could only happen with much lower living standards.

In the mid 60s I was the technical service rep for the leading plastics raw material supplier in Australia. We supplied almost all the appliance manufacturers in Oz. I Sydney alone I supplied 7 TV & radio manufacturers, 6 refrigerator manufacturers 6 washing machine manufacturers, & a dozen contract custom plastic moulding companies supplying parts to the automotive industry. There were dozens more manufacturing things like kitchen appliances hair driers & the like.

These factories employed 10s of thousands of people, but required high import duties to keep them competitive even back then, & this came at a price.

Some will remember small black & white TVs cost over a months wages, a small car a years earning & a fridge a couple of months wages. High import duties could see us do it again, but are the public prepared to pay the price of goods produced using our high cost base? Could the many who live hand to mouth today survive with the increased cost of everything they buy?

Simple solution,
Anything not produced here attracts import Duty, anything produced here does not ! That should get the manufacturing ball rolling again here, we just need to keep the unions at bay.
With all the former car plants lying idle we could start a small, cheap, no-nonsense car industry in no time.
Coupled with a non-military National Service & a cut in Public Service bureaucrat salaries & a flat tax it can be achieved with no economic sacrificial pain.

Interesting article. It appears that Peter McMahon (not that he was the only author here) has a few articles that might be worth perusing despite being a member of the swamp that is the Australian Education System. Though he does come from a university named after Sir Walter Murdoch. If I am correct in my hasty estimation it appears that- Murdoch University may indeed "be a good one".

Interesting point Hasbeen- "Yes local production would be wonderful, but it could only happen with much lower living standards."

Answer-

I believe this issue of lower living standards could be largely avoided through higher quality durable products and intelligent management and improvisation. Of course there are always lazy people that object to any imposition on their immediate mercurial comforts.

In the Army they teach you to survive under a piece of plastic.

I admire my ancestors for their self sufficiency- it's pleasing to see during "the current incident" that people are re-discovering their self sufficiency. People for example appear to be spending more time learning to cook for themselves.

I'd like to see Australian artisan's from British stock- our children- pressing an Australian saucepan out of a sheet of Australian stainless steel and attaching a handle made from a Gum tree... as I look upon mine labelled "Made In China".

All the labels have Made In China now- soon we will be replaced too.

Population is the biggest issue in world problems.

It is the other way around individual, you have to have high duties on the things produced here, or local production will never compete with imported goods.

A simple example. We introduced to the world the chrome plated plastic tap handle. In the US then, now China, you had a 50 meter long production machine. You tipped die casting metal in at one end, copper nickle & chrome in the middle, & a chromed handle came out the other. All this controlled by one man at a computer. Cheap & simple with large volume to cover the set up cost.

In Oz we had 2 men needed to cast the handle, another to de-flash & polish the thing, a truck & driver to take them to the chrome plater, & bring them back. Hugely expensive in time & labour.

We introduced ABS engineering plastic to replace the die-cast metal & cut costs dramatically, as well as producing a corrosion free product. We were competitive until the US developed a 50 meter long machine using ABS instead of die-cast metal. We led the world in such innovation because of our high labour content & cost.

It can take a couple of days to get a machine set up & producing parts on size & quality. In the US/China large market the machine can run for a couple of months producing that part, in the Oz market, a couple of days. 4 days work for 2 days production does not make for competitive pricing.

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Container shipping is the worst thing that ever happened to Oz industry. Our industry lost the added protection of high cost shipping. Shipping is almost cost free today. I could buy from Asia a shower head for $2.00, delivered to my store, complete with display packaging to our design. Here the cost of the brass to make the thing was over $4. While it cost a fortune to load & unload the stuff to ship it we could produce locally, after container efficiency, we could not compete.

It is cheaper to ship a new car from Asia to Oz on a roll on roll off ship, than ship it 100 kilometers in Oz.

Today the entire dash of your car is ABS plastic, but it cost heaps to develop that application. I spent months working with the 2 companies in Sydney that developed the first ABS instrument panel for Holden. There was a baking requirement with high heat, & the inside of a locked car gets very hot. Those companies had hundreds of engineering hours getting those parts right & dimensionally stable at high heat. In Oz they had only 30,000 unit orders to spread that cost, not the half a million of larger production in large markets, which then benefited from our development work.

Much as I would love to see it, these few examples show how getting manufacturing up again in Oz is going to be a very difficult, unless we start spending the money wasted on so called renewable power generation on subsidising industry rather than Don Quixote alternate power operations. The big question is should we do it, & how much would it cost the many to employ the few.