Hasbeen said "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. "

Yes that's correct. I always thought that you could have roll on roll off trains and double height containers if we designed trains differently. If you put the dealerships near the transport this would cut down on the labour. Process redesign is always a factor in business modelling. Given Australia is a small nation without the large economies of scale we need to find niche industries such as those without transport costs such as software development and information products. Some products such as cars and mobile phones may be just unsuitable for the Australian production environment- Ricardo had views on this- sometimes it's a matter of doing things differently. Some time ago there were kit cars that could be built on chassis of standardized dimensions from cheap mass produced components. 3D printing was seen as a way of democratizing manufacturing. I see many inefficiencies when I see Australian manufacturing. I believe the pavement machine was invented in Australia- but yes other countries see the ideas and steal them for themselves. Some would argue that slaves always work better than free men- when we send our currency offshore the evil done to our children is terrible- it's better that we teach them to support their own communities- rather than seeking individuality through consumption. I would like to see Australian's develop rapid retooling technologies to provide short run high quality products for low cost- this would have both a short and long term benefits for Australia. In the US there is low red tape where as in Australia we have high red tape- this is a recipe for failure for a small country. Australia has the potential to provide for the world's rocketry industry- but there are always geopolitical factors.

Everyone needs allies ours traditionally have been Britain, the US, sometimes Europe- these countries support each other for mutual benefit- Globalization is a race to the bottom- and devaluation of humanity- evil.

Talk about waste of money in Australia, the top bureaucrats salaries, exorbitant costs for menial tasks, massive undeserved welfare, Govt taxes etc,
If we could lower the salaries & freeze the medium wage we could afford to reduce Govt taxes, particularly the insanely priced car/vehicle registrations.
Welfare could be largely paying for itself if it were in the form of a non-military service.
Our daily cost of living is artificially high merely to profit a handful of top bureaucrats.
There's an application for a new silica mine in Nth Qld by a Chinese company. Why the hell can't we have an Australian outfit mining & exporting ??
Why don't the Govt & the Opposition put their heads together & support an Australian company to do that ?
The Qld Govt's legislation of no more Qld Port developments puts a huge region adjacent to the GBR & residential areas at risk. Overrule this legislation & put a loading facility in the mining area where it has zilch environmental impact ?
The dust from the sand would blow back to where it was mined instead of over peoples homes !
This mine would be a perfect opportunity to restart Australian owned & run industry in Australia !
What say ye ?

Sometimes Australia may not be able to be as agile as other countries and needs to look longer term, use cheaper, less complex, more durable products with interchangeable parts to reduce costs.

How often does the typical household need to churn through their products could these products be designed differently- reducing the amount of waste.

There's a great website somewhere that costs and gives a replacement lifetime of all the elements of a typical house. The consumer economy is designed to benefit those feeding it. If we took control and changed our borders with elements such as tariffs around certain industries then products would be designed differently.

The government has a role in this- so do the people- and the companies within Australia.

When a company sets a certain dress code at work- for example- they are "unwittingly" creating a barrier to entry- ie. a border.

All of the institutions have a role in this- the media, government, councils, bureaucracy, businesses, etc...

Too many have had it too undeservedly good in Australia at the expense of everyday Citizens & I just hope that the COVID-19 situation has done enough to wake the crooks to stop cooking the books.
Govt bureaucrats need to made accountable as of right now !! Close the loopholes, get rid of negative gearing, introduce flat tax for wage earners & a flat tax for companies local AND foreign operating in this Nation !

Individual said- "There's an application for a new silica mine in Nth Qld by a Chinese company. Why the hell can't we have an Australian outfit mining & exporting ??"

Answer-

This is an interesting point.

A quick Wikipedia search says... About 95% of the commercial use of silicon dioxide (sand) occurs in the construction industry, e.g. for the production of concrete (Portland cement concrete).

Why does China want the silica?

I don't see China as exporting concrete products perhaps they need it for construction in China or their geopolitical development activities in other places such as Africa and South East Asia.

How does Australia benefit primarily?

Historically Australia has sold natural resources sometimes up to 30% of GDP. This tends to be a low value added activity with limited creative input. If Australia has control over key resources they should use this control/ power to create high value finished goods. Probably in situ where practical.

Notice foreign entities buying up resources and resource processing capacity more and more.

Indian steel magnate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshmi_Mittal

http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-8163-indian-steel-magnate-named-britains-richest-man

Any country has resource security considerations while not every internal requirement for a resource can be satisfied internally there should be an effort to source internally where possible- but as Hasbeen has said there are factors such as transportation costs that are critical to practicality. This leads me to think that Australian controlled local shipping routes from Melbourne to Brisbane and perhaps to South East Asia could be used to insulate Australia from geopolitical transport effects and protect our production capacity.

Canem Malum,
fyi

2A1122248_DRX.pdf