Somewhat debatable whether Australia should be looking towards either Japan or China, or starting to look at what we sell, and what others want.

There were 61 ships waiting off the coast of Mackay, QLD waiting to load coal. About 12 months later this number had dropped to 16. The QLD government has forecast a deficient for next year’s budget, as it was reliant on coal exports to prop up its spending.

This is in the so called “smart state”, but there isn’t that much that is smart about selling coal and then importing every type of value added product imaginable.

Another way around the problems about to beset Australia is to reduce the imports and start value adding, just like Japan and China.

Vanna, your comment is very pertinent, but the truth is it's exactly what was said about Australia way back in the 1980s when the big debate was: should we become a quarry or go for value adding? It seems the quarry was the more attractive option because it yielded bigger short term profits - which are now evaporating. Which suggests to me we are reluctant to learn anything, regardless of the object lesson, about how to create long term benefits. Now we are trying to do it in a rush in response to a financial crisis there will be serious inefficiencies and mistakes

Tony,
I would agree that it is back to the argument of import or produce something other than coal.

How to start the process of value adding would have to start with government departments, and in particular it would have to start in the education systems. Unfortunately there is almost 0 use of Australian made products in the education systems, and this then teaches the students to use imported products only, and to never develop anything themselves. Eventually we lose all ability to develop something even if we wanted to.

There are now 2 forces in operation in Australia. There are those that want to develop something, so that we are not forever reliant on countries such as China and Japan, and there are those such as members of the education system that want to import every conceivable item they can possibly import using taxpayer funding.

When a state or federal government runs a deficient, it means that the money has run out. So eventually there is no other choice but to reduce the imports and start producing more of what we use.