I thought we had put that one to bed, SteeleRedux.

>>“If the AWU was concerned with all Australians they would campaign to eliminate anti-dumping laws. Lower prices and a more competitive economy benefit unionists and non-unionists alike.” Is this the line you are taking?<<

Compared to the potential impact of "go-it-alone" economic isolationism, dumping is but a pin-prick. Nevertheless, I am hereby delighted to state that I am in complete agreement with the WTO on this, and believe it is a pernicious practice that requires eternal vigilance.

Now, back to the main event.

>>Perhaps it might be instructive to hear what you mean by “without severe social repercussion”.<<

To make sure you don't go off on a tangent again, I will repeat what I said earlier on the subject.

>>The concept that we can produce all the things we need and want through the sweat of our own brow and the strength of our own calloused hand, without severe social repercussion, is pure Utopia.<<

[Note: no mention of anti-dumping laws. Just thought I'd remind you]

The severe social repercussions I had in mind were massive unemployment on the one hand, and a debilitating depression on the other.

Were we to close our doors to manufacturing imports, we would need to develop our own industries to provide manufactured goods. This would need an enormous investment of government money - a.k.a. yours and mine - and would take many years to achieve. The resulting products would be, by definition, significantly more expensive than before, and because our taxes have been used to kick-start these businesses, we would be left with less with which to afford these goods. In short, we would rapidly pauperize ourselves.

Because of this, the factories would be unviable without even greater levels of investment, creating a vicious spiral of rising costs, lower production numbers, increased taxes and out-of-control rising unemployment.

Worse news is that this is a once-off exercise. Once embarked upon, it is a path that cannot be reversed, as we slowly but surely approach the standard of living currently enjoyed by, for example, North Korea.

SteeleRedux, "knowing the man as I thought I did from his writings I just couldn't fathom Banjo having written something of that ilk"

Maybe you were predisposed to take offence and that clouded your judgement. While I inadvertently omitted the author, it was not represented as anything that Banjo had written as is easily seen from the introductory wording and from the link given below. The intent was to show as stated, that there are bush poets in modern times who carry on the tradition of those who went before.

Introduction, " Rest in peace for there are OTHERS WHO FOLLOW YOU (my caps)"

The link given below,
http://www.bushverse.com/smf/index.php?topic=4517.0

Sheesh.

Pericles "protectionism is utopian."
"the utopian view that we don't need to import anything."

Have you heard anyone arguing we should make "all things" ourselves?
Protectionists readily admit it's not "ideal".
If it's not ideal, it's not utopian.

But with a tariff, we can make some things at not much greater cost than overseas.
People can always choose to buy the foreign version if they want. They're not banned, they're just taxed.

"perhaps you could explain how replacing imports will reduce unemployment."

Perhaps you could turn your brain on before your computer next time.

The benefit is that now thousands of Australians (not Chinese citizens) are earning a salary (not collecting the dole, which workers pay for), which they can spend on more goods and services, an exponential beneficial ripple that spreads far beyond their particular "inefficient" factory.

There is also the psychological boost, Australians seeing our government putting their own people first, for a change.

Your "severe social repercussions" are based on a ludicrous proposal, that *all* imports suddenly stop rather than gradually reducing *some* products over many decades, and the government, not private investors, are going to fund commercial infrastructure.

Again, *who* is proposing this nonsense? Not me.

You have an extremist absolutist definition of protectionism, that bears no resemblance to what anyone is proposing (i.e. a straw man).

Just as an illustration; about 30, or so, years ago the NSW Government were resurfacing the platforms of Sydney's Underground.

There were pallets of tiles at Town Hall station, all made in Korea; the week previous the tile factory at Lithgow (NSW) had closed as it couldn't get enough orders to continue production.

Is Mise,

There are plenty of examples, from the imported marble on a public edifice in Canberra to the throw-away shirts bought by the previous Qld government for police.

It is more down to stupid decisions on a case by case basis. There needs to be more independent audit, comprehensive audits not just financial ones.

In the 60s I was technical manager for the Oz branch of a very large international plastics raw material supplier.

We supplied the material for many parts of TV sets & manufactured by 7 companies in Sydney alone. For these companies to survive we had not only a 45% import duty on imported TVs, but a limit on the number of them allowed in.

They were called import quotas, & getting a quota was like a licence to print money. A bit like Labor mates getting mining leases to day.

We were pretty proud & happy with our products them. What we weren't so happy about was paying 6 weeks salary for a 21 inch black & white TV.

The same went for cars. We were leading the world in some areas of replacing metal with plastic. We produced the worlds first ever plastic dash for Holden. We were proud & happy with that, but not so happy that the cheapest cars were a years salary.

Yes we could make these things again, but the cost of capital goods would see us back eating bread & dripping for dinner a couple of nights a week.

How here remember eating bread & dripping, in fact, how many know what dripping is?