Once upon a time, many ordinary household items were Australian made but now days every second thing appears to be made in China or someplace else.

I just bought the wife a small portable TV and as usual it's made in some place that I've never heard of, on this particular one it says 'Built in Antena'.

I think you have your calculation wrong "now days every second thing appears to be made in China or someplace else."

I would suggest it is much more than every second item, we hardly make anything now.

Import, import then import more. Blame our politicians.

Yes mine is from plug in here, strange country.

It's been the case for a long time now; our political class exports jobs, but still imports people. It makes no sense to me, but the politicians don't give a sh-t about what makes sense to me. Australia is being hollowed out quite quickly now.

Usually cricket balls come from India or here but recently a player bowled a made in Over . They must have extra stitches for spin.

"Yes mine is from plug in here, strange country."
No it just means you don't have to post it back for re-charging.

I recently stopped using a cheap $65 twin hotplate because it started to wear out after 5 years.
I saw an australian made one advertised as being commercial quality & I forked out $360 + $25 postage from melboune.
Needless to say when I got it there was no light to indicate that power was on & the top started sagging so the oil in the pan runs to one side on a perfectly level bench top.

I got so fed up with this "australian made commercial quality" product that I mothballed it & ended up with a Kogan Induction stove hotplate for $ 39 which is the best hotplate I have ever used.

Bleeding Aldis! beggars importing all that foreign food! beggars, they know shoppers will buy the cheap stuff
Radios we do not make them here, cost three times the price to buy if we did.
Yes Alf Garnett thinks it is our governments fault we buy on price
Business come about when proofit can be made.

//now days every second thing appears to be made in China or someplace else.//

Hang on, where is the other half of everything built once you've excluded China and not-China?

'Built in Antena'.
Is Mise,
You're lucky to get hold of that Tv because as far as I know Australia doesn't have a trade agreement yet with Antena. ;-)

They tried but the typo blocked it.

Is Mise,

I thought about how many things that I buy are made
in Australia. My fruit and vegies are. My meat and fish
are. My honey and cheese and dairy products are. My
cakes and bikkies are. So in all I guess it's our
food products as well as our services -
that are predominantly local.

As for having so many imports? That's the result of Australian
manufactured products having priced themselves out of the
market. And of course the government has a lot to do with
that by allowing cheap products into the country. For example
tourism - it's cheaper to go to Asia and the Pacific than to
have a holiday in Australia.

Have you seen the price for a politician in Australia? Thank goodness for Coles going down even if they overpay farmers who can survive on goannas and yams.

And of course the government has a lot to do with
that by allowing cheap products into the country. For example
tourism - it's cheaper to go to Asia and the Pacific than to
have a holiday in Australia.
Foxy,
Wage demands have ruined manufacturing here & yes the opportunistic nature of Australians is taking advantage of the lower costs for asian holidays plus there is something to do in those places & there is culture to experience.
I'm still waiting for a wages freeze & a 10% cut in public service salaries so Australia can start manufacturing again. Tourism will stagnate because of all the regulations that prohibit enjoyment.

indy maybe we should import Asians to work here on the wages they get over there.
We could build wider gutters for them and Australians we put out of work to sleep in.
Send in the water trucks to spray them and get them out of bed just before the sun rises.

Way way back in a far better time & place, I was technical service officer for the Australian distributor of Cycolac, ABS plastic. That is the good engineering stuff used to build half the world today. The appliance, phone & automotive industries were our biggest customers.

In Sydney alone we supplied AWA, HMV, EMI, Philips, Admiral, Sunbeam & a couple of others whose names I forget now, with raw material to build their TV sets, portable radios, hair dryers & the like.

With Halstrom we developed the world's first ever fridge, with built in shelves in the door liner. In fact Oz led the way with many products. Our market was small enough to allow some hand finishing, & to try new ways of doing things reasonably inexpensively.

In 71 I went off cruising first the Great Barrier Reef, then the Pacific island, then along came Whitlam. I couldn't believe it when I was hearing about 30% wage rises. I wondered if there would be any industry to come back to. I was right, when I came back most of those I had supplied were no more, or simply importers rebadging stuff.

I couldn't believe how much I had to pay a deckhand or an office girl, it was ridiculous. Then I found it was much harder for them to live on those now high wages. We had managed with Whitlam to stuff the entire balance, so the now very high wages were not enough for workers to live on even poorly.

Hawke & Keating tried hard, but never got the balance back, & we have been chasing our tails ever since.

Indi, correct.
There are those who do not want to accept the truth/facts, but thankfully, they hold no sway on the truth so it is out there in spite of them.
The truth is, as you rightly say, that the demise of Australia and it's wealth and status, is directly attributed to the UNIONS firstly, and the govt's secondly.
Had the unions not pushed so aggressively for wage increases we would still be viable, in every sector.
Then the govt did nothing about curbing this disturbing assault on our industries.
Followed by the more mentally deranged and totally mis-giuded, the 'protestors', who protest at the drop of a hat.
None of them have a grasp on what they are about, let alone reality.
So between these groups, better known as AUSSIES, they have successfully brought down the Manufacturing, and Export industries, but to what end?
I fear the obvious, but ultimately WE will be the biggest losers.
The guilty parties are set by either receiving the dole or getting a handsome pension, that we, the plebs, could only dream about.
So, as for 'Trying to buy Australian Made', is a dream too far away and as already pointed out, all that's left is agriculture, and they've already stared killing what's left of the Aussie farming products.
The dairy/milk farmers, the egg farmers, canaries and the list goes on.
My predictions of many years ago are now coming to fruition.
I forecast the collapse of the housing industry to a level of around 30 to 40%, which will only happen because everyone is in love with inflation, well now YOUR gonna pay for it.
Our wages will drop, in spite of the unions, and that's the way it should be, so we can become viable again.
Another thing we must resist or reject is inflation.
This is just the 'ramp up' part of a ponzi cycle.
The GFC's we experience are the 'downward' cycles, so a small and flatter inflation is desirable to us the consumer, 2-3% at the most.
Inflation helps the thieves who prey on our mis-fortunes, they create.

Hasbeen at least your opinion is one you support with some truths.
Radio nut all my life and even worked briefly in the then new AWA factory in my explore the big city days.
House full of silent ham radio gear all from other countries.
Understand your thoughts but.
If we agreed to take pay rates back to the mid 1970,s we would still not build electronics here.
if we closed our doors to importing goods, we would also see them closed to some exports.Many victims of free world trade exist, but many more prosper because of it.
LIFESTYLE are we to even consider that wage earners MUST suffer great falls, forever, so we can in part become a class society and have a forever hungry working class?

What would be the greatest expense to Australia ? Defence ? Health ? Law & Order (for want of a better description) ?
From my experience Education & the Public Service are the biggest Dollar guzzlers, not the actual service but the bureaucrats if we consider the value we get for our tax dollars.
Politicians are up there in the ranks with waste vastly outnumbering value.
Govt taxes are over the top. Qld vehicle registration is nothing short of insane.

The economic outlook for Australia according to
the experts remains positive, with the economy
expected to sustain its 29 year recession-free
track record out to 2020. However, we're told that
a potential slowdown in jobs growth, rising household
debt, and weak exports could pose challenges.

There's more on the following link:

http://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/economy/asia-pacific/australia-economic-outlook.html

Perfection is never possible, the task most governments have is to please as many as they can.
Buying Australian isa complex issue, I paid more, for every iten Dick Smith sold.
Young visitors far too impressed with themselves said I was just being hard to get on with, for not buying Vegemite then owned by others than Australians

Belly are you trying to copy nicknamenick, very unbecoming.

Quote
"Bleeding Aldis! beggars importing all that foreign food! beggars, they know shoppers will buy the cheap stuff
Radios we do not make them here, cost three times the price to buy if we did.
Yes Alf Garnett thinks it is our governments fault we buy on price
Business come about when proofit can be made."

in effect you accuse me of lowing the standard of debate?
thought we reached the cellar long ago.
My thoughts are in fact the truth.
We are, like it or not, forever part of world trade
any retreat would indeed make us a banana republic.
Dick Smith saved farmers sold us products and donated the profit, we still would not buy them.
Would you open a factory making a product, selling for a third of your price? madness to not see it can never be

Trying to buy Australian Made is not so straight
forward. I've found that Made in Australia labels
on products often can be deceiving. In some
cases they're - packaged in Australia not Made in
Australia. Also check the ingredients for food
products - not all of the foods contain Australian
products - grown in Australia - often they're from
somewhere else. Aldi is notorious with their labelling
as is Woollies. Coles seems to be more clear.

Hasbeen,

You hit the nail on the head.

My father was a Blacksmith with the NSW Govt. Railways, my mother never had to work, yet dad bought a block of land in Regent's Park (Sydney), built a house himself, had a second hand ute and never had a mortgage.

Can't do that these days on a tradesman's wages.

My first house was in a country town as was the second and I paid cash for them on an Armourer's wages in the first instance and on a Shire Council employee's in the second.

Just looked up the second town and the only thing for sale at the moment is a block of land for $89,000

Times has changed!!

Isi, too right.
As a younger guy in my early 20's, I had saved enough (the majority) to buy a house.
Borrowed the lesser amount from someone, and repaid in a few months.
Went on to buy another, then realised people are pigs, so got out of residential and went into industrial.
Never looked back, the right decision.
Accumulated eight or nine properties eventually, even managed a weekender, (which I still own as of over 30 years ago, haven't been there thirty times, the family and friends use it more than I. It's not really me)now that I am at an age, doing less, health and all that, I'm in a slow sell phase.
The point I'm making, by example is, that the reasons people can't afford to buy a house today are many, such as the obvious one; price, but hang on, they insist on buying $7-800,000 homes.
These people are fools.
They suffer from the 'look at moi' syndrome.
Aussies are amongst the most arrogant in the world, they're show-offs, poser's.
The obvious answer is to buy a cheaper home as a first home, which they CAN afford.
Then as the family grows out of the first home they move up to a larger one.
Another problem is that they also want all the 'toys'.
Well guess what?
You can't!
I'm sick of hearing how they are working two or three jobs, and how they both have to work to pay off the house.
They never mention the 'toys'.
So the moral of the story is; save when your young, then you can retire well off when you're old.
BTW idiots, THAT'S when you buy your toys.
I'm qualified to speak, I have a weekender, even though I don't use it, a 30 odd foot Scarab (Miami Vice), assorted Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Caddy Convertible aaaaand the list goes on.
A bit of advice for all you brainiacs, I'll let you in on the secret to my success.
My mantra has always been; I LIVE TO WORK!
Definitely NOT I work to live.
If you disagree, well good luck.

To those who yearn for a return to the huge domestic manufacturing sector of half a century ago, please answer me this:

why should our workers bother with the low value work of putting things together when they're capable of doing much higher value work?

___________________________________________________________________________________

ALTRAV,
"Our wages will drop, in spite of the unions, and that's the way it should be, so we can become viable again."
If our industry is globally uncompetitive, we don't need to drop our wages. Instead the markets will drop our dollar so that we become viable again. Indeed you may not have noticed it, but that's already happened over the past year or two, and has sparked a manufacturing boom.

Aidan, agreed, the dollar has stepped in to help the situation. Unfortunately we don't have a very strong manufacturing/labour base, so the dollar will help to fill the void.
I fear for the industries we have left, like livestock exports and a few others that are under constant threat by the Greens, left leaning, tree hugging un-informed, mentally deficient protestors out there.
They already had a good go at the live cattle exports, and now are still at it, trying to kill the live sheep export trade.
With the dollar so low, now is the time to push hard, so I am in dis-belief that these idiot protestors would try to sabotage what is one of the few exports we can benefit from.
Sure we still have minerals and agriculture, but it's not enough.
With things in decline we need all the help we can get if we are to avoid a recession or worse, a depression!

Too many workers in Australia are not value for money. That's why the economy is so dreadfully unbalanced.
The Public Service is is simply out of control in regard to salaries value for money.
Negative gearing is the single most negative factor that unbalances all economic..

Individual, what is so special about negative gearing?

Every industry, & rental housing since the beginning of Oz, has been able to claim the interest on capital borrowed to earn a profit as a tax deduction. It did in times of rapid house price growth, help many make a capital gains profit, but borrowing to fund any business was very profitable during such times.

In fact it looks very much like the worm is about to turn right now. People over geared in a falling market will make huge losses, with the help of negative gearing.

Many people in Perth are already in trouble, as they can not get even near the amount they owe on their rental property. Gladstone & MacKay are also about to see many bankruptcies, as banks call in under capitalised loans, due to falling valuations.

So negative gearing has helped make some wealthy on paper, but it is going to send a lot broke, if the predicted 20% fall in housing values comes to pass.

The falling dollar is correcting some excesses. 6 years ago my property was worth about US$1,000,000. Today with our dollar going through the floor, about US$650,000. About half a million US is probably it's realistic value. Fortunately when you have no borrowings it doesn't effect you much.

I think next year will be a good time for the cashed up to buy houses, in a low market.

At the same time I recently noticed that a remote control plane I bought for $108 a couple of years ago, advertised for $215 today. It looks like we are about to come back to earth, & not very gently. Just like petrol, our dollar is not going to buy much imported stuff.

Aidan, I empathise and understand, my brother has his own engineering business and is a 'preferred supplier' to some of the big miners.
He has been ramping back up to about 130 staff, where he was before the last downturn.
The mines called a meeting of suppliers and unlike 30 or 40 years ago, this time they are openly saying that they will have to 'sharpen their pencils', this time around.
So they are not throwing money at anyone anymore, this is indicative of our times.
As I have said before, this has to happen because the companies have been held at 'gun point' for too long and we have priced ourselves 'out of the market'.
I hope the low dollar will help, in the short term at least.
Our ratio of 'good workers', has always been low.
I found it was not so much ability but attitude, basically Aussies are not into working.
I found they are immature and lacking in responsible behaviour.
This is confirmed by their behaviour when they get 'pissed'.
All in all we cannot expect 'worlds best attitudes' from the Aussie worker, and so it is that the 457's came to being.
I have watched in awe at a group of mainland Chinese workers, (I think they were welders) and boy I could not get over how focused, and quick they were, and the welds were impeccable.
So with the influx of immigrants, I would be worried if I was an Aussie worker.

If negative gearing were used what it was designed for then yes, it would help but unfortunately, the highly opportunistic mentality here has hijacked negative gearing. It has become nothing than a massive misuse for greed mongers & the working class has to foot the bill for the rorters.
It's an economic nightmare & needs to be seriously controlled.