the problem is that every society has a spectrum of humanity, bright, dim, and everything in between. when you move the simple jobs offshore, you disconnect part of the oz people from any chance to participate in society. and it's not just the bottom: a lot of tradesmen have been made redundant by tariff reduction, and nowadays even high level i t jobs are traveling to india and china.

we will have to rely on everyone to defend oz when the next serious war comes along. and it will.. if we take the view that some are dispensable now, which side will they be on then? if we throw people away, can we be surprised if they steal, mug, deal drugs?

are high tariffs the answer? most say no, but they are people who profit from saying "no". a society that doesn't spend enough money on educating it's children is creating an underclass which cannot respond to globalization. when good education and job training are available for everyone there is a case for globalization, but the same people who press this case also want to spend education money on private schools while starving the public system. simple hypocrisy is the only way to characterize this behavior.

"when you move the simple jobs offshore, you disconnect part of the oz people from any chance to participate in society.

Not necessarily. All human labour, even toilet cleaning, is highly priced in Australia at the moment. You can't shift toilet cleaning overseas.

"and it's not just the bottom: a lot of tradesmen have been made redundant by tariff reduction

Most plumbers are currently getting paid a lot more than me.

"we will have to rely on everyone to defend oz when the next serious war comes along. and it will..

It might. It might not. Setting up trade barriers to restrict the spread of wealth to poor countries will drastically increase the risk of war. There is no limit to the amount of wealth that can be created. There is no need to try to hoarde it. It hurts ourselves just as much as it hurts everyone else. If the war comes, it will the societies that have opened themselves to competition that do best, not the backwards looking protectionist societies. The rest of the world will move on without us if they have to.

"are high tariffs the answer? most say no, but they are people who profit from saying "no".

There are far more locals that profit significantly from sAying yes than from saying no. The politics is definitely in favour of protection, because the benefit is spread far mroe thinly from free trade.

"a society that doesn't spend enough money on educating it's children is creating an underclass

red herring

For over 20 years, long before it became a fad, I marketed a range of water/energy saving equiptment. This gear was made to last, so most of it was brass, much of it chrome plated, with parts made for us by a number of Oz companies.

Competitors appeared, with imported products, at prices we could not even approach, & forced us to go offshore for components.

What I could not understand was how Asian manufacturers could supply products, to our design, finished, [chrome plated, & assembled, with a couple of seals] for less than the cost of the brass in Oz.

We still exported some Oz products, where we had patent protection, but I lost a lot of enthusiasm for the business the first time our imports exceeded our exports.

One of these days I must look into why our brass is so expensive, now I have the time.

Could it be that those overseas countries can manufacture cheaper than Australia because they don't have such an immorally huge public service to keep. i.e. nearly half of australia's working population is in the public service & under very generous conditions. Apart from paying GST this massive sector is not producing any revenue. On the contrary, it is the greatest gobbler of public funding. The productive sector does not automatically get those huge Super payments, it has to fund it's own ! The horrifying fact is that bureaucracy is using up more than it produces, whereas the manufacturing sector is paying more than it can sell.
The end result is that public funding is being constantly used to prop up a flailing manufacturing sector and the consumer goes for the cheaper imports. It is a downward spiral that can only be pulled out from by getting serious with a wage system based on performance & need. without exception, all higher ranking public servants are paid too much with little or no contribution to our society. It is an undeniable fact that most of the economic problems in today's society stem from the utterly useless & excessively costly bureaucracy. How can we ever expect to get on top of these problems when non-performing public servants can only be removed from a position through promotion.

Quote from Rev Dr Gordon Moyes NSW Upper House.
Every item on sale was made in China. China has become the factory of the world. America is the supermarket. India has become the call-centre for air flights, insurance policies and details of your banking. India has become the IT department for the world. Australia no longer manufactures goods but as the resources boom indicates, we have become the quarry of the world with all our supplies of iron ore, bauxite, nickel and so on. 3. People do not care where a product is made, or how these goods ship our jobs overseas, they only care about the price.

Most jobs in manufacturing industries have now gone to China. All computer tasks are now done in India. Ford motorcar engines are no longer made in Geelong, that work has gone to Mexico and the Philippines.

The coming of the threshing machines caused the Tolpuddle martyrs to break them in a vain attempt to stop the agricultural revolution. For their trouble they were sent as convicts to Sydney. The Industrial revolution caused children and women to work in mines and factories until machines took their jobs. Today the issue is globalization, one world, one labour force, one manufacturer, one communication network and many points of sales.

Some Australian companies are doing well, BHP Billiton is digging quarries everywhere. Rio Tinto employs hundreds of thousands in a dozen countries. Manchester United won at Wembley in the new Multiplex stadium. Rupert Murdoch amuses the world on their TV’s and teaches them to read his newspapers. The Chinese Olympics are being run by Australian designers, architects, stage promoters and officials.
The nations of the world are becoming more economically inter-dependent, but their leaders are coming to Sydney to discuss it because we can do that best and most securely.

Most of us aren't happy with our loss of jobs overseas, and tables loaded with food grown and processed under uncertain hygiene. Some advocate putting up shutters, fighting free trade with protective barriers and heavy duties. They are the modern day Tolpuddle martyrs.
cont

People want to buy better goods at a cheaper price regardless.

It doesn't much matter that your tennis shoes are made overseas, because the rest of your wardrobes comes from there anyhow. You don't know where your computer parts are made and your programs are written. But it wasn't in Australia. You might think your credit card charges are entered in somewhere down the road, but it probably was in Mumbai. That is closer to your bank records than you are. Even your on-line tax preparer is somewhere else. You may think your surgeon is looking at your X-rays, but he is taking advice from a panel of experts in USA who have your internals on their computer screens.

Protectionism always backfires. Protecting old jobs is never as good as creating new ones. For the first time in human history world poverty is being beaten, not by gifts from wealthy countries, but because even the poorest of countries can do something for the global market. Trade always beats aid. The money we spend in India, China, Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines and so on is being multiplied there beyond all our aid.

What can we do about it? Make sure our education system is at world best practise. Train our youth to be creative. Encourage your grandchildren to take jobs that can't be sent overseas like high-cost hair-dressers, (they can't do that in Mumbai!) or home renovators, or in the arts, maths and science, or in the repair and installation industries, or human services, teaching, nursing, medicine, dentistry, hospitality, green engineering, and so on. Quality will always count.

Some Christians want to hold onto what it was like when we were very young. They do not like change and are fearful for our future. Their preferred gear is reverse. But the global revolution is all over us, and like it or not, we have already accepted its benefits. Now we must find our future by thinking creatively, and by looking to the future because that is where God is.
Rev The Hon Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC