Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese wants you to “buy Australian”. At the NSW state Labor conference this weekend, the Opposition Leader announced a 10-point plan to boost domestic manufacturing. If elected, Labor will establish a “made in Australia” office designed to make it easier for small and mid-tier companies to win domestic procurement tenders.
“Australians do their best to patronise local businesses, knowing our hard-earned money supports the wages of our friends, neighbours and local community,” Albanese said.
“Governments should recognise this principle in its own purchases and activities.”
Albanese’s plan also includes promises to implement “secure job codes”, which would guide procurement contracts toward companies with good employment practices, and crack down on the use of offshore tax havens. Labor will also develop industry plans to boost local manufacturing in sectors like textiles, clothing and renewables and push for Commonwealth investments in job creation and emissions reduction.
More ‘manufacturing fetishism’
If that all sounds a little vague to you, you’d be correct. The “buy Australian” plan is the latest low-key offering in Labor’s small-target, slogan-heavy election strategy.
Chastened by their shock 2019 defeat, where a large and sometimes cumbersome agenda opened up ample lines of attack for Scott Morrison, the opposition have opted for a strategy of policy restraint.
Albanese’s vaguely protectionist list of policies is relatively low-risk because, as independent economist Saul Eslake suggests, there’s a generally bipartisan “manufacturing fetishism” in Australia — one which sees building things domestically as inherently virtuous even when it doesn’t always make economic sense to do so.
“Up to a point, I understand why governments will try to make room for local suppliers for government procurement contracts,” Eslake said.
“Bearing in mind governments are spending taxpayers’ money, there ought to be some upper limit to the amount of preference extended to local manufacturers.”
In reality, Australia’s manufacturing sector struggles because it lacks a large domestic market, is geographically distant from potential export markets and is essentially squeezed out by mining and agriculture, both being substantially larger than is normal in most industrialised economies.
Despite backing away from some of the more ambitious elements of their 2019 agenda, the push for more domestic manufacturing is a return to familiar ground for Labor. Under Bill Shorten, Labor went to two election campaigns with rhetoric about building “Australian first”. In 2017, then-leader Shorten unveiled an Employ Australians First campaign, quickly cancelled for using an advertisement featuring only white people.
A quiet conference
The “buy Australian” campaign was the major federal policy announcement out of a NSW state conference overshadowed by Sydney’s final weekend before restrictions eased, and the ongoing fallout from former state premier Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation.
The conference also followed fears Labor’s historically dominant NSW Right could lose key votes after Health Services Union secretary Gerard Hayes promised to split from the faction over Kristina Keneally’s parachuting into the south-west Sydney seat of Fowler.
The state conference did not endorse progressive positions on more contentious policy issues, with resolutions fiercely critical of Israel, and calling for NSW Labor to oppose offshore processing, both failing to get up.
Meanwhile, resolutions calling for better engagement and consultation with culturally and linguistically diverse communities were accepted, as controversy over Vietnamese Australian Tu Le’s snubbing for preselection in Fowler highlighted the party’s recent struggles to connect with multicultural voters.
Slogan heavy compared to what? The three word boofheads in the LNP? Listen mate when I was a kid we could make bloody near everything in Australia including jet fighters. Now we make bugger all and baristas are somehow a good job?? One income would build a modest house. Tell me how what we have today is better, when both partners HAVE to work and childcare is outsource for profit.
Agree but this is down to many things. The Australian obsession with property, expectations that “I am entitled to everything now”, poor financial nous, the list goes on. Most households have multiple cars, massive mcmansions. Many consider Private School as Mandatory rather than discretionary. Same with Overseas Holidays. Our expectations of living standards have risen which increases our income requirements. In short, we priced ourselves out of the manufacturing market. Manufacturers will always go for the lowest cost.
Yep – manufacturers will always go for lowest cost because their customers (ie us) always want lowest price. The key thing always left out of these dicussions is how much extra you (or me) are prepared to pay for the essential lifestyle widget. The answer is usually nothing.
Indeed – and when the China-bashers start tweeting their blood-curdling warnings, they do so on iPhones made in China.
Seems that everything is made in China whether you want it to or not. Our first Saxon wood heater was built in Campbelltown, Tasmania the next in Queensland somewhere, and now we have just bought what we thought was an identical one which turns out to be built in China. It is a dud.
Everything gets built to a price everywhere. No doubt it was cheaper?
When given the choice of earning more, or paying less, aussies seem to prefer the pay-less option – even if it means freezing their own wage growth forever. Inflation has become the dreaded bogeyman.
I also question what people are prepared to do to improve their income or reduce debt such as further study, relocation and debt reduction. I had both a full time job, part time job and was studying in my early 20’s. Bought a small first home, furnished it gradually, 1 car, no OS holidays etc etc to keep debt levels down. Paid off 3 mortgages in under 5 years each.
Excuse me, but who is “we”? I don’t see any of these obsessions out in the regions or in the poorer areas of our cities.. most of us are just struggling to put a roof over our heads.
Maybe you live in a different place to the rest of us and therefore have a bias in viewpoint.
Manufacturers will go to countries where they can get a cheap, slave workforce. We should be ashamed of ourselves for taking their products. We also poach people with skills from countries that can ill afford to lose them. We don’t even pay for our own skills training any more.
“We” have swapped making lasting things for making coffee.
In effect, “Digging the cheap ingredients out of the ground – then sending them out to be value added brewed – to buy them back in.”
“Head Profits First Office” being located off-shore – and Mammon forbid we buck their “system”.
Great comment, ogo! I remember those days too…where we made stuff, and everyone had a job. We didn’t have ‘over-the-top immigration, and everything wasn’t about ‘growth’. Growth is associated with cancer in my mind…so why would we want to go down that road???
At least Labor has a plan and is willing to discuss it. All the Coalition has is mantra followed by avoidance of discussion and and shut-down of debate. They have no substantial plans for Australias, all talk no action. We have to start somewhere so I see Labor as a starting point and the Coalition as a dead end with toxic mantra.
I’ll go with this comment. I am disgusted with the Labor party, but what alternative do we have?
My hope is that, at the next election, we will have sufficient independents to keep in line any government, whether tory or faux labor. Perhaps integrity and competence might again become a reason for electing someone.
Problem being, that too many “Independents” are “Coalition in sheep’s clothing” – voting with the government most of the time, and only ‘coming out’ when they can smell an election in the air.
Many Labor in Opposition are sheep in wolves’ clothing – if they are gutless then it is as nothing compared to when in office, however rarely.
Surely recent border closures and supply line problems have highlighted the desirability of at least some local manufacturing.
“… there’s a generally bipartisan “manufacturing fetishism” in Australia — one which sees building things domestically as inherently virtuous even when it doesn’t always make economic sense to do so.”
There is much more to consider than economic sense. Woopwoop captures it here but it can go much further and make sense on a whole lot of grounds even though it may not make sense economically. Making ‘economic sense’ should be seen as the last refuge of the scoundrel.
I’m not sure that makes the case for building submarines here, but you can make a damn good case for processing ores, making batteries, solar panels and god forbid, an electric car here. Not necessarily economic sense, but maybe some damn good strategic sense.
Unless you think that importing oil and only ever having a months supply on hand makes good strategic sense.
Agreed. My car does not run on coal.
It’s not impossible – for years after WWII many old side bangers ran on wood or coal gas.
I still recall those great canvas bags on the roofs and they cost almost nothing to power.
Hey, we paid U$100M last year to ensure access to our reserve stocks held – in Texas, I think – just in case of disruption to international trade routes which cuts off our lifeblood of TAPIS from Malaysia/Singapore.
I saw a video on YouTube rating Australia’s economy, and asking whether it is an advanced economy. The conclusion was that it wasn’t really, and had some traits of developing economies – relying on primary industry and tourism for export income.
‘Some’ of the traits? I would suggest ‘many’ of the traits. Australia barely scrapes into the top 100 on the scale that measures economic complexity and similar matters. The last time I looked we were approx 94th.
It was a Harvard study last year, I think. Said we had a primitive economy and little hope of changing that. The Australia Institute has, however, done some great work on manufacturing, value adding, building on our excellent R&D capacity in some fields. God forbid Crikey should actually consult TAI material.
Or we could just take in each other’s laundry and becomerich by constantly raising the price per scungy.
Not a good idea for me doing others laundry, bleach bottle fell over in laundry basket..have a whole new wardrobe now and yeah some holier than thou clothes..
Not necessarily as the list is mostly primary and/or assembled goods i.e. low value added (remember Keating?) which are often produced using mobile global contract manufacturers, against which Australia has to compete with nations that have both lower cost inputs and skilled workers e.g. China on smartphones.
Backgrounded in the developing and less developed worlds by increasing dependency ratios i.e. more pensioners or retirees with a proportionate decline in working age (tax paying) populations; see UK post Brexit (many in Oz have similar sentiments) dealing with truck driver shortages, it’s a competition for labour but Brexit was voted for by many no longer in the workforce nor understanding supply chains…..
There is a deeper issue with Australia when e.g. it was leading the world in solar cell technology in the ’70s, for that expertise to be quietly buried and/or exported for free, like wifi, while fossil fuels and established industry carried on as normal with neither innovation nor change…. conservative?
The federal government is worse than useless and the federal opposition is in a coma.
It’s hard to imagine the ALP could be worse than the LNP in government, but there’s not a lot to go on.
Thankfully, this “Buy Australian” thingie was just a temporary programming error. In fact, Anthony Who is still under the strictest levels of witness-protection, still automatically signing off on whatever the Menacing Wallpaper says.