I stand by what I said. Henry didn't chew my ears off either. There is nothing that cannot be built in Australia if the mindset is corrected. I am sick of this totally defeatist "received wisdom" promulgated by the public service economists at the behest of commodity producers (price takers) in mining and farming.
We can and do make high value added elaborately transformed manufactures in Australia, I visited over 200 companies doing just that in my time with Government, they don't whinge, they shut up and make money despite "high labour costs" and all the other BS spouted by ill informed, lazy, know nothing commentators.
Here's an example Aero, around 1990 I was wheeled into a VP's office at GE Commercial engines division in Cincinatti and asked if Hawker would like a ten percent share of the new engine they were developing for the B777(?) we were building F404's successfully as well as suppplying GE with T700 frames, cases, turbine blades and other componetry.
GE wanted no more than Ten partners, you pay your tenth of development costs and you get the section of the engine to manufacture for life. GE's development budget was Five billion. That project would have provided at least a thousand jobs at Fishermans bend for decades.
I didn't even put the offer to management because I knew they couldn't finance it, partly because the Bankers don't want to understand manufacturing, the tax system penalises manufacturing compared to property development and the wankers in Canberra would tell you we couldn't possibly be competitive anyway. At the same time as I was contemplating this offer, assclowns like Alan Bond and similar folk were speculating in the billions, producing nothing of any value as the darlings of the share market.
As for the car companies, the real reason they aren't manufacturing in Australia is that our Government , now dominated by miners and farmers, doesn't want them here and plenty of other governments do.
Here some new information for you Aero, "economies of scale" are dead. They have been for Thirty years. The whole Kanban system and automation is designed to make the economic order quantity equal One unit. Frthermore, Australias relatively low volumes made the Australian component manufacturers masters of quick change tooling - they had to be. the result of that was that companies like Nippon Denso channelled a lot of short run low volume production to Australia because we could do it faster.
Did you know that Hawkers at Fishermans bend developed double cut plunge grinding of turbine blade roots? It doubled production rates and improved quality out of sight. GE forced us to give them the technology, they have a habit of being technology thieves almost as bad as the Israelis. There are whole swags of technologies where we compete very successfully internationally despite the obstacles the effing Government puts in our way.
Did you know that despite "free trade" agreements America viciously protects its manufacturing base? Mahindra will get the red carpet treatment from Washington State and the U.S. Federal Government for bringing the production line to America, back hander subsidies and grants included.
The reason we don't have more manufacturing in Australia is learned helplessness. The expert keep telling you it can't be done and are determined to prove themselves correct.