It's often forgotten that manufacturing employs about a million Australians. Photo by Arsineh Houspian
by Mark Phillips
WHICHEVER way you look at it, Australian manufacturing is facing enormous challenges.
Each day seems to bring more bad headlines about factories closing, jobs being lost, or industries struggling to compete with cheaper overseas imports.
But on Sunday, the Gillard Government delivered a major vote of confidence in the future of manufacturing – which still employs about a million workers despite the tough times – by announcing a $1 billion jobs plan to help cement a diverse and sustainable economy that is not just reliant on mining.
The plan announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Industry Minister Greg Combet also included measures to support white-collar service sector jobs, which have also been impacted in recent years by offshoring.
The package is the result of many months of lobbying by Australian unions, who have been calling for a national plan to meet challenges posed by the high dollar, a failure to buy local, and other factors.
“If we ignore manufacturing, it will go away,” said the National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Paul Bastian.
“This is a plan that puts manufacturing and the one million people it employs, front and centre in a diverse Australian economy by addressing short and long term issues.
“This statement amounts to a comprehensive policy package that adopts the key recommendations businesses and unions called for in the non-government members’ Prime Minister’s Manufacturing Taskforce report.
“It is a credit to the Government that they have listened, consulted, deliberated and delivered.”
The key elements of the Government’s Industry and Innovation Statement, A Plan for Australian Jobs, include a new Australian Industry Participation Authority, backed by legislation, requiring major projects valued at over $500 million to give local industry better opportunities to win work.
This will be combined with reforms to the anti-dumping system to give stronger protection for Australian industry against unfair competition from overseas.
Other initiatives include a government investment of about $540 million in establishing up to 10 Industry Innovation Precincts where firms, research institutions, technology experts and business service providers can come together to share ideas and connections and build scale. The first two precincts will be in Melbourne and Adelaide.
The Government also announced a new $350 million round of the Innovation Investment Fund to stimulate private investment in Australian start-up companies, coupled with changes to venture capital tax arrangements.
“Quite frankly, this sector is too big to fail.”
Announcing the package during a visit to the Boeing Aerostructures plant in Port Melbourne on Sunday, Gillard acknowledged that strong industry was essential to create secure jobs.
“I believe that modern Australia can have a great blue-collar future,” Gillard said.
“We can continue to be a manufacturing nation, we can be a nation in which people make their living through blue-collar jobs. Blue-collar jobs that aren’t intermittent or insecure or low-paid; blue-collar jobs that are highly skilled and highly-paid.
“But we aren’t going to get there by accident. We have to make sure that we shape that future.”
The National Secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, Paul Howes, described the plan as a “game changer”.
“The Federal Government understands that the future of Australian jobs is the most important issue facing this country today,” he said.
“The sustained high level of the Australian dollar, which is now recognised as the most over-valued currency in the world, and shrinking global demand have hit Australian manufacturers for six.
“Manufacturing still employs over one million Australians. Quite frankly, this sector is too big to fail, and we have to put strategies in place to keep this sector alive.”
The Australian Industry Group said the package would lift opportunities for Australian manufacturing in both domestic and export markets, and foster innovation.
Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox said Australia needed to develop a more diverse and resilient economy as the mining boom “retreated”.
“The measures announced … come at a critical time for the economy, for businesses and for employees,” he said.
“With the boom in mining investment peaking, and with much of the rest of the economy buffeted by the headwinds of intense global competition; the very high Australian dollar; the legacy of well over a decade of low productivity growth; and sharply rising energy costs, these investments will expand opportunities for businesses across the economy and particularly in our manufacturing industries.”
Less heralded in Sunday’s announcement was the establishment of a services leaders group to advise government and drive reforms to address the off-shoring of jobs in the services sector.
“With more than 20,000 Australian services sector jobs lost off-shore each year, this announcement is a crucial step to securing the jobs of the future,” said Finance Sector Union National Secretary Leon Carter.
Mark Phillips is New Media Editor at the ACTU. Follow him on Twitter at @read_about_it
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