We look back from the high hill of historical hindsight and wonder how they let the two world wars happen. Why, in 1914, “did humanity gape at the guns and do nothing?”, as Wells wrote. Why, in 1936, did Britain and France do nothing to stop the aggressive expansion of Nazi Germany, whom they could have defeated on a whim, and then waste the following years watching Hitler build up Germany’s military might?
Future generations may well look back on the mid-2020s, and ask: how did they let it happen? How, when an authoritarian regime with aggressively expansionist ambitions was on the march, did Western nations do worse than nothing?
Most especially, how did we willingly allow our defence-critical industrial base to collapse, while we poured a river of gold into China’s coffers in return for a tidal wave of cheap crap? Even mechanically oriented YouTubers are pointing out that any tools made in the last decade or so are utter crap. Not coincidentally, they’re all made in China.
Because, here in the West, we just don’t make things any more.
Australia’s manufacturing industry has been in terminal decline for decades as increased labour and energy costs, combined with worker shortages, have made local production uncompetitive with overseas options.
Governments have been some of the biggest parts of the problem.
It’s a problem the Albanese government has tried to address with its ‘Future Made in Australia’ policy, which has set aside billions to support a handful of industries, with an eye on helping Australia transition to net zero.
The government is pouring billions into the very industries that are causing the problem. The reason nobody makes things here any more is the same reason they’ve stopped making them in even Germany: the staggering cost of energy. The culprit behind that is ‘Net Zero’.
Worse, Australia is at dire risk of losing even the most basic manufacturing skills. Such as making the tools to make the things in the first place.
Once a thriving trade, toolmaking and engineering pattern-making has been shrinking since the early 2000s, and in serious decline since the closure of the Australian automotive industry in 2017.
Toolmakers and engineering pattern-makers make and repair tools, dies, jigs, fixtures and other precision parts and equipment for machine tools and other production machinery. The trades also construct full-size engineering, models for prototype developmental products and the working pattern to make parts.
Yet again, thanks to decades of idiotic government policy. The death of the Australian automotive industry was set in motion in the 1980s, with the Hawke government’s ‘Button plan’. This so-called ‘rationalisation’ of the car-making industry involved both slashing the number of models built here and removing protections for local manufacturers.
From then on, it was just a matter of how long local manufacturing could cling to life support.
What Labor critically ignored was that the automotive industry wasn’t just about assembling cars. It was an industry that spawned a massive industrial ecosystem. Once it was gone, the myriad industries it supported, from glass and steel-making, to component design and manufacture, was doomed.
According to the latest Census, there are only 2,220 toolmakers and engineering pattern-makers left in Australia – that’s a 70 per cent decrease between 2006 and 2021.
Only 411 of these jobs are held by people under 40.
“It’s a real skill set that’s missing, which means that we’re almost at the point where it’s going to be impossible to do 100 per cent manufacturing process in Australia from raw materials,” Mr Ringwaldt says.
We’re not even bothering to provide the training opportunities to a new generation of toolmakers.
According to the Australian Foundry Institute, nationally, there is only one accredited TAFE apprenticeship training program in Queensland for engineering pattern-making, and one program run by a Victorian private registered training organisation (RTO).
However, Mr Cooke says that RTO has been affected by Victorian government funding cuts to new placements.
Moving our manufacturing capacity overseas does much worse than leave us at the mercy of cheap Chinese crap.
The companies that need to go offshore for critical components expose themselves to the risk of intellectual property (IP) theft.
“Every time that you send a drawing out to overseas, every time you send something out to be manufactured overseas, you are opening yourself up to more risk,” Mr Ringwaldt says.
China steals billions in intellectual property every year. Is anyone stupid enough to believe that an Australian innovator forced to send their IP to China isn’t going to see it stolen and copied?
The situation is at a critical juncture.
Australia ranks last in manufacturing self-sufficiency among the world's developed economies.
Several major manufacturers have closed their Australian operations in recent years, including major fertiliser producer Incitec Pivot, the nation’s only local architectural glass manufacturer Oceania Glass and our last major plastics manufacturer Qenos.
All at a time when even the terminally clueless Albanese government admits that our strategic environment is more hostile than at any time since WWII.
Don’t bother asking how they could let it happen back then: ask why we’re letting it happen again.
