I’m throwing in local manufacturing as a topic for discussion in the ‘B’ list. 47 years ago manufacturing was almost 30% of GDP in Australia. That figure has fallen to 13% over the last four and a half decades – almost 9% below equivalent levels for other OECD countries. This sharp drop in our manufacturing base was blamed on poor local demand (ie our population base was too small to support any reasonable manufacturing operation, or so the argument went) and our higher wage structure compared to our asian neighbours (we were prepared to pay our workers a living wage).

Much of our manufacturing has been moved offshore, because, according to the highly paid CEO’s of most of our public companies (why isn’t anybody concerned about the high wage structure of our public company executives??), the costs of manufacturing in asian countries such as China are so much lower. This (supposedly) makes our manufactured goods cheaper.

The reality is that, if you examine the resulting effects on the Australian economy, we end up with a chronic current account deficit (that’s an overdraft to you and me). Why does that matter? It matters because, every time the economy strengthens we increase spending on manufactured goods, and because those goods now have to come from overseas we have to sell our dollar to buy the overseas currency to pay for them. That puts downward pressure on the Australian dollar and (by default) upward pressure on interest rates. This is part of the reason why interest rates in Australia are chronically higher than in many other OECD countries.

So what has all this got to do with climate change? Well, for a start, higher interest rates means it is harder to raise capital for investment in new technologies and research and development – so vital for the development of new industries like renewables. The reluctance to base manufacturing in Australia means that whenever we want to buy consumer goods they have to have travelled from China or other asian countries, and therefore have significantly increased carbon footprints. Our ability to produce low cost community based manufactured products or equipment is impaired because we have lost the necessary expertise.

The only way that overseas manufacturing makes sense is if:

1. You don’t count the environmental cost of transporting the goods
2. You want to boost your profit margin by manufacturing goods in countries where workers have no rights and work in conditions and for pay levels that we would find immoral (how is it that we still manage to justify it to ourselves when we buy these goods?)3. You are a CEO or shareholder and want increased profits and dividends regardless of the cost to the environment and our children’s futures

We have also not considered the effect on local communities of manufacturing jobs disappearing from our shores. Manufacturing provided manual, technical and administrative jobs for young people in a broad spread of urban and rural communities. With their disappearance went many of the rural and regional jobs, with a consequence that many were forced to the cities in search of service industry jobs (the new government and business focus). This has lead to more commuter oriented lifestyles with even higher emissions.

However, now our call centres are being relocated to India – if our future is not in manufacturing and not in service industries then where will our children work for a living?

Local manufacturing means local jobs, closer communities, less commuting and lower emissions. A win – win situation.

andrew General

After the last committee meeting on Sunday – a record four hours duration – some of us came away feeling very drained. The central issue of the meeting was Canwin’s inability to voice its support the climate protection bill because we have not (as a group) debated and agreed our joint position on several important issues raised within the bill.

The meeting also raised two other very important issues – are we a group that will only make decisions by consensus? – and will we avoid all conflict (between group members) to the extent that action on any important issues becomes impossible for fear of offending or isolating one section of our diverse community of members.

Integrity is obviously a hard thing to sacrifice on the altar of the ‘greater good’. And who decides what ‘good’ is anyway? Perhaps if the issues here weren’t so politically sensitive, and this wasn’t an election year, we might have more time for endless debate and discussion. But it is an election year and the realists amongst us know that this is the only time that politicians will listen to the man in the street. If we really care about getting a useful message out into our community, then we need to ACT – firstly to make our own message clear (that means debating the ‘B’ list now) – secondly to DO what we all claimed to want when we first came together as Canwin.

Sandra Menteith has sent everyone the ‘B’ list topics. Please choose those dearest to your hearts and lets have a robust and honest debate – and then move forward and ACT!

andrew General