SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA) – It was in 2017 that the last car built in a General Motors plant in Australia was rolled out, bringing curtains down on seven decades of local automotive production and scorching the hopes of competing with a global market.
However, three years down the line, policymakers in the government are mulling auto manufacturing to bolster the struggling economy, which has been badly hit by the pandemic, and help it emerge from its biggest slump on record.
Although it is unlikely that Australians will buy local cars, and home appliances as they did in the last century, the government bid to focus on local industries has strong support from the industrial sector.
This comes as the government realises that the country is heavily reliant on Asia for essential goods. The recent straining of ties with China, which is the country’s biggest trade partner, has only bolstered that belief.
“If you look at it over time, we have been running down our manufacturing and we’re at this point of inflexion – we’re saying maybe we shouldn’t be doing that,” said Drew Woodhouse, a Sydney-based consultant at Bain & Company.
The pandemic has revealed that the benefits of globalisation, such as low tariffs and cheap labour, are limited when the global economy gets stalled.
This has prompted many firms to bring home their overseas operations even if it means costs could rise.
Reforms that bring down energy costs, encourage innovation and reduce red tape for investment are the need of the hour, say industrialists.
Earlier this year, Andrew Liveris, former head of Dow Chemicals, returned to Australia to join the manufacturing advisory task force of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
