Manufacturing a way forward for our economy

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is the best bet for another coal-fired power station in the east. Picture: AAP

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a maxim I have always rejected. Stalin may have been an enemy of Hitler but he was a mere friend of convenience for Churchill and Roosevelt. You can bet that the Solvol was at the ready for Winston and Franklin to cleanse their hands, and not simply clean them. That famous meeting in Yalta must have been awkward for all three. It did, however, seal Hitler’s fate. No matter how disparate the people or divergent their views, it is always worth giving consultation a run around the circuit.

Bob Hawke was the great consulter. He almost never acted unilaterally and consultation was thorough enough to make it never look as if he didn’t mean it. Paul Keating was the same, and he never attempted to avoid summoning his cabinet if a big decision was in the offering.

When Tony Burke, a cabinet minister, told me Kevin Rudd has not spoken to him in six months before the 2010 election, I was astounded. While I was aware of Rudd’s disdain for the opinions of others, I had never realised how up himself he had become. Rudd created his Gang of Four (himself, Wayne Swan, Chris Evans and Lindsay Tanner). When Stephen Conroy, as communications minister, presented to the Gang of Four his proposal for the National Broadband Network, then costed at $42bn, Rudd was unconvinced that the decision should be put to the full cabinet and it was referred on only because of Conroy’s insistence. Conroy was smart enough to know that such trickery would fool no one. Somewhere along the way the mob knew that the buck stopped with the government.

Isolation is the lot of a treasurer settling down in Canberra to draw up a budget. At the time when feedback from the mob would be really useful, it is impossible to get. While a treasurer can’t directly tell anyone what is in the budget, he can get an idea of what the mob will cop and what they won’t. Thus far, Scott Morrison has shown he is adept at understanding ordinary Australians largely because he is one, intellectual quotient aside. Cabinet members can sit around a table in Canberra and make decisions that reverberate around the country.

It was frustrating being in a cabinet that brought about the virtual end of the textile, clothing and footwear industries in Australia. When workers found a clothing factory in Wangaratta, where they might have worked for several decades, was closing down, they faced a battle in which the numbers were harsh and cruel. You might get $150,000 for a nice house near Albury but the same house in a reasonable area might cost you as much as $750,000 in Melbourne. Governments can come up with “transitional” schemes but the displaced worker never comes out on top.

It was such a proud moment when Ben Chifley launched the first Holden to come off the assembly line. Australia felt the need to produce cars because every developed economy did. No thought, or at least not enough thought, was given to the fact production runs here would be woefully small and uneconomic. If even the thought of stopping subsidies to the car industry was entertained for a millisecond, the unions and everyone in Adelaide would be up in arms. The rest of the country has paid a high price for keeping a million people in Adelaide. The place has been pork-barrelled to a degree unmatched in the developed world. The end of the car industry in Australia did not bring with it any mass exodus from the South Australian capital. On the way out the door, Christopher Pyne, the most notorious pork-barreller in the business, bequeathed a key role in building more submarines to his own city.

The search for niche markets in which we might have a manufacturing future goes on relentlessly. We may not make the cars but we can make so many of the bits, pieces and widgets that go in them. There are so many families depending on manufacturing that its place in our future is secure. The social dislocation that would come from a slowdown or a halt in this sector would be truly unpleasant.

Since Arthur Phillip kicked this place off, we have been living off the sheep’s back and we have been the world’s biggest quarry. We are better positioned now because our economy is so diversified. We are still pulling coal and iron ore out of the ground with gay abandon and have several centuries of coal still in the ground. I remain a strong supporter of another coal-fired power station for eastern states. One of the state governments will have to step up to the mark if this is to happen because the environment terrorists will be able to use the threat of bank boycotts to stop the private sector taking the risk.

Labor is controlled by the Left on this issue, so the Labor states won’t touch it. It comes down to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian as the only possible candidate. She is not elected to govern for anyone but the people of NSW and I can’t see her moving on this. It would be a great way to wedge Labor. The Left won’t want to touch it with a barge pole and the right-wing Electrical Trades Union in NSW would see a great opportunity to expand its membership.

A few blackouts or badly timed brownouts may be enough to turn public opinion.