Does anyone else feel as gutted as me about the loss of manufacturing and other highly skilled industry in this country.
It's been one company after another scrambling to close it's doors and today we basically saw the end to Australia's car industry which will effect 50,000 people.

Having seen that industry from a number of areas I can say that it will hurt more than most think.And as a traditional Liberal voter the Federal Governmen have been pathetic on this issue

Years ago I helped in demolition at Nissan in Clayton as they left Australia, did maintenance shutdowns at Ford, Broadmeadows and Holden at Fishermen's Bend and at all our workshops have been surrounded by smaller car components manufacturers.
Twenty years ago there was basically a shutdown circuit that highly skilled trades would do in Melbourne within heavy industry.This simply doesn't exist anymore as everyone has basically gone to the wall.
This doesn't effect me because we reinvented ourselves years ago when the writing was on the wall, but more and more it is starting to effect my customers who are from every walk of life.
Some will say we need to be "smarter" and concentrate on product that you can value add on.Unfortunately some countries(one big one in particular) don't give a stuff about patent/copyright and are extremely capable of reproducing those products the next week-and I've seen this first hand.

We can't survive on coffee shops, tattoo parlours and people mowing lawns or driving trucks-----people need real jobs that PRODUCE ACTUAL things