"Australia actually still does have an industry building small planes"
Dont know of any, kingpins, unless you refer to ultralights and light sport aircraft?
The last civilian plane built in Australia that I know of was the Victa Airtourer, built by Victa Aircraft in the Eastern States.This was closed down due to lack of backing by the Govt & went to NZ, who improved on it, developed the CT4 Airtrainer from it, which they sold to our Air Force as a basic trainer. See, nearly all our light aircraft were imported from the US. Again, Australian Aviation lost out.
