shepparton will be wiped off the map, page-63

The majority of the posts on this thread are very misinformed.
One poster tried to make a link with SPC wages and the aged pension, now that's real nonsense. For a start most pensioners do not pay tax and minimal if they do and that would be because they earn over the top pension rate. Pensioners also would not have housing loans (not usually), have children at school,and to feed and dress, and there's also child care and health insurance if they have it, medical costs etc. Rural workers are paid substantially less than their city cousins. The cost of living is high in these areas, especially fuel and other consumerables freighted in.

The SPC factory processes many products other than tinned fruit which seems to be the only thing talked about, they process baked beans, spaghetti, jars of apple sauce, small snack containers of fruit for school lunches plastic jars of fruit (and a choice of fruit in natural juice or a syrup) along with the usual tinned fruit and other items for our market.
Once SPC is closed down the orchids in the area that supply the factory will by law have to plow in their fruiting trees, if fruit trees are not maintained (picked fruit, sparaying for fruit fly and pruning ETC ). So any talk about the factory starting up at a later date seems unlikely as once these orchids are gone it would take years to replace them and by that time the overseas market would have us all tied up.
It's time the government and all Australian governments of all sides to step up and support industry here before we don't even produce the toilet paper we wipe our bums with.
If the US can support theirs then why cant we do the same, I think this free market thing is not always the way to go.