Aluminium

This morning's Sky News report that Alcoa margins are still being squeezed should send a clear message
to the Government that something has to be done quickly before we loose all our bauxite smelters.

I have been proposing for years that Australian Aluminium smetrers should be casting and machining
aluminium engine and auto transmission castings to diversify trade ( make us less China dependant)
and add local value.

Modern casting and machining is essentially Cad/Cam and requires the minimum of labour so the old red herring of expensive labour simply does not apply with the economy of scale such a project potentially has.

At this time it would be timely to call on the exiting multinational auto manufacturers Ford, Holden and
Toyota to support a project like this in lieu of the $billions of axpayers' dollars they have recieved over the
past 2 decades. It would be also appropriate to put the hard word on Mr Abe and his Big Business entourage
to finance such a project and test if yesterday's trade agreement has teeth or is it simply a paper tiger.
Cheers
Moorookamick

PS: Gladstone would make an ideal centre for a pilot project. MM