you're spot on yourself. as you're educated pre 1990 when uni fees were reintroduced you would know that we had a strong manufacturing base but it only had a relatively short lifespan. pre WW2 our industries were founded on well and other agriculture, post WW2 from Curtin through the Menzies explosion in immigration, construction of hydro dams and energy, and home building, manufacturing from white goods and tractors to household electrical equipment and this truly boomed when Hawke negotiated peace between business and unions.
but relative industrial harmony was never gong to last and of course it became an election issue. then o/s FTA deal were done and the rest has already been discussed.
we had the opportunities. but politicians don't get voted in with opportunities, they need disasters to trigger a change in voting. we were many things in those days but stupid wasn't one of them (generally).... we were caught in the high beams - stunned and stare eyed at the audacious politics. we believed the worst and rejected any other scenario. our current manufacturing space could have trebled in size and kept GDP from the doldrums, instead the doldrums are tedium. over the last decade we've been in intermittent per capita recessions for 8 years.growth has been lower than during the GFC!
