IMO to justify Government investment, the business (s) should not be globally portable nor should they be allowed to be sold to multinationals without a reimbursement of Government grants with interest.
Start-ups are not shy in seeking Government assistance but once cashflow positive they will sell to the highest bidder and/or piss off overseas . That has happened to many hi-tech startups.
Manufacturing on the other hand, is not globally portable and it employs a broad spectrum of Aussies....not just middle class geeks. Furthermore, if our Government structures Government investment in manufacturing properly, then this will: -add Aus value to our raw materials exports -diversify trade away from China -strengthen our AUD -"buy back some of the farm" (we have already sold out our mining, LNG our Meat processing etc etc etc) -keep profits in Aus for future investment (we have been and still are cash starved......hence the need for our Big 4 (Majority foreign owned) to go overseas to borrow Billions so that we can live off credit!
This is not sustainable because of our rapidly growing combined Governments' debt:
While we (actually Foreign Multinationals) accrue annual trade surpluses of about $80 Billion, Our combined Governments have to borrow 150% of that (mostly from overseas) to keep afloat. Here is the evidence :
Our household and private debt is $9.2 trillion which is 4.5 times our GDP at a time when interest rates on Governments' and private debt is skyrocketing
IMO, if we kickstart auto component manufacture, particuluarly high end aluminium products, then we can: (a) minimise our addiction to foreign debt (b) diversify trade away from China (how absurd to regard China as our #1 enemy and at the same time to be 35% economically dependant on China!!! (c) stabilise our AUD (at present dependant of the price of IO, Coal & LNG)... commodity currency) (d) more broadly distribute the benefits of our exports and keep the profit at home
