LOL. all the politics. What about the green energy/home battery/progressing down the value chain, technology question?
For plant automation. IMHO that is the way of the future, like it or not. Robotics, automated systems etc still have to come from somewhere. Remember Hawke circa 30 odd years ago called for the clever country, this was to refocus Australia towards education and research and Turnbulls attempt to reintroduce the concept. Couple links on that below.
It is well known that manufacturing is not the answer to performing economies unless you have economies of scale to sell to, IMHO, this is why America will fail and yes, Australia too if it only heads down that track. The benefits though were highlighted in my opening post (R&D, tech dev, support our raw materials) for potentially similar costs while supporting local industries, science and technologies and recovering the can do attitude Australians were/are known for much better bang for buck value.
