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I worked in Manufacturing automation service, got out just as practically all my customers shut down. As wages in China grow, manufacturing will move to Indonesia, India and Africa, chasing low wages. The answer for Australia is in IP. China essentially has no IP, they are a factory for Wallmart. Australia is good at IP. Our very own Mike Berthon-Jones (Placidus) was a founding member of Resmed, the biggest sleep apnea ventilator machine manufacturer in the world. Mike invented adaptive respiratory ventilators and has some 50 patents to his name. We need more like him with unique IP and we have them lurking awaiting to be supported. The gov does need to provide support though, which is sadly lacking, unlike in the US for instance which has Venture Capitalists willing to take a risk.
I developed a high speed PCB tester in the 90s which beat everything on the market at a fraction of the cost of imported models. It sold very well in OZ, but when I approached the gov for export support, I was basically told to bugger off, so that was the end of that, I just didnt have the rescources to procceed. It may not have come to anything anyway, but the point is if Oz doesnt manufacture anything, then gov support (given we just dont have the size or culture for risky commercial investment) is essential for IP development.
The other factor in manufacturing is automation. The more automated manufacturing becomes, the less manual labour costs count. So automated manufacturing in the future may well return to Oz.
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