THE UNION GAP

I want to take you back about 25 years. Back to when the old ACTU House was on Swanston Street and the union experts launched that disastrous foray into capitalism with Bourke’s department store. They ran it into the ground.

And closed down. It was around the time they launched another of the perennial, headline-making, Buy Australian, campaigns.  Always good for a bit of patriotic fervour and protectionism for feather-bedded industries.

And, as an experiment, I walked down LaTrobe Street from the old 3AW and checked out the union bosses’ car park. It was filled with Japanese cars. They were better value.

Of course, even if you did buy an Australian car, the profits all went back to Detroit but at least it kept a lot of Aussie workers employed on the assembly line at Fishermen’s Bend and Geelong and in South Australia.

I mention it today because of a union threat, from Left and Right, to embarrass the Government at the next ALP federal conference.

The Federal Infrastructure Minister (yes, we have one) Albert Albernese says the Government will not ‘cop an old-fashioned protectionist policy’ but remains focused on preserving and creating Australian jobs.

He says ‘No one is advocating a return to old-fashioned protectionism.’ Well, sorry Minister but a lot of your union colleagues are advocating just that.

The obvious problem with a ‘Buy Australian’ campaign is not only that the Aussie brands are owned by foreigners. You don’t know even how much of the ingredients are Australian.

Even Vegemite. And you can’t get more Australian than that. The label boasts ‘Proudly made in Australia since 1923’. Yep. It’s been owned by Kraft in Chicago for about forty years. And the fine print says ‘made in Australia from Australian and imported ingredients’.

Turn this around. What if our biggest export markets like Japan and the United States decided to adopt a similar xenophobic policy?   How would our exports fare?

Any anyway Australia has international trade treaties and anti-protectionist agreements that would see us financially penalised and treated like business lepers if we breached them.

Buy Australian. Easy to say. Gives you a warm, fuzzy, worthwhile feeling. Doesn’t mean much these days in this global village.

Monday, May 25, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009