When Shadow Home Affairs Minister Andrew Hastie put out his recent political ad on social media lamenting the loss of Australia’s car industry and broader manufacturing capacity, it prompted a debate over whether or not it was worth pursuing an advanced manufacturing sector as a nation.
In some ways, the debate has already been had and is lost in a rather dramatic fashion, given that the share of GDP held by manufacturing in Australia is the lowest in the developed world.
While this leaves Australia in the notable position of being significantly less exposed to downturns in the global manufacturing cycle, it also leaves the nation often entirely reliant on imports of vital supplies, from medicines to machines.
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