Ausbuy

The Australian Companies Institute (Ausbuy) is a non-profit; non-political organisation that encourages Australians to support Australian owned and made products and services. Their initial goal is to keep the jobs and profits stay in Australia and for the decisions to be made by Australians.

Ausbuy was founded in 1991 by Harry Wallace as a result of his family business of 120 years lost to foreign imports deposited in Australia to gain market shares. His company was only one example of this as an increasing amount of companies in Australia have been forced to sell out to foreign interests, and foreign governments subsidise their producers to sell cheaply into the Australian market in competition with Australian own companies who do not enjoy that level of government support.

After World War II Australia faced the problem of having an underdeveloped manufacturing base, which left it dependent on overseas supplies. There was a realisation that this situation, combined with Australia's geographic isolation, made it vulnerable. This led to the decision being made to build up manufacturing capability. The aftermath of war provided opportunities to recruit skilled workers from Europe and Australia was able to establish capacity behind the protection of a tariff wall. It became obvious that this wall had to be reduced but the rate of reduction ran well ahead of Australia's increasing ability to compete in a global market. The justification of this policy was that it portrayed Australia as a good global citizen and, at the same time, reduced inflationary pressures. The costs have been high: Australia's foreign debt has rose extremely fast, factories have closed and well-paid skilled jobs in factories have been replaced by unskilled jobs in the service industries.

Australia has effectively exported jobs overseas and Australia's foreign debt exceeds A$600 billion and is growing. Australia simply does not produce more than they use. Australia has been living on borrowed time, and Australians have stopped talking about productivity and value adding. For example, Australia exports raw materials and Australia's unique fine wool, but then imports them back at a higher value. Free trade agreements have been signed by Australia, which further expose what manufacturers it has left, and then Australian governments bolster strategic industries to save jobs. Australia is recognised as a "clever", innovative and productive country, and it needs Australian governments and consumers to appreciate and support what is unique to this country. The international trend of globalisation has been matched domestically with the rise of the mega store concept of retailing. Large supermarkets as well as warehouses have their selling policies based on anytime, everywhere, everything the same, which means their procurement policies are centrally driven; they demand bulk orders from specific price competitive producers and farmers nor do these retail giants acknowledge local peculiarities and set a priority to Made in Australia.

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Wikipedia