The Asian Century

Last year the government introduced their 'Asian Century' paper. It pointed out that Australia's future lay in Asia and that the reality was that the low cost, highly innovative Asia was where world growth would be centred.

Australia has to live with this simple fact and adjust. Strangely the discussion of the paper was centred on how more language teaching was needed and how Australia had to develop new service based industries to sell to this rapidly growing industrial continent.

Virtually nobody mentioned the implied decline of low tech and manufacturing jobs in Australia. Australians are paid very well and by comparison are much less productive in terms out costs per unit than Asian economies. For many years Australia was able to maintain high manufacturing employment and let technology pass them by for decades because they were so far away.

That is no longer an option. Globalisation, which the 'Asian Century' seeks to embrace, has made the usual Australian view of ' Australian made and owned' as up to date as a dinosaur.

Australia has to learn from the successful economies of Europe. Those who held on to the old industries and work practises, such as Spain and France, have fared very badly compared to those, such as Britain, who allowed the industries to decline and shifted resources to the more modern opportunities.

The pieces linked below illustrate this. The Telstra call centres are moving to Asia where University graduates will answer your call at any time of the day or night. Telstra will cut costs, raise profits and reinvest them in the high tech sector which will provide the sustainable jobs Australia needs.

The second piece is about a US/France spat where an American industrialist declared that they would be insane to invest in France due to the poor working practises.

Trade Unions beware, protecting an inefficient job does nothing to help the future economy of any country.

Telstra's call centre move is here

The BBC report the US/French dispute here