Australia's Manufacturing Future (Malcolm Roberts)

Australian retail and manufacturing are in the grip of a severe crisis, marked by a recent wave of business collapses, including Cue, Veronika Maine, Lincraft and Barbeques Galore. There has also been a sharp rise in retrenchments - over 257,000 in the 12 months prior to February 2026.

Unemployment has risen to 4.5%, record numbers of businesses are facing insolvency, and hundreds of thousands of Australians are either unemployed or underemployed and are struggling financially.

Planned immigration is expected to increase job competition and financial strain, and many employed citizens are now relying on government assistance, creating a population dependent on the state.

Government bailouts for manufacturing, such as the Tomago smelter and the former car industry, are temporary measures that ultimately precede the end of local production.

We don't need cheap labour to manufacture in Australia. What is needed is capital, proximity to raw materials - and cheap energy that is not reliable on the weather.

We have $4.5 trillion sitting in superannuation funds looking for safe, profitable investments. We ship our iron ore and coal to China and India, only to buy the finished steel back because unreliable energy policies have crippled our heavy industry. The closure of our steel mills and smelters means hundreds of Australian jobs lost – all caused by successive governments choosing ideology over enterprise.

American industry is moving manufacturing back home by securing cheap power. If they can do it, so can we.



NET ZERO policies that have driven up energy costs, and neo-liberal economics, that has favoured industry outsourcing, must go. The One Nation party understands the problem and should be supported at every election along with the other nationalist leaning parties such as People First, UAP, the Libertarian Party, the Citizen's Party and Family First.  

[Posted at the SpookyWeather2 blog, October 16, 2026.]