John Findley Blog

Hi Ken,
 
Did you see Richo's column in The Australian this morning?  I don't know what I can do or what ICA can do, but Richo is right.
 
I have years of experience in heavy and light industry; the workers are lovely people but they are not as adaptable as the dry economists wish they were.

These salt-of-the-earth workers were led by treacherous unions into disastrous industrial agreements; the workers would not have thought of these bizarre, Marxist attempts to take over the means of production. They were betrayed by ideologues.
 
We have arrived at another stage in a long end game; but it's not the first I've seen. I was running a small manufacturing business when tariff walls came down in the ’80s.  Many businesses in my industry were ground into the earth by imports; their staff found great difficulty in getting work, it took years for some.  These workers were from small businesses where the management were tradies made good.  Whilst they had made money, these managers weren't equipped to deal with a rapidly changing market environment.  I was lucky, I identified a niche market in Asia (in the ’80s!!) and grew the business through that period underpinned by those Asian contracts.  But I came from a corporate culture quite different from that of the industry managers generally.
 
Some case studies from the ’80s might be worthwhile.  It's not something I'm equipped to do, but academia ought to earn its stipend and produce some research.  Here's one article.
 
Producing a vision for the future is vital to the government's success; even in the near term with the WA senate vote. Whilst it may be politically expedient that the displaced workers be seen to be getting assistance, they won't be displaced for several more years.  And the workers aren't about to leave their employment early because of the absurdly generous termination conditions in their contracts of employment,
 
Bruce Billson has the key portfolio. Some  initiative must be rolled out, for example”

• Put the money into BUSINESS CREATION;
• Maybe some small business incubators could be established;
• Look to subsidising jobs in businesses that are prepared to put up their own risk capital;
• Put money into business mentoring and export management training;
• Put money into the EMDG system, earmarking a big proportion for small business.  Don't let the bureaucrats get too hung up about SMEs funding holidays on the EMDG grants; it will happen to some extent, but it is likely to have better long-term benefits and be more productive than chucking money into TAFE training for displaced workers;
• Make sure the EMDG funds are disbursed promptly and quarterly, not annually in arrears and only after onerous claim procedures, claim disallowance and long delays;
• Don't throw the money around blindly on training of workers.  The TAFEs will love that, but they are too academic.

I am not much on these things, so now it's up to the policy specialists.  But the ideas should be put into the market quickly, and not strangled by the red tape raptures of the bureaucracy.
 
Cheers,
 
John