Very true but some countries have tariffs on imported goods.
This would even up the playing field somewhat if it were implemented.
I could not understand why in 2006 or so we had a record number of offshore oil drilling rigs in this country.
Then I heard that some countries had wised up and instead of getting $1.00 per barrel for oil pulled out of their country, they raised the stakes much higher.
Australia is still, come and get it, give us some jobs in the short time and extract our mineral wealth and take the profits offshore.
Then on top of the few jobs we get , the big players bring in foreign workers on visa's to lower the costs down, so yes, I agree with you.
We are really stuffed.
I agree. The fact is that our government is quite happy to reduce or delete tarriffs on imported goods despite the countries where we export OUR gear leaving tarriffs in place.
For example I'm an accredited inspector for exported citrus to the US and also Japan, Korea, and China. The US isn't quite so bad, but anytime you try to get fruit into Asia they do everything in their power to shaft you. Even to the point that Korea had a list of quarantinable pests. That was fine as few of the insects on that list were in abundance in our region, quite unusual in fact.
Anyway, when the fruit arrived all of a sudden the Koreans have stated that their "list" is actually the pests that they accept! Absolute joke and in complete contradiction to every other export market we'd dealt with previously. Every single time we send fruit there they pass inspections at our end, going through a whole heap of post harvest treatments to kill pests outlined by THEM, only to arrive overseas and have pests suddenly appear.
I could go on and on where the Australian government has done deals with somebody like China where we'll take their *insert fruit here* and they'll take our Apples. One deal done a number of years ago saw a swag of imported fruit land from China in Australia, yet not one single Apple of ours made it to China as there "was always something wrong".
In Australia we bend over and take it every day, our opposition doesn't bend over for anybody.
We have a saying where I work which is quite funny. Every now and then we'll get pressure from up the chain to push a certain brand of product from a company we've never heard of. The going joke is that "somebody in management must have got a new set of golf clubs" and it's dead true.
I've seen some of the Asian groups come over to inspect our produce and the quality of the product has absolutely nothing to do with sealing the deal. The deal is only signed off on when you've given them plenty of gifts such as wine and paid for basically a full tourist circuit of the region. Then they go off to the next sucker and if they happen to buy them more gifts or give them a better holiday then they end up in the box seat.
