Australian Letter Australian Production Has Trebled Since 1948

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28758, 2 December 1958, Page 12

Australian Letter Australian Production Has Trebled Since 1948

[By FRANK PUDDICOMBE, N.Z.P.A. Australian Correspondent, Sydney}

‘‘Faith in Australia, unlimited,” was the policy theme that carried the Menzies Government back into pow’er at the Federal election last month, and well it might have been. Unprecedented expansion of Australia's etonomy has occurred in the last 10 years, and vast development programmes are now beginning. Since 1948, Australia’s population has increased/ 25 per cent., national production, has almost trebled, mineral ’ production has increased by about 400 per cent, and the steel output has trebled. In the satne period there has been an increase of 75 . per cent, in the volume of factory output. Senator E. S. Spooner, Minister for National Development, said recently that Australia could export enough goods at the end of the century to support a population of 20 million. At present it has 10 million people. The Commonwealth will have to find! jobs lor 1,500,000 more workers in the next 10 or 12 years if present immigration rates are maintained. Manufacturing industries will have to provide about one-third of these new jobs. This expansion would need big amounts of capital investment, and export earnings must be stepped up substantially to allow this.

The Manufacturing Industries’ Advisory Council, set up by the Federal Government, is now investigating investment requirements for the next 10 years, and how and where industry should expand to meet the demands of the developing economy. In the last two weeks American and Chinese millionaires have indicated their faith in Australia. X

Mr James Lincoln, chairman of the Lincoln Electric Company, Ohio, who arrived in Sydney to open the company’s new £l| million factory in the Sydney suburb of Padstow, said: “I believe Australia is the country of the future. It is growing very

rapidly, as it has tremendous resources.” The Lincoln plant at Padstow is the largest in the southern hemisphere manufacturing arc welding equipment. The Chinese businessman, Mr C. F. Leung, of Hong Kong, a millionaire building speculator, will spend six months in Australia looking for suitable investments for a group of Hong Kong businessmen who want to invest £5 million. He said more investments would follow if his venture succeeded. Mr Leung is also investigating the possibility of buying large quantities of steel and building materials for the Hong Kong building industry. After this rosy picture, it is hard to believe that for the six months. April to September, Australia had an adverse trade balance, and observers say Australia is certain to end the financial year with imports well ahead of exports. Because of falling prices for wool and other bulk commodities, such as lead and zinc, it is doubtful whether Australia will earn more than £T$O million in exports this year. Imports are expected Jo amount to £BOO million. This £5O million deficit could take Australia’s overseas reserves below the ‘‘danger level” of £4OO million.

Financial writers say Australians must be told of the need to safeguard Australia’s future by working and saving harder than was necessary during the wool boom of a few years ago. They deplore the fact that Australians are still engaged in a spending spree and are saving a smaller part of their incomes than at any time since the war. * « «

Xi.th wool prices at a very low ebb. Australian woolgrowers are likely to heed the warnings of the chairman of the International Wool Secretariat (Mr H. K. P. Wood) that they stand to lose world markets unless they spend more money on combating the challenge of synthetic fibres.

Mr Wood, who has been lecturing to wool producers in New South Wales and Queensland while on a three months’ vacation in Australia, said the highpressure synthetics promotion campaign was making many mills more interested in man-made fibres. Woolgrowers are spending less than Id a pound of wool on promoting publicising wool, and this, said Mr Wood, was “only toying with the job.” “We must spend vastly increased sums on promotion,” he said. “Even a Id rise in the price of wool would be equal to a 500 per cent return for woolgrowers on the amount of money they are spending on production.” Mr Wood said that the big American firm of Du Pont was spending seven million dollars on promoting dacron against wool. This amount is believed to be almost as much as the entire Australian Wool Bureau spends annually on direct wool promotion. In Sydney an inquiry into the wool industry is proceeding. The Industrial Commission is investigating Vpies,” “forward selling” and a boycott of the Goulburn sales by buyers. The Auditor-General has told the commission he will check , the records of 20 leading wool buyers to find out to what extent the buyers have participated in “forward selling” and “pies.” The buyers to be questioned buy 50 per cent, of the wool in the northern part of Australia. “Pies” are groups of buyers who band together at sales and do not bid against one another, thereby restricting free wool auctions. “Forward selling” is selling of wool in advance at lower than current rates, thereby depressing the market. H #

In contrast to the wool producer, the wheatgrower in Australia is enjoying a very good season. There have been bumper crops in New South Wales and Queensland. The Queensland crop is the biggest in four years. The yield of 20 bushels an acre compares Well with last year’s yielcL 1 " of 14.5 bushels. A giant £1 million bulkhead terminal newly constructed at Pinkenba, in Brisbane, started receiving wheat this week. The Department of Main Roads au warned the New South Wales

Government that large sections of the Pacific highway are breaking up. The Pacific highway runs along the eastern coast of Australia, linking Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. A big stretch of the highway is crumbling on the north coast of New South Wales, and the Minister for Highways (Mr J. B. Renshaw) told Parliament this week that large sums would be needed to restore and strengthen the highway. A report by the Main Roads Department said that increasing traffic and heavier individual loads on a road built for light traffic had caused the break-up. Two years ago large sections of the Hume highway (the inland link between Sydney and Melbourne) collapsed under heavy transport after flood rains. Cars and trucks were bogged on 30 miles of road near Wagga. At one stage 300 interstate hauliers were stuck at Little Billabong for several days.

The chief superintendent of the “Learn to Swim” campaign in New South Wales, Miss P. Flynn, recently appealed to retailers not to sell rubber floats or water wings to children or to parents of children who cannot swim. Miss Flynn said rubber floats and water wings were a menace to children who could not swim, because they could not keep them under control.

This week police recovered the body of a six-year-old boy who was drowned in Narrabeen Lake, near Sydney. The boy had a deflated rubber float under one arm. The plug was missing from the socket of the float. # # »

Amateur fishermen are making small fortunes catching lobsters off Sydney beaches in their time. A regulation restricts amateurs to the use of one lobster pot, and a law forbids them to sell their catch. The “Daily Telegraph” reports one case of a Sydney man making nearly £2OOO catching and selling lobsters. The amateurs use a number of unidentified pots, and they sell their catches to shops or passers-by on the beaches. Last weelc the police went to Coogee where a “4gKar” between amateur and professional fishermen was reported to be “warming up.” The Fisheries Department Is concerned about the number of lobsters being taken by skindivers. Inspectors have reported skindivers catching up to 100 lobsters a day. There is no restriction on these catches.