Attack On Australian Goods

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 17

Attack On Australian Goods

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) CANBERRA, November 18. Australian industrialists have protested over an attack on Australian - made goods and primary products published in an authoritative and widely read trade journal in Great Britain.

They protested today to the British High Commissioner in Australia (Sir William Oliver). The journal, the Federation of British Industries’ “Review,” charges that Austra-lian-made goods are “shoddy, over-priced, outdated and unimaginative.”

It is critical of Australianmade cloth, men’s and women’s clothing, furniture and many food items. The article urges British industrialists to “cash in” on the Australian public’s dissatisfaction with locally-made goods.

The article was written by a businessman, Mr Martin Thorp, who visited Australia recently for the very suc-

cessful British trade fair in Sydney. Points Mr Thorp claims that United Kingdom competition could capitalise on are:—

Prices: Australian-u.ade goods cost as much as 150 per cent more than the comparable British item, with the exception of food.

Clothes: Much Australian woollen cloth wears out quickly and creases badly. Men’s suits are often poorly cut. There is insufficent variety of style and designs in ready-

made dresses for women. “Ladies too frequently meet themselves walking down the street,” he says.

Books: Australians are great book buyers, not because they read more than other people, but because they have no comparable municipal libraries. “Yet books are scandalously dear—paperbacks are 2s to 4s more than in Britain, and those with hardbacks more again in proportion.” Furniture: Mr Thorp says Australian mass-produced furniture “is quite uninspiring.” It is made of one or two local woods and costs about double the United Kingdom equivalent. It is invariably finished in a plastic varnish claimed to resist heat, but which marks even with a warm plate, and chips too easily. Food: This tends to be more attractive in appearance than flavour. Australia has not learned how to cure ham and bacon, nor how to hang meat — “which is often tough.” Apples are invariably Jonathan or Granny Smith types, which Mr Thorp describes as “pretty, but with tough skins and poor flavour.”

Wool Eases.— The West Australian Wool Selling Brokers’ Association reports that at the second day today of the three-day Fremantle wool sale prices opened at the same level as yesterday when they were 2J to 5 per cent down on the last Fremantle sale on October 22. Prices eased today as the sale progressed.—Perth, November 18.