I knew NSW Labour were stupid, but wow.....

[serious14]

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25636172-5001021,00.html

ALMOST $4 billion worth of government goods and services will have to be sourced from Australian companies first in a ban on "made in China" products which is to be imposed in tomorrow's State Budget.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that all NSW Government departments and agencies will be forced to protect Australian jobs by giving preference to locally made products.

This would include stationery, uniforms, cars and even trains and building contracts. And to make local bids more competitive, a 20 per cent discount will be applied to Australian products when comparing the cost with overseas bidders.

The decision is bound to have international ramifications and put NSW Labor at odds with the Rudd Government, which has made no secret of its plan to strengthen ties with China.

With NSW now recording the highest unemployment rate in the country at 6.4 per cent, the protectionist measure will apply to all goods and services not included under existing Free Trade agreements and will be worth almost $4 billion in goods and services supplied to the NSW Government.

But in what may prove an even more controversial move, the Government will also lift the exemptions on goods bound by Free Trade Agreements, by extending current exemptions to companies with 200 or fewer employees to those with 500 employees.

The policy will be the centrepiece of a jobs package being pinned on a $62 billion capital works program over four years which the Government claimed will support 160,000 jobs.

Following The Daily Telegraph's revelations this year that police and ambulance uniforms were being imported from or made in China, Treasurer Eric Roozendaal will announce a new Government purchasing policy which will give priority to more than 500,000 NSW small and medium-sized businesses.

It will also apply to all future tenders or purchases for Government contracts which will give preference to Australian companies.

"All NSW Government and state-owned corporations (SOCs) are to give preferential treatment to Australian-made goods under the new Local Jobs First plan," Mr Roozendaal said.

"The NSW Government is putting NSW jobs first. Every year, NSW Government agencies spend billions of dollars buying the things they need to deliver services to the people of NSW.

"This plan tips the balance in favour of local businesses, providing them with greater opportunities to expand and sell to government."

The Local Jobs First program has been endorsed by Unions NSW.

It will apply to all Government agencies and SOCs which will now be required to give preferential treatment to local manufacturers under a price preference mechanism.

The Local Jobs First plan will also require tenders of $4 million or more to include an industry participation plan for local jobs and training programs for apprentices. All department heads will have to comply with the policy in performance contracts.


All I have to say is:

 

[marinermick]

Protectionism has never worked for the long time benefit of the initiator.

 

[tuftman]

See, another prime example of why NSW Labor are shite, but is Barry and his lot really going to do a whole lot better?

 

[serious14]

Well, anyone with half a brain would never come up with this idea anyway.....

 

[Jesus]

Not a bad idea to "suggest" strongly that all govt departments buy local made goods. Is a very common practice throughout the world.

But to announce it so largely is surely gonna cause problems with china.

Surely should be done internally

 

[kevrenor]

Not a bad idea to "suggest" strongly that all govt departments buy local made goods. Is a very common practice throughout the world.

But to announce it so largely is surely gonna cause problems with china.

Surely should be done internally

Can't talk about details as I'm still employed in government procurement (yeah, just 18 days) but it isn't a 'suggest', it would be binding.

We are (I think) talking about an extension of preferences schemes that already exist, but to cover a much wider range of items and at a higher rate.  They cannot be applied against a company from a country where there is a specific free trade agreement, so that will be a problem for them.

Sometimes these schemes are a substitute for actually working out other really important criteria for selection of suppliers, and are a crude mechanism. 

I know the unions have been pushing for something.  It will piss the Commonwealth govt off a tad as they get the heat internationally.

I will be interested as a newly external observer and tax payer to see how they work.

 

[midfielder]

NSW Labour Party ... and being in government ... should be on the jokes thread.

 

[dibo]

it's a completely misleading headline - there's certainly no 'ban', there's preference given to local goods. the rest of the article is basically written with an eye to the headline, not the actual policy.

left unions in particular have been pushing for a new procurement policy framework for quite a while. the nsw labor senator doug 'fair trade not free trade' cameron was very active on this while national secretary of the australian manufacturing workers' union.

*i think* (i haven't ever been that interested in this particular part of the left platform) the simple argument is simply that by sourcing goods from inside australia, the profits stay internal to australia and are reinvested. it boosts economic growth here and so the economic boost is greater.

20% roughly accounts for the boost, so a true 'level playing field' (based on the final economic benefit accruing to Australia) has a different price for domestic rather than foreign sourced purchases. if a foreign purchase can undercut a domestic purchase by that amount, the remainder can in turn be spent on other things domestically, achieving the same result.

where FTAs exist it's impossible to do, and there are FTAs in operation with a number of key trading partners and at the very least there's one in the works with China.

what the policy really does is hand a massive benefit to countries with whom we have FTAs.

i've got major issues with the notion of 'free' trade in any case.

trade is not 'free' if we're competing with economies where protection of the rights of workers, protection of the environment and the fair rule of law do not apply. we're holding ourselves to a standard that others don't.

australian coal miners, for example, have comprehensive safety plans on site. they're entitled to join an independent union. they can freely bargain with their employers over wages and conditions. their employer has to ensure that they don't adversely affect the environment and their employer can't bribe anyone they like to cover up issues or dodgy up a set of contracts.

chinese coal miners don't. they have essentially no say in safety on site (which is why so many chinese miners die at work). they have unions but the unions are not free and independent - they pay lip service to the rights of workers but are toothless tigers. their employers aren't held responsible for environmental issues or dodgy construction because they can bribe pliable officials.

as a consequence of the perfectly reasonable restrictions that our businesses are under and which chinese businesses are not, the 'fair price' that each business can offer for their product is anything but.

apply the same to train carriages, buses, rails (for trains to run on) - when australian business are being undercut, they're being undercut by cutting back on things we won't touch and shouldn't touch. if we try to compete on those terms we would have to engage in a race to the bottom.

---

i'm a labor man and anyone who knows me knows that so i'm not at all impartial on this, but with that said i think it's worth noting that the opposition leader is doing nothing at all here. the ALP is governing, as a consequence they have to do stuff, make tough decisions, declare a position.

the opposition is sitting and waiting, trusting that they don't have to lift a finger to win power.

they're probably right, the electorate is pretty sick of labor and with justification, but the sheer conceit of attempting to win an election based on being 'not them' is galling.

what mandate can they claim when they win? what can they do? what policy will they be able to refer back to and say 'we told you that if elected, we were going to...'? where are the tough decisions they're making?

at the moment, they can snipe and wag their finger, but they're making no effort to demonstrate that they can balance competing priorities. government is about making choices, not wagging fingers.

what's more, much of the hard work is in saying no. what are they going to choose *not* do?

what are they going to choose not to do in transport? in hospitals? in schools, policing, housing...

they can't do everything, be friends to everyone and solve every problem. they've got to show themselves eventually.

 

[clarence]

AFAIK, it has been all governments' policies in Australia (Local, State & Federal) to look at local manufacturers first if they can, legally, for quite some time.

 

[adz]

Who is NSW Labour anyway?

 

[FFC Mariner]

Heard the Treasurer on the radio this AM.

Credit to the bloke he can lie with conviction.

Simply works for a pack of inept fools