SMH: Regional Communities will take back control

11 March 2014

Recent announcements by Holden and Toyota of manufacturing plant shutdowns in Geelong and Adelaide are stark reminders of how little control regional communities have over their economic and social futures in a globalised world.

Since the 1980s Australians have had to swallow the free-market pills of deregulation, reduced industry protection and a floating dollar. Governments have insisted that these reforms were necessary if we were to compete in the international export market. But if the exporter is a large company, any decision to move production elsewhere is based on the best interests of its shareholders, not those of the community that will lose an employer and contributor to the local economy.