During Kevin Rudd’s ‘Victory Speech’ on Wednesday, one of the policy directions he alluded to was a move to channel funding from the mining industry to manufacturing:  “There’s a big future for manufacturing under this government”

Despite my misgivings about Rudd, this is something I wholeheartedly agree with. I am a bit over this attitude that Australian manufacturing is dead and that our only option for a strong economic future is to rely on mining. Mining does very little for the average Australian. It makes a very few people very rich.  Manufacturing on the other hand provides jobs, exports, reduced transport costs due to locally produced goods, has flow on benefits for small to medium Australian business and many other benefits to the community.