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Australian made

Hi everyone ,
Here is a story that I hope may interest you.

I was today just flicking though a bit of an old journal of mine . It was written in sometime over  the past it probably started nearly twenty years ago  , at random at different times , it contains some of the good and bad articles that I have written out like stories , ideas , inventions , dreams of the future and maybe even including  a bit of poetry.

I would think that over this time that I had actually filled up from front to back maybe four A4 ring binder books and possibly five more with just the odd bits and pieces in them.
I am not actually in possession of all of them any more for different reasons and in one particular book that  I had written lots of really interesting and important types of things in , with the label saying on it
Save the World ,
written across the front cover in big  black texta .

Obviously a lot happens in life over twenty years and at times in this period I found the life I was facing sometimes to be quite tough and challenging , and it was in one of those periods , I actually cracked the shits with everything and I burnt that  particular book at the time in complete frustration with the way and burnt my dreams for a positive future because  then that at that very moment ,
I actually couldn’t  understand or deal with the problems going on in the world and I disliked the direction that I believed that I could see we were  all taking for everything laying ahead .

So with that book gone it’s  a bit of a bummer now , as I could have slowly shared the content with you ,
but the good thing is everything that was actually recorded in that book is still somewhere hiding deep inside my mind.
Some of the other books mysteriously over time  vanished or somehow had their content pages torn out and removed.
And now there are only a few books actually still remaining.
So I flicked through one  of the other remaining scrap books briefly today and I came across a just a tiny bit of a draft idea outline of an article I had written in the lost book , that article  I had put quite a bit of time and thought into about back then ,
and seeing the draft today it just jolted my memory about it and then this afternoon , into writing to you about it.

So I guess I have to announce that this now is my second posted political article , but personally I believed  way back then at the time the suggestion that I had come up with that in my mind it was  so important I thought for the future prospects of our country and now I’m looking back at the concept again and I still can see its complete relevance today ,

So way back then ,
at the time when I put down this idea on paper things were getting really tough in business in Australia , and our unemployment numbers were steadily rising and lots of businesses were folding and closing down all over Australia.
This concerned me quite a lot.

For a long time now I have held most Australian politicians in distain as I personally believe that they don’t actually often enough make very good decisions on  the behalf of our people that elected them into office ,
but I also think that they are all more interested in just feathering their own nest .
I also believe that the Westminster political system we actually operate under in Australia is maybe now just a bit too old and out of date.

Also I will admit that I’m not a qualified and educated economist , but I’m aware enough to realise that a lot of decisions made for us on our behalf in Canberra are really  maybe not the right decisions.

So with everything negative that was going on around the country at that particular point of time , and with our national debt growing out of control and at a faster pace than
Usain Bolt , can run ,
I had then what I personally considered to be  a good positive and relevant thought about the problem and an idea about  changing that just entered my mind , 
So my thoughts were that it could possibly be a partial solution to maybe help Australia start to tackle the problem that everyone could participate in.

So here is my idea.

I knew that to fix things that we as a nation first we have to somehow reduce our  high demand for all imported goods and at the same time increase the demand for Australian made goods right across the board .
Automatically , when this happens  and demand for local produce rises then it  slowly grows into real jobs out there in the field. And along with lots of other economical benefits.

There are a few different ways to tackle and to achieve this scenario .
So by now we  have got a great theory as to just what we need to all do , working at it all together to fix all this problem up.

The next part to the problem is just how and what we can all possibly manage to actually do to fix this?
For some reason or another in my mind there was  a flash then of a distant  fleeting memory of once what was in place to combat this problem in Australia ,
in my youth I remember that then there was a heavily advertised media campaign ran all through Australia from so many years ago ,that popped into my head,
It was called the buy Australian campaign that came along and coupled up  the Australian made program and it was released along with the well known green and gold colours incorporating a triangle symbol, that still in some form , exists today .

So I sat down and came up with a drawn up plan and an idea that I believe that if implemented it would make it so simple for everyone shopping to be able to clearly and easily identify Australian made goods , and also  to see clearly identify just how much Aussie content was actually contained in any single retail product anywhere  anytime in Australia including everything that is on every supermarket shelf .

I can’t draw it up for you but I can show you what the plan was that I came up with .
It was for every retail item to have a highly visible individually numbered sticker placed on a prominent position displayed on it ,
I had come up with a plan of six  different coloured stickers , but of course it can be changed as it’s only a concept .

The stickers would be as follows.

Gold.    100% Aus content
Green   75% and above
Orange 50% to 74%
Red        25% to 49%
Brown    1% to 24%
Black. Fully imported .

So  to the reason for the labels having a slightly raised number on the front of them in my mind was a solution to allow both vision impaired and our colour blind people to easily identify the products  in each category and hopefully then choose the product displaying a green sticker indicating a completely Australian made product and for them to also be able to fully participate in the program independently everywhere they shop.

The nice bit is it retains the traditional  Aussie colours green and  gold in its design .
Unfortunately thats Something I’m actually loosing pride in ,and I’d love to see that change soon .

I feel that If this program or a similar version was actually implemented into our country it would over time if proven successful be such a massive boost for Australia and help our businesses  and county recover positively , unlike in the current economic situation we are in now with our current political leaderships policy’s ,
maybe it could even end up in  theory of achieving for the first time actual real and not manipulated economic deflation , for a  nice change , well at least initially it’s a real possibility  especially in the supermarkets , because technically when the demand for Australian products increases marginally, then in theory due to the program working to plan , coupled along with a large public support base  and operating with its designed simplicity that enables everyone the opportunity of participating in the project  ,

Everyone can easily now within a second identify and understand the exact amount of Australian content of absolutely everything that they purchase now that’s on the shelf in front of them , then along with that when it’s coupled with the increased production that would be  needed from our manufactures in our factories that’s now coming from the newly generated higher consumer demand , that those manufactures will have to grow in size and employ many more staff and  in fact may eventually be in a much more positive economic position and making  a lot more profit,  to then be able to actually pass on to us the consumers , some savings to them for their loyalty and as a thank you back to you , in the form of partial relief of the retail price of some of our more popular Aussie produced grocery’s.

So back years ago when I dreamed of all this , I don’t want you to think that I didn’t suggest it to the current government at the time , and from there I was pointed  out then by them to contact and speak to the buy Australian campaign  head office and present them with my idea.

So I  then spoke to a person working in that office and I sent him a copy of the plan . He later rang me back with the announcement that they were currently already working on revamping exactly that campaign and that they were due to release a new program into the public arena just a few months later but thanks Curly for your interest .
So that was pleasing news so I thought.

Turns out that  was just absolute bs and an outright lie , as it never eventuated and there was probably no new program at all and  obviously then they just stuck my idea into the bottom drawer ,
I sort of had let it go as at the time as I trusted what they had just told me , then I  just went on with the next thing I was doing , at the time and the idea slipped from my mind till now , so I haven’t really thought much about it again since ,
until today.

So something else that just doesn’t make any sense to me at all in the current economic climate and why I’m so pissed with everything is that things like the Australian treasurer
Jim Chalmers
who is the man currently in charge of our country’s finances ,
Just a few short weeks ago , I saw him for a minute on tv , where he proudly came out in the media and with a strait face and a bit of a grin he publicly  announced that his government had that day abolished and scrapped over 500 trade tariffs that had been in place to protect our country against cheeper imports and also our jobs .
He also then stated in the same breath publicly just what a good thing for our future that this was for Australia.

I have a question?
I would like to know how Jim?
As theoretically it’s the exact opposite mate.

So You should maybe take some truth serum and come out again and explain how that could actually work for us the Australian people really over time , and just how it’s a decision that is good for our country ?
Can you thoroughly explain the answer to the questions to the Australian people Jim ?
It’s only two easy questions mate .

So now I took a closer look at the shelves in a hardware store , thinking while looking at items , about the situation we are in right now , and what’s slowly happening here in regard to the things that we buy and it’s country of origin.
You only have to take a walk down to your local hardware store , and check out the labels and notice how little amount of  Australian products you have to choose from,
there now is next to nothing available anymore on the retail shelfs from our country,
Even  out traditional Australian manufactures are disappearing with their products that I checked the label  on are now made elsewhere.

I figure that if this has slowly happened over time and that maybe together we would all be just like a big happy buying group ,
And maybe even have attached a rewards and points card system running in conjunction and then we can certainly slowly reverse this trend ,
And resurrect our country before  we all have to rent it and hopefully before it’s just too late and then we produce absolutely nothing here anymore,
We are slowly giving away a retail monopoly here to other countries without a fight and when that eventually happens then as the foreign control grows and eventually they take all of the market share , that you can then guarantee that everything in Australia then automatically gets more expensive as there is no longer any product competition from Australia .

It’s a vicious cycle , but
I’d love to walk back into that hardware store isle again sometime in the future and also while I’m out supermarket shopping and see lots of green stickers everywhere that I look , and pick up an item showing that sticker and put it in my trolly , avoiding as many black stickers as possible and at the same time I’m earning Australia points , I’m absolutely smiling on the inside because I am buying your children’s future .

I’m not sure that the people running this country and even the opposition are doing the right thing by us at all.
But now I’d love to see the authorities somehow pull out  my earlier proposal out of that bottom drawer , dust it off and take a long hard  look at it and in their wisdom maybe just do something that’s positive for the country for a change .

Footnote

So I guess if you like this story for the first time I will ask you to maybe share it , and help get this message out there so other people can read it and have a think about the future of this joint .

I’m proud to be Australian 

Cheers
Curlyg