In Australia, we used to make cars, fridges, clothes, tyres, paper, tomato sauce and thousands of other everyday products here. So what happened?
There was a time when “Made in Australia” could have appeared on an astonishing range of things. Cars rolled off Australian production lines. Fridges were built in Australian factories. Clothes were cut and sewn here. Tyres were manufactured here. Paper was produced here. Australian factories made televisions, washing machines, shoes, furniture, steel, machinery and countless other products.
Photo by Caleb on Unsplash
Today, walk through an Australian supermarket, department store or electronics shop and look at the labels. China. Vietnam. Bangladesh. Thailand. Malaysia. Indonesia. India. Sometimes the brand on the front is unmistakably Australian, but the product itself may have travelled thousands of kilometres before reaching the shelf.
So what happened? Australia didn’t suddenly decide that it didn’t want to manufacture things anymore. Instead, over several decades, a combination of globalisation, tariff reductions, cheaper overseas production, changing consumer expectations, Australia’s relatively small domestic market and decisions by individual companies transformed the economy.
And the really interesting part is just how many everyday Australian products disappeared from local factories without most of us noticing.
Australia used to make an enormous amount of what it bought
Australian manufacturing was once one of the country’s great economic pillars. In the decades after World War II, Australian factories produced a huge variety of goods for a growing domestic market. High tariffs protected many local industries from overseas competition, while Australian households provided a ready market for locally manufactured products.
By the early 1970s, manufacturing accounted for more than one in five Australian jobs. Factories made cars and trucks, refrigerators and washing machines, clothing and shoes, steel and chemicals, televisions and electrical equipment, furniture and household goods.
Today, manufacturing is a much smaller part of the Australian economy. The industry still employs hundreds of thousands of people, but the composition of the industry has changed dramatically.
This isn’t a story about Australian manufacturing disappearing altogether. Australia still makes food and beverages, chemicals, machinery, medical products, mining equipment, construction materials and specialised industrial products. The Australian Government’s manufacturing industry information covers everything from textiles and paper to machinery, chemicals, furniture and household goods.
What has largely disappeared is the huge mass-market manufacturing industry that once produced many of the ordinary things Australians bought every day.
And that becomes much more obvious when you look at individual products.
Cars: the industry everyone remembers
Photo by Patrick McGregor on Unsplash
If there is one example that symbolises the decline of Australian manufacturing, it is the car industry.
For generations, Australians could buy cars that were actually built here. Holden became synonymous with Australian manufacturing. Ford had major Australian production facilities. Toyota established a substantial manufacturing operation.
Australia produced family sedans, station wagons, utes and performance cars, and an enormous network of local suppliers grew around the industry.
Then it ended.
Ford ceased Australian vehicle manufacturing in 2016. Toyota and Holden followed in 2017. Holden’s Elizabeth plant in South Australia produced its final vehicle on 20 October 2017, bringing an end to almost seven decades of local Holden production.
The significance went far beyond the factories themselves. Car manufacturing supported suppliers making components, plastics, glass, seats, electronics, metal products, tools and machinery. When the major manufacturers left, much of that ecosystem went with them.
Australia still has automotive engineering, specialist manufacturing, motorsport and design expertise. But the era when Australians routinely bought a mass-market car built by Australian factory workers is over.
Fridges: when Australia stopped making refrigerators
Cars are an obvious example. Refrigerators are much less obvious.
In 2016, the last refrigerator factory in Australia closed. Electrolux’s factory in Orange, New South Wales, had been manufacturing refrigerators for decades. Over its lifetime, the factory produced around 12 million fridges.
Then the final refrigerator came off the production line. Production moved to other countries, and around 300 workers were affected.
Think about what that actually means. Every Australian household still needs a refrigerator. Australians didn’t stop buying them. Demand didn’t disappear. Australia simply stopped manufacturing the overwhelming majority of the refrigerators it bought.
That’s an important distinction throughout this story. A factory can disappear even while demand for the product remains exactly where it was.
Clothing: an industry almost nobody noticed disappearing
The transformation of Australia’s clothing industry may be even more significant because it affected products virtually every Australian uses.
Australia once had a substantial textile, clothing and footwear manufacturing industry. Clothes were designed, cut, sewn, finished and packaged here. Then production increasingly moved offshore.
One of the most recognisable examples was Bonds.
In 2010, Pacific Brands closed its remaining Bonds factory in Wollongong. The closure affected 207 workers at that factory and formed part of a broader restructuring in which manufacturing was moved overseas and around 1,850 jobs were lost nationally.
The Bonds brand didn’t disappear. Australians still buy Bonds. What disappeared was much of the Australian manufacturing behind the Australian brand.
That distinction is worth remembering because Australian-owned, Australian-designed and Australian-made are three different things.
A company can be Australian-owned. Its headquarters can be in Australia. Its products can be designed by Australians. Its brand can be deeply associated with Australian life. And the actual product can still be manufactured thousands of kilometres away.
That is now normal.
Underwear and socks weren’t immune either
The story becomes even more striking when you think about products that seem almost too ordinary to be affected by globalisation.
Underwear. Socks. Singlets.
These are things Australians have bought for generations, yet the domestic manufacturing behind many of these products largely disappeared along with the broader textile and clothing industry.
There was, however, an interesting twist. When Bonds manufacturing moved offshore, some former workers used their experience and equipment to establish new Australian manufacturing businesses.
One example was Tuffys and Tuffetts, which was established using former Bonds manufacturing equipment and employed former Bonds workers.
That tells us something important. Australia didn’t lose the ability to make underwear. It lost much of the economic environment in which making underwear here could compete with mass production overseas.
The skills didn’t necessarily vanish overnight. The business case did.
Tomato sauce: Australia even stopped making Heinz sauce
Photo by Pedro Durigan on Unsplash
Here’s another product that almost nobody would think of as part of the manufacturing debate: tomato sauce.
For around 70 years, Heinz processed tomatoes and produced tomato sauce at its Girgarre factory in northern Victoria. Then the factory closed in January 2012.
The final bottles of Heinz tomato sauce were produced in Australia, and production moved to New Zealand. The closure cost 146 jobs.
Australians, of course, continued eating tomato sauce. The product didn’t disappear. The Australian factory did.
Heinz said the decision was about consolidating production and using available capacity elsewhere to remain competitive.
And there is the recurring theme again: the market survived. The local manufacturing capability didn’t.
Paper: the day Australia stopped making white copy paper
One of the most remarkable recent examples concerns something that sits on desks all over the country.
Copy paper.
Australia had a long history of producing paper domestically. The Maryvale mill in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley had been operating since 1937 and supplied Australian businesses, schools and households for generations.
In January 2023, the mill produced its final ream of white copy paper. Australia’s domestic production of white office paper effectively came to an end.
The story was complicated. The Maryvale mill continued making brown packaging paper and board, but the loss of timber supply and other pressures meant it could no longer continue producing white copy paper economically.
Then something unusual happened.
In 2026, the Boyer mill in Tasmania began producing A4 copy paper, giving Australia a domestic source again.
That small revival is interesting because it demonstrates just how difficult it can be to rebuild manufacturing capability after it has disappeared. Once the equipment, workforce, suppliers and production networks are gone, bringing them back isn’t as simple as switching a factory on again.
Tyres: another industry that disappeared
Australia also once had a substantial tyre manufacturing industry.
Bridgestone operated major tyre manufacturing facilities in Australia for decades before announcing the closure of its Australian manufacturing operations in 2010. The company cited international competitive pressures and the declining viability of local manufacturing.
Again, Australians didn’t stop needing tyres. Australian roads didn’t disappear. The Australian car fleet continued growing.
But the factories making many of those tyres disappeared.
Today, almost every tyre fitted to an Australian car is manufactured somewhere else.
Glass and other industrial products
The same pattern has appeared across numerous other industries.
Australia once had a much larger domestic glass manufacturing sector. More recently, the closure of Oceania Glass’s Dandenong manufacturing operation highlighted how difficult it has become for some specialised manufacturing businesses to compete in the Australian market.
The story extends into electronics, white goods, footwear, furniture, electrical equipment and many other categories.
None of these products disappeared from Australian shops. They simply became imported products.
That is why the decline of manufacturing can be easy to miss. If a factory making refrigerators closes, consumers don’t necessarily see anything different in the shops the next morning.
The refrigerators are still there.
They’re just arriving on a ship.
Why did all of this happen?
There isn’t one answer. And it would be too simplistic to blame a single government, political party or economic policy. The transformation took decades, and several forces worked together.
Overseas manufacturing became dramatically cheaper
Manufacturing became increasingly concentrated in countries capable of producing enormous quantities of goods at lower costs.
A factory in Australia had to compete with factories that could supply not just Australia but enormous international markets.
The difference in scale can be enormous. Australia has a population of roughly 27 million. Countries such as China, India and the United States have populations many times larger, while the European market provides hundreds of millions of consumers.
A manufacturer selling into a huge market can spread the cost of factories, machinery, research, tooling and logistics across vastly more products. Australian manufacturers often couldn’t achieve the same economies of scale.
Australia reduced protection for local industry
For much of Australia’s history, tariffs and other trade barriers protected domestic manufacturers from overseas competition.
From the 1970s onwards, Australia progressively reduced that protection.
The reforms had significant economic benefits. Australian businesses gained access to cheaper imported inputs. Consumers gained access to cheaper products and greater choice. Australian industries were exposed to greater international competition.
But there was also a price. Some industries simply couldn’t compete.
Once protection was removed, companies had to compete with international manufacturers operating at radically different scales and cost structures. Some adapted. Others closed.
Australians got used to cheaper products
This part of the story is uncomfortable because consumers were participants too.
Imagine two identical-looking shirts. One costs $90 because it is manufactured in Australia. The other costs $30 because it is manufactured overseas.
For a household struggling with rent, groceries and electricity bills, choosing the cheaper shirt is not an irrational decision.
Do that millions of times, however, and the consequences for local manufacturing are enormous.
The cheaper product wins market share. The factory loses orders. Production falls. The factory closes. And eventually the skills and supplier networks supporting that factory disappear as well.
Globalisation didn’t simply happen to consumers. Consumers also benefited from it.
It wasn’t simply about Australian wages
It’s tempting to explain the entire story by saying Australian workers became too expensive.
That’s only part of it.
Manufacturing competitiveness depends on wages, but it also depends on energy prices, transport, taxes, regulation, access to capital, automation, research and development, infrastructure, skilled workers and — perhaps most importantly — scale.
A highly automated Australian factory can sometimes compete with overseas manufacturing. A small factory producing a generic product for a relatively small domestic market has a much harder job.
That’s why the future of Australian manufacturing is unlikely to involve simply rebuilding every factory that existed in 1975. The economics have changed too much.
What did Australia gain?
This is where the debate often becomes too simplistic.
The decline of manufacturing wasn’t entirely negative. Globalisation gave Australian consumers access to an enormous range of cheaper goods. It allowed Australian companies to source components and products from around the world. It helped Australia specialise in industries where it has significant advantages, including mining, agriculture, services, education and professional industries.
The economy didn’t collapse because factories closed. It changed.
And there is a perfectly reasonable economic argument that Australia should not try to manufacture every product it consumes.
If another country can produce a generic product at dramatically lower cost, importing it can make economic sense.
The more difficult question is what happens when we become so dependent on imports that we lose the ability to make things we might urgently need.
COVID changed the manufacturing argument
The pandemic gave the world a painful demonstration of the difference between having access to something and being able to make it yourself.
When international supply chains were disrupted, countries competed for medical equipment, protective equipment, chemicals, medicines and other essential products.
Suddenly, manufacturing wasn’t just about jobs or the price of a washing machine. It was about resilience.
What happens if shipping is disrupted? What happens if a geopolitical conflict affects a major supplier? What happens if another country restricts exports? What happens if Australia needs a product urgently and discovers that there is no domestic factory capable of making it?
Those questions have helped revive interest in Australian manufacturing.
Does Australia need to make everything again?
Probably not.
Australia doesn’t realistically need to manufacture every smartphone, television, toaster or pair of socks sold in the country. Trying to recreate every lost industry would be enormously expensive, and some of those products simply don’t make economic sense to manufacture here.
The more interesting question is which capabilities are important enough that Australia should retain them.
That might include defence manufacturing, critical minerals processing, medical products, energy infrastructure, agricultural inputs, advanced machinery and other strategically important industries.
The Australian Government’s own description of the manufacturing sector reflects this broader picture: modern Australian manufacturing encompasses food, chemicals, metals, machinery, medical and therapeutic products, textiles, furniture and many other areas.
The future therefore probably isn’t about trying to recreate Australia’s old manufacturing economy. It is about deciding what a modern Australian manufacturing economy should look like.
Australia still makes some remarkable things
It would be completely wrong to say Australian manufacturing is dead.
It isn’t.
Australia still produces sophisticated machinery, mining equipment, medical technology, chemicals, food, beverages, construction products and specialised industrial equipment.
Some Australian manufacturers compete successfully in global markets precisely because they don’t try to compete on cheap mass production.
Instead, they compete on engineering, automation, specialised knowledge and innovation.
That may ultimately be where Australia’s manufacturing future lies.
Rather than making millions of identical low-cost products, Australian companies may be better positioned to make products where knowledge and technology are worth more than cheap labour.
“Australian brand” doesn’t necessarily mean “Australian made”
This is one of the easiest things for consumers to misunderstand.
A brand can be Australian without its products being manufactured here.
If you want to deliberately support Australian manufacturing, one useful thing to look for is the official Australian Made logo.
The Australian Made Campaign says the logo is recognised by 99% of Australians, and its certification scheme distinguishes between products that are Australian Made, Australian Grown, Product of Australia and other claims.
The official Australian Made website provides information about the certification system and lets consumers search for certified Australian products and businesses.
That doesn’t mean an Australian-made product will always be the cheapest option. It probably won’t be. But at least you’ll know what you’re buying.
The strange Australian economic model
There is another reason this story matters.
Australia is exceptionally good at producing raw materials: iron ore, coal, lithium, bauxite, natural gas and agricultural commodities.
We export enormous quantities of resources to the rest of the world. But some of those resources then return to Australia in the form of much more expensive finished products.
We export minerals and import products containing processed minerals. We export resources and import machinery. We export agricultural commodities and import finished food products. We export raw materials and then buy back products containing them.
There can be good economic reasons for this. But it raises a legitimate question: Could Australia capture more of the value before the product leaves the country?
That is where the manufacturing debate becomes much more interesting than simply asking whether Australians should buy local.
What happens when an industry disappears?
This may be the most important part of the story.
When a factory closes, you don’t just lose a building.
You can lose an entire ecosystem.
The machinery is sold. Skilled workers find other jobs or retire. Apprentices stop entering the industry. Suppliers lose their customers. Specialist businesses close. Engineering expertise moves elsewhere.
Eventually, the problem isn’t just that Australia doesn’t have a factory. It doesn’t necessarily have the people, suppliers, equipment or expertise needed to build another one.
That is why manufacturing capability can be strategically important even when producing something locally isn’t the cheapest option.
The Australian-made products that disappeared quietly
Perhaps the strangest thing about Australia’s manufacturing decline is how quietly much of it happened.
There wasn’t one morning when Australians woke up and discovered that the country no longer made refrigerators, cars, most of its clothes, tyres or white copy paper.
Instead, one factory closed. Then another. A production line moved overseas. A supplier disappeared. A brand changed its manufacturing arrangements. Consumers bought the cheaper alternative.
And eventually something that had once been completely ordinary became something you could no longer buy made in Australia.
The economy adapted.
But something was lost along the way.
So what should Australia make?
That’s probably the question we should be asking now.
Not “Why don’t we make everything ourselves?”
And not “Why don’t we just buy everything from whoever can make it cheapest?”
The better question is: Which things are important enough that we should make at least some of them ourselves?
Australia probably won’t bring back mass production of every household appliance. It probably won’t make every T-shirt sold here. It probably won’t return to a world where almost every car in an Australian driveway was built in Australia.
But perhaps we should think differently about manufacturing capability.
Because once an industry disappears, bringing it back can be extraordinarily difficult. Once the skills, suppliers, machinery and knowledge have gone, the real cost of losing an industry may not become apparent until years later.
Australia’s manufacturing story isn’t simply a story about factories that closed. It’s a story about how the things surrounding us changed — often without us noticing.
The Holden disappeared. Then the Australian-made fridge. Then much of the clothing industry. The tyre factories. The paper mills. The electronics factories. The ordinary products that once carried an unmistakable little message:
Made in Australia.
And perhaps the question worth asking now isn’t whether we should bring all of them back.
It’s whether there are things we’re still capable of making today that we should be very careful not to lose next.
Further reading
-
SBS News — Why don’t we produce more things locally? — the article that inspired this discussion.
-
Australian Made Campaign — information about the Australian Made certification and Australian manufacturers.
-
Australian Government — Manufacturing industry — information about Australia’s manufacturing sector, regulations and support.
-
Australian Bureau of Statistics — Labour Account Australia — current employment data for Australian manufacturing.
What Australian-made product do you remember?
Maybe it was the Holden in your driveway, the old fridge in your parents’ kitchen, a Bonds singlet, a pair of Australian-made shoes, a washing machine or a packet of paper you remember buying at school.
Or maybe it was something completely different.
What Australian-made product do you remember from your childhood or earlier life that you can no longer buy made here — and do you think Australia should try to bring products like it back?