Albanese govt announces the Future Made in Australia Act
Why supporting Australian Made is a win-win game
Stockhead reached out to Australian Made CEO, Ben Lazzaro
The ambitiously named Future Made in Australia Act was launched a couple of weeks ago by the Albanese government as a prelude to the May budget.
The strategy is aimed primarily at boosting investments in the green resources and renewable energy sectors by bringing several government funds under one umbrella.
This includes the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, the $4 billion Critical Minerals Facility, the $2 billion Hydrogen Headstart Fund, and the $1 billion Solar Sunshot Fund.
“The world is changing, the pace of that change is accelerating,” announced the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.
“There are opportunities here not just risks, and we need a bigger slice of the action for our workers, businesses and investors so that we can grow our economy and lift living standards into the future.”
While some experts decry the move as protectionism, the PM insists that Australia has not walked away from world markets or the rules-based order.
“We will continue to champion global markets and free trade, to build bilateral and multilateral co-operation and forge agreements,” said Albanese.
“Equally, we must recognise that the partners we seek are moving to the beat of a new economic reality.
“This is not old-fashioned protectionism or isolationism – it is the new competition,” he added.
‘Genuinely’ Australian
Buying things made locally certainly makes sense, from every perspective really.
The economy benefits because you’re supporting local businesses and industries, creating jobs, and keeping the money within the Australian economy.
It also makes sense for the consumer because Australian-made products are typically subject to stringent quality and safety standards.
The trademark that everyone recognises is the famous green-and-gold kangaroo logo, regarded as Australia’s most trusted and widely used country of origin symbol.
Source: AustralianMade.com.au
The highly recognisable logo is legally owned by the non-profit organisation, the Australian Made Campaign Limited.
“We’re a third party accreditor, and our job is to administer and promote that Australian Made logo,” said Australian Made CEO, Ben Lazzaro. “The logo is a product certification trademark for country environment, and it’s the only one of its kind.”
Lazzaro says the logo gives customers full reassurance that what they’re buying is genuinely Australian made.
“Essentially we’re verifying that a product has met the rules in the Australian Consumer Law for businesses to legally make an Australian-made claim.
“These businesses can license the logo from us for a small fee, and they can use that logo on the product that had been assessed. So we’re not affiliated with the government, and are purely funded by these licence fees,” Lazzaro explained to Stockhead.
Things you may not know about Made in Australia
For a product to be labelled ‘Made in Australia’, there are some (somewhat surprising) key criteria that must be met under the Australian Consumer Law.
The main criteria is that the product must have undergone substantial transformation within Australia.
“So this test is to prove that the last substantial transformation happened in this country.
“As an example, if you import timber into Australia, then turn that timber into a table, in the eyes of the Consumer Law, you have legally substantially transformed that input into a table because it wasn’t a table when it came into Australia,” said Lazarro.
Another example is when you import plastic pellets and turn it to say, a bucket.
“You can turn plastic pellets into a bucket, put a wire handle on it, and you can legally describe that product as Made in Australia.
“So there is often a misconception that Australian made means 100% of the inputs are from Australia.
“If that was the case, nearly nothing would be able to make a major Australian-made claim, except maybe for food products that come out of the ground,” said Lazzaro.
Are consumers responding to the logo?
Surveys from Roy Morgan have shown that customers are responding positively to the Australian Made logo.
According to data collected in February 2023, consumers associated the following attributes with the Australian Made logo:
– Supporting local jobs and employment (97%)
– Safe (94%)
– High quality (94%)
– Reliable (93%)
– Use of ethical labour (90%)
– Good value (85%)
– Sustainable (80%)
– Expensive (80%) and
– Environmentally friendly (80%)
“Consumers are always keen to get Australian-made products because of the quality, and we can see this more and more with younger groups.
“It’s also about ethical manufacturing practices, because by virtue of being made in Australia, these products will have certainly been made in an ethical way.
“They also often come with those sustainability, clean and green attributes as well,” said Lazzaro.
Overseas, Australian-made products also have a wonderful reputation.
“Anything that emerges from Australia naturally has a clean and green reputation, particularly if it’s being sold in places like Southeast Asia and China,” Lazzaro added.
ASX companies that manufacture products in Australia
Note that this list is not comprehensive, and these companies’ products may not be Australian Made in the legal sense described above.
Cann Group is involved in the cultivation and manufacture of medicinal cannabis for both domestic and international markets.
The company has an R&D facility in Melbourne, and a state-of-the-art large-scale cultivation and GMP manufacturing facility near Mildura, Victoria.
The Mildura facility incorporates micro climate-controlled glasshouse cultivation space, and 12,000sqm of processing and support facilities, including large-scale GMP manufacture of medicinal cannabis products, as well as analytical chemistry and biology laboratories.
Recce is a biotech focusing on anti–infectives.
The company has its own manufacturing capabilities with a state-of-the-art facility in Sydney’s Macquarie Park.
The site is an automated manufacturing facility with existing output of 500 doses per hour at a 99.9% product yield.
In the bigger end of town, Cochlear is a medical device company that designs, manufactures, and sells Cochlear implant systems.
The company has a manufacturing facility at Macquarie Park, Lane Cove, and Brisbane, although it now also manufactures overseas, including in China.
Cochlear says that it still makes around 85% of its products in Australia.
Blackmores is a natural health company that employs 1,200 people in 13 markets across Asia-Pacific.
The company headquarters is located in Sydney, and its state-of-the-art tablet and soft gel capsule manufacturing facility is located in Braeside, Victoria.
The Braeside site is a 30,000 square metre soft-gel capsule manufacturing facility that employs 265 workers and is licensed to produce medicines by Australia’s TGA as well as international regulators.
The views, information, or opinions expressed in the interview in this article are solely those of the interviewee and do not represent the views of Stockhead.
Stockhead has not provided, endorsed or otherwise assumed responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article.
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