Govt Sellout?????

[Back In Black]

Talking to a marine electronics distributor at the Brisbane Boat Show & he told me some very disturbing & disappointing news. He had spent weeks doing a quote for the govt, obviously on the electronics side, for a job for new boats to protect our northern waters, with a total spend of $200 million dollars, which would have been a huge boost to our marine industry on every level, only to see the job given to the Malaysians.
He was absolutely gutted over it, as you could imagine.
This is just my personal opinion, but I can't see why the govt is sending vast sums of OUR money offshore, when our own industries are suffering. A $200 million injection into the local economy would be huge. All those people employed would then be contibuting back to the PAYG system, they would have dollars in their pocket to go out to a restaurant, reinjecting the money into another sector, whilst still contributing to the govt coffers by paying GST on the meal etc etc.
As I said, just my own personal view.
Tony
Tony

[NAGG]

This is the sad reality of a global economy ...... Tenders are put out & awaded to a supplier that offers the best ( or close to it) price and best meets other criteria. Australians do miss out at times just as we win overseas contracts too.
I know that one of my clients are supplying the synthetic grass for the London Olympics ( hockey) ...... that is 3 Aust owned companies will benefit at the expense of any English company - Swings & roundabouts

Chris

[Noelm]

don't exactly see how that is too different to Aus fisherman/boaters buying stuff on line from over seas.

[stue2]

I think you are both right in what you say but I think this is a political sweetener to secure that other hot topic between these two countries

[fishfeeder]

To me this is typical of our crap government.
Lets give $200mil to the Malaysians economy to help us protect our Northern water, But hang on who are the people we are trying to protect our waters from again or have I missed something here !!!

Next thing Malaysia will be building a detention center, Its a fill my pockets with $$$$ and you can do what you want situation.

Just my opinion of course.

[BM]

I think Noelm is very correct in his statement and anyone who buys stuff from overseas but comments against Noel's perspective is a huge hypocrite!!

I have purchased stuff from OS (bought a Merc crankshaft that I could not get here in Oz) but generally I get my parts locally.

Every time someone buys from OS instead of local it's another job on the line here and another business on the line too.

"But it's only one little purchase" I hear? Yep along with millions of others with their one purchase also.

Sure the pencil needs sharpening on product prices here but if we all shop OS then we won't have many businesses left alive here.

I have noticed recently that parts prices here have been closing in rapidly on prices OS. Whereas a Merc part might have been more than double the price of the US based part I have had some parts that have been perhaps as little as $5-10 dearer on say an $80 part.

Cheers

[Funchy]

Sure the pencil needs sharpening on product prices here but if we all shop OS then we won't have many businesses left alive here.

I have noticed recently that parts prices here have been closing in rapidly on prices OS. Whereas a Merc part might have been more than double the price of the US based part I have had some parts that have been perhaps as little as $5-10 dearer on say an $80 part.

Cheers

Checked the website to purchase an Alvey Surf reel at a big C.B.F type of store back home in Aust and it was $229 to buy. Out of curiosity I searched here in the US and lo and behold I can get one here for $209. Ahh the Irony!!

[fisho8]

Bet there wasn't a political decision on that one Jeez that is a big blow. One of the facts These days is that more people are shopping around there just not going to the retailer and paying full price. Online business is a huge industry now and the retailers know it. Damages our economy yes but the sad fact is if you can get the same product somewhere else cheaper weather it be O/S or here then why buy it here. That is why we will see in the future more boat builders going O/S to manufacture their product so they can compete here with all the other imports.

[goat boy]

Without trying to read too much into the decision, the basic fact is they are obliged to get the best value for public money. If that means buying OS well, thats just a sad fact, they still followed protocol and got best value.
And if you want to get pedantic about buying OS and keeping aussies in jobs etc, keep in mind that buying online means you're almost certainly paying some kind of fee to an Aussie ISP, their call centre may be overseas but there's still aussies employed here IRT that service...

[MudRiverDan]

don't exactly see how that is too different to Aus fisherman/boaters buying stuff on line from over seas.

I wasn't going to say anything here but I did a few years in the government and one thing I noticed is that people would always charge the very highest price and then some from the government, as they knew too well they were good for it.

Maylasia and those areas are becoming competitive as it is cheaper to transport something over from there than it is through out Australia, of course they all work for peanuts in unregulated conditions, though I guess this will change.

Since we are close or higher than US dollar our business is very attractive too them.

Personally I think the Government is selling out many many Australians, and has been for some time.
The whole global thing is increasing competition and this in reality means hard times for many.

I agree that there is a lack of support ---I should use the word incentive, as support if often just a crutch or a bandaid for many people and I don't really like the way the whole thing is going..

[Giveitacrack]

I was quite suprised to learn at the boat show that a local fibreglass boat manufacturer now "lays" there hulls in china.The govt should give these small businesses the incentive to keep jobs in Australia.Not handouts but incentives...

[fishfeeder]

I don't think the Australian Government can really say they are saving the Public's $$$ by going overseas. Its Australian dollars there now taking away from our economy so if there saving say $10million by going overseas they will still be taking $190mil away from the Australian Public for something that could be done here.

What about warrantee are they going to send it back to Malaysia if something goes wrong with the installation or Electronics !!! (LMAO)

Cheers

[stue2]

I really struggle to believe that this decision was made on best price. I cannot recall a best price decision made above political gain from any gov't. Only need to look at recent Gov't activity.
Cost effective decisions are made with an "agenda " attached.
An agreement between two countries will never be a one way street. There will always be a "political sweetener" for these deals to go through and $200 mil is big enough to sweeten

[MudRiverDan]

I really struggle to believe that this decision was made on best price. I cannot recall a best price decision made above political gain from any gov't. Only need to look at recent Gov't activity.
Cost effective decisions are made with an "agenda " attached.
An agreement between two countries will never be a one way street. There will always be a "political sweetener" for these deals to go through and $200 mil is big enough to sweeten

Is it possible that the cost of goods, labour and fuel is finally bringing Austral Asia +China to geographical realisation?

At present these Countries offer us a better future than Europe or the USA.

Though they do have large populations of dirt poor folk, its a lot of mouths to feed.

[oldboot]

Individual people buying retail or making the choice to buy overseas in small quantity is one thing.
Governments buying in large volume and on a completly different price scale is another thing all together.

In the US politcal futures revolve arround the awarding of government contracts to local companies..... but over there the local company is often the cheapest tenderer.

But again, much of the time our local suppliers and distributers of goods are disadvantaged because they are unable to buy at a competitive price.

One supplier I use a little, was telling me that they quoted a very large contract for a "major australian airline", on a product that they have exclusive australian distributeship for.....like million dollar contract.......they were backdoored by their own parrent company in the US.
Who supplied to the end user at what equated to the price the wholy owned local subsiduary buys at.
And I know this sort of thing to be far from uncommon.

The small player getting backdoored by someone up the chain when the order gets big enough is very very common.

The NSW and VIC head offices do it to QLD, SA, WA, NT and TAS every day of the week, and you can bet it happens internationaly every day too.

So..ask yourself.......should our government pay 20% or 30% more to buy in Australia when the majority of that margin will leave the country and go to the same place anyway.

Its a hard thing.

cheers