pivot towards the production of essential supplies such as hand sanitizer and surgical masks, exposed Australia’s limited production capabilities, which has now found to be the weakest among OECD countries.
“We have become dependent on everything that we need to survive in an emergency coming in from overseas,” Martin Hamilton-Smith, the director and spokesman of the ASCA, said, adding that during a health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia could be cut off, as national governments refused to let Australia have products like masks, sanitizer, respirators and pharmaceuticals which were manufactured in their countries.
“There are things that we need to be able to do as a nation and make here in Australia in order to survive a crisis … what’s clear is that at the moment there are important gaps, and that leaves all Australians exposed and very vulnerable,” the former SA Liberal leader noted.
According to the findings of the report, Australia has become largely dependent on imports to meet the demand in a host of industries, including health, infrastructure, energy, communication, technology and science. This has left the country with a self-sufficiency ratio of 71.5 per cent, in sharp contrast to 203.2 per cent in Ireland, 120.8 per cent in Germany, 89 per cent in the US and 83.2 per cent in the UK.
Therefore, Hamilton-Smith is calling for a co-ordinated national approach, to tackle the situation, noting that the “logical thing to do” is to appoint a dedicated minister in the national cabinet to overlook the Australian sovereignty capability. “The answer won’t always be to manufacture in Australia … We either need to be able to manufacture it here or we need to be able to store it here. The important thing is we need control over those essential things we need to survive a crisis,” he said.
