Great Aussie invention: Hills Hoist
Australia is unquestionably a nation of innovative thinkers. Our isolation has meant that we have had to rely on our own resourcefulness and skills to develop solutions to many problems that were not just unique to our experience but had potential to meet market needs world wide.
Our greatest inventors and inventions often had very humble and unassuming beginnings. In fact some of the most unique and innovative ideas have originated, often literally from our own backyard; for example, the Victa Lawn Mower which was invented in 1952, in Concord a suburb of Sydney, Australia, by Mervyn Victor Richardson and the Hills Hoist which was invented by Lance Hill in 1945. Hill also began to manufacture the height-adjustable rotary clothes hoist in Adelaide, South Australia. These two inventions are now such a familiar part of our culture that it is easy to forget in their day they revolutionised two very common household chores and changed the way we approach lawn mowing and laundry forever. In the medical sphere the Cochlear implant Ear Piece (Professor Graeme Clark A.C., then Foundation Professor of the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne in 1970, led the team that developed the Australian prototype bionic ear, which was implanted into the first patient, Rod Saunders, in 1978) In fact the list of Aussie ingenuity is very extensive across many fields of endeavour and the most common thread amongst them seems to be the lack of home grown support for research and development as well as local manufacture.
Our engineering manufacturing arm has almost departed from our shores and in some instances forever. Manufacturing has been sent offshore where the labour is cheap. In some countries where the unskilled work force is paid just enough to survive with little else to improve their quality of life. It is an irony that we continue to export our ideas and intellectual property to countries that have little regard for occupational health and safety standards. Whilst OH&S is mandatory not only in this country but also other western nations, the implementation and enforcement of OH&S has meant that our local markets suffer with increased costs to our labour market which translates into high costs of our local manufactured products resulting in reduced dividends to the board members of our local companies. Is it any wonder that we prefer to export our manufacturing to countries with a cheaper labour force and reduced overheads ultimately resulting in the depletion of our local skills base and huge gaps in our workforce?
When our manufacturing was at its highest, there was an abundance of employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled labourers, whether it was a foundry in Newcastle, the rail way yards at Redfern or workshop facilities dotted throughout the suburbs of all our major cities. These manufacturing facilities employed a skilled labour force of pattern makers and metal pourers in the foundries, fitters, boiler makers and tradesman’s assistants in the workshop facilities, rail car carriage builders, sheet metal fitters, boiler makers, electricians in the rail industry. These industries offered employment opportunities in their hundreds each year to apprentices. Many of these apprentices eventually established small businesses of their own becoming the local tradesmen that we call on when we require domestic help with our plumbing, electrical work, building maintenance and so on. The forgotten workers of our manufacturing industry are the unskilled workers. The unskilled labour force often comprised of people who had limited education opportunities or were marginalised through life circumstances but who nonetheless were absorbed by manufacturing into a working life that provided structure and valued their ability to complete basic tasks with minimal supervision. It is the unskilled labour force who have suffered most with the demise of manufacturing in this country. Not only have they lost employment opportunities but they have also lost a crucial support network that was so valuable in assisting those in the lower socio-economic strata of society in improving their own situation as well as the generations that followed them.
So as you can see the flow on affect of watering down our manufacturing industry has a direct impact on our domestic consumption of our daily household or commercial needs. We have chosen rightly or wrongly to import a variety of products that we could have made here in Australia and thereby reap the rewards of maintaining our local skills for future generations to come. We have essentially traded our very core values and the values of our children in exchange for a “quick buck”.
Certainly our resource industries have benefited from the bonanza of offshore manufacture, however if our greatest mining trading partner in Asia becomes a causality in this “global financial crisis” Australia will have nothing to fall back on because we have neglected to nurture a manufacturing industry over the past 30 years. One wonders if such neglect will be the undoing of the very foundation that this country was established on that is a decent day’s pay for a decent hard day’s work.
We can be optimistic that as a nation we will replenish the skill shortage which faces us, re-establish a workable apprentice system and learn from our experiences. It rests with our political leaders to realize that every country needs a manufacturing industry which will allow us to become competitive in a world market. After all we all live in an extraordinarily blessed country that has experienced enormous growth in the past and there is no reason why we shouldn’t experience the same or better again.
Written by Adage jobseeker Michael Coco
