I spent a lot of my life as an industrial chemist in defence engineering factories. So I had a bit to do with foundries in Australia. Most of their work would have come from the car industry, however both our defence manufacturing and our car industry have almost disappeared due to the policies of conservative governments. With the car industry, a definite decision was made to stop subsidising it - it threw thousands of workers onto welfare payments, so the savings were largely cancelled out. At about the same time Free Trade Agreements were signed with China, however the contents of those agreements are not public knowledge. Australian politics are often about social class - what happens to workers is often not even a consideration, however many workers believe they are billionaires when all they have got is a steady job, so the conservatives remain in power.
