According to Weld Australia CEO Geoff Crittenden, Australian manufacturing’s decline was not inevitable but the result of procurement decisions that neglected local capability, compliance and long-term national interest.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Australia was a manufacturing nation.
We made cars and trains and critical infrastructure. We had profitable steel mills, a world-class mining sector, strong aluminium capability, and engineering businesses that could take on projects of national significance. Transfield, for example, was awarded the contract for the ANZAC frigates in 1989 – a project worth billions that employed more than 10,000 people in Australia and 1,300 in NZ.
This was not nostalgia. It was capability.
Manufacturing employment peaked at roughly 27 per cent of Australia’s workforce around 1950 and remained high throughout the 1960s. Manufacturing accounted for 26 per cent of GDP in 1962-63. Today, World Bank data puts manufacturing value added in Australia at 5 per cent of GDP.
The decline is not abstract. For instance, Australian mass car manufacturing ended in 2017 when Toyota and Holden closed their remaining plants, following Ford’s closure the year before. So, what happened?
It is easy to blame China, Vietnam, Korea or India. But that is too convenient. These countries are doing what industrial nations do: building capability, supporting industry, securing work, creating jobs and pursuing national interest.
Too often, the answer is: we gave the work away.
For 20 years, Australian governments and procurers have talked about local content while awarding contracts to the lowest upfront bidder. They tender major public projects to primes and the Australian taxpayer is left with the consequences when things go wrong. There is little meaningful whole-of-life cost analysis, little accountability for the downstream cost of non-compliance and no effective mechanism to verify that imported fabricated steel complies with Australian Standards.
The examples are everywhere. The New South Wales Government ordered a fleet of inter-city trains from South Korea for $2.3 billion, expecting them to be 25 per cent cheaper than locally made trains. The trains did not fit sections of the Blue Mountains network, requiring station and infrastructure modifications, while the Auditor-General warned the total project cost could rise to $3.9 billion.
Queensland’s New Generation Rollingstock project was manufactured in India. A commission of inquiry found all 75 trains failed to comply with disability access laws, with rectification works costed at $335.7 million.
At WIN Stadium in Wollongong, a $30 million grandstand used steel from China, with virtually no BlueScope steel, despite Port Kembla being just two kilometres down the road. At GMHBA Stadium in Geelong, defects delayed the redevelopment of the new northern grandstand, with reports pointing to welding quality problems in steel imported from Qatar. On Melbourne’s Tullamarine Freeway, a massive overhead road sign fell and crushed a car after a strengthening steel plate was not installed; the audit found similar issues on other signs.
These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a system that confuses paperwork with compliance.
Imported structural steelwork may be fabricated to unknown standards, fabricated poorly due to weak quality assurance systems, or involve improper substitution of materials and welding consumables. It also warns that without proper quality assurance, the result can be catastrophic structural collapse causing serious or fatal injuries.
Meanwhile, local fabricators are being hollowed out. Fabricated steel imports have climbed from 450,000 tonnes a year to 700,000 tonnes a year. Vietnam has emerged as a major exporter to Australia, increasing steel exports by almost 50 per cent in 2025. In NSW alone, more than 15 fabricators have gone out of business in recent years.
This is what Weld Australia is hearing every day from our members. One Western Sydney fabricator told us that this time last year he had 90 tradespeople working for him. Now he has 12. Another local company quoted $100,000 for compliant work, only to see the job awarded overseas for $30,000.
When I wrote to the NSW Government about this crisis, the response from Building Commission NSW simply pointed back to existing National Construction Code pathways for demonstrating product suitability. That completely misses the point. The problem is not that compliance pathways do not exist on paper. The problem is that nobody is consistently, independently checking that imported fabricated steel complies before it enters our buildings and infrastructure.
This is not just about fabricated structural steel. Evidence from Dux Hot Water shows imported heat pump water heaters raising serious safety concerns, including independent testing that found steel in some imported models had carbon content up to 90 per cent lower than comparable Australian-made units. Some units reportedly imploded, leaked flammable gases or failed outright.
The contradiction is extraordinary. On one hand, governments are spending billions trying to revive sovereign capability. The Commonwealth has committed $22.7 billion over a decade to the Future Made in Australia agenda. Governments are working to keep Tomago Aluminium open, investing up to $600 million to support the Mount Isa copper smelter and Townsville refinery, and providing a $135 million support package for Nyrstar’s Port Pirie and Hobart smelters.
The same test must apply to the Government’s new fuel security infrastructure. If taxpayers are underwriting a $10 billion permanent, government-owned Australian Fuel Security Reserve of around one billion litres, then the tanks, pipework and associated fabricated steel should be fabricated in Australia wherever local capability exists, and any imported content must be independently verified to Australian Standards.
On the other hand, public procurement continues to send Australian work offshore. That is self-sabotage.
The solution
The solution is not complicated. Weld Australia, working with industry partners, is progressing the National Fabrication Authority: an independent, not-for-profit body designed to verify compliance with Australian Standards for fabricated steel, whether made in Australia or overseas. Its role would be to certify, audit and inspect fabricated steel before it is erected or installed.
If imported fabricated steel complies with Australian Standards, it should be welcome. If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be used. That is public safety, fair competition and common sense.
Australia did not lose its manufacturing capability overnight. We gave it away. Now we have a choice. We can keep rewarding the lowest price, or we can enforce the standards we already claim to uphold.
If we want a future made in Australia, then governments must start buying, verifying and backing what is made in Australia.
