A year of progress, pressure and hard lessons has shown that while Australia’s manufacturing momentum is building, the challenge lies in turning urgency into lasting industrial capability.
We began 2025 at the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre with pleasant news – AMGC’s appointment as an Industry Partner Organisation (IPO) in conjunction with the Australian Government’s Industry Growth Program.
Focusing on Transport, Defence and Value-Add to Resources, the appointment gave us another platform to do what we do well – work with industry and government to deliver programs that strengthen Australian manufacturing.
In this role, we’ve provided advice, forged connections, and helped small- and medium-sized (SMEs) manufacturers prepare for funding through the IGP’s activity streams. But as I wrote in my December 2024 column, Our Manufacturing Potential is Latent, programs alone are not enough.
Australia’s manufacturing potential remains vast but still largely untapped. We have the skills, resources and creativity to be a manufacturing powerhouse, yet we haven’t connected the dots at the scale required.
We Must Fix One Issue for a Future Made in Australia. In the July 2025 issue I wrote about the missing middle in our manufacturing landscape – the space where small-sized companies should be growing into medium-sized ones, and where innovation should be industrialised and commercialised. Until we fix that, a Future Made in Australia will remain an aspiration, not a reality.
And so, as 2025 draws to a close, I can’t help but think – what a year it’s been.
Another year of bail-outs – and wake-up calls
The year began with a hard lesson in industrial resilience. In February, Whyalla Steelworks, reportedly losing $1.5 million a day, was placed into administration by the South Australian Government, triggering a $2.4 billion state-federal rescue package. The plant is still operating and even hiring again. It needs to be seen whether the new ownership will modernise this national capability.
In March, the Federal Budget arrived, adding to our deficit. Instead of spending our way forward, Australia would be better long term if we were to transform our natural endowments into value-added capability, not rely on short-term bail-outs.
In May, the Albanese Government was returned, and I observed that a re-elected government has its longest runway right after an election – and with it, the greatest responsibility. The opportunity to rebuild our industrial capability is right now, not sometime in the future.
In June, the Harvard Growth Lab’s Economic Complexity Index offered a sobering reminder of how much work remains. Australia slipped from 86th place in 2019 to 105th in 2025, and we now sit between Botswana and Côte d’Ivoire – down from the 86th place in 2019. The result underlines our ongoing reliance on raw commodity exports, mainly to one customer, and the limited progress we’ve made in diversifying the economy. It also reinforces the enormous value-add opportunity before us, and the role manufacturing must play in driving that change.
Progress, partnerships and persistence
In July, the first project under the Wind Energy Manufacturing Co-Investment Program – which AMGC co-created and delivered with the Western Australian Government – received support. Australian Winders secured a $488,204 co-investment to automate its electric-motor coil line and expand into wind-energy supply. This is a good example of tapping into adjacent manufacturing capability to drive future prosperity.
That same month, I addressed Weld Australia’s National Manufacturing Summit. My message was simple:
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Support promising manufacturers on the cusp of greatness now, not later.
• Treat manufacturing as a national capability, not a photo opportunity.
• Build an industry-led plan that works in the real world, as proven by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institutes, the UK’s Catapult centres and Japan’s MITI. The way these models work inspired AMGC’s creation and continues to inform our approach.
In August, AMGC took part in major policy discussions. AMGC Chairman Paul Cooper joined the Small Business Economic Reform Roundtable, while I participated in the Industry Minister’s Technology and Innovation Roundtable.
The same month, another $135 million rescue package was announced for Trafigura-owned Nyrstar to sustain operations at Port Pirie and Hobart while developing a pilot antimony plant, a material that underpins a range of modern-day products. September saw another AMGC co-investment for WA-based RCR Advanced Technologies to enter the wind-generation supply chain.
By October, the pattern was clear. Glencore’s Mount Isa operations received $600 million in state-federal support to keep copper production running for three more years. Some called 2025 “the year of the bail-out” – perhaps rightly so. But time will tell whether those funds build resilience or simply delay the inevitable.
In November, AMGC hosted the Inside Defence – What Primes, Investors and Trailblazers Seek from SMEs panel as part of our IPO work. Industry leaders from Thales, Lockheed Martin, the Defence Trailblazer and Beaten Zone Ventures shared valuable insights for SMEs wanting to work with major defence customers.
These moments, big and small, reflect what AMGC does best: connect people, ideas, and technology to create capability that endures long after co-investment grants are spent.
Back Australia – before our runway ends
An encouraging development is News Corp’s interest in manufacturing through their Back Australia campaign. It’s helping shift the conversation toward the value of nations that make things.
In that campaign’s feature story, Time Running Out for Australia to Turn its Luck Into Smarts, I said:
“Australia is an amazing country to live in. We have it too easy though… We lack the sense of urgency that makes us so rich and liveable – mainly commodities – that this is a runway which comes to its end… So, we need to start looking at alternatives when nobody buys our coal or gas anymore.”
Our prosperity is built on a finite foundation, and the clock is ticking.
I also said:
“I would think we have maybe 15 years. If you convince young people to take up a role, educate them, have them gain some experience, before we even have the workforce a decade is gone.”
That’s the stark reality. My guess is that we have a 15-year window to grow and scale our manufacturing capability before our luck runs out and our standard of living will take a severe hit. The good news is that the mood is shifting. Australians are starting to see that backing manufacturing isn’t nostalgia – it’s survival and opportunity. Economically advanced nations, no matter what size, are nations who are able to make complex things.
The road ahead
Looking back, 2025 has been a year of both movement and contradiction. We’ve seen progress on programs, co-investments and partnerships, but also a wave of bailouts that highlight how fragile some parts of our industrial base remain.
The real work is only just beginning. We must:
• Build the missing middle by helping our best SMEs scale into globally competitive firms.
• Prioritise support for value-adding and advanced manufacturing.
• Align education, industry and policy around long-term capability.
• Champion the Back Australia sentiment into a lasting industrial movement.
AMGC closed out its 10-year milestone, and I’m grateful of how far our team has come and how we’ve given small manufacturers a voice, but we remain acutely aware of how far we still must go.
Manufacturing has never been easy. It demands aspiration, persistence, and precision. It is the foundation of nation’s strength.
To our members, partners and everyone who believes in making things – thank you. Enjoy a restful Christmas time. Next year we aim to move faster, collaborate harder and prove that “Made in Australia” is not just a slogan – it’s our future.
