Local manufacturing is ‘critical for sovereignty’
Summary
We need to get away from that doomsday attitude that we can never be competitive in manufacturing. And weve got to get a balance between people and technology. But if you get that right, you can be competitive, he said.Although China was investing to play catch-up regarding the environmental controls and technology upgrades that Australia had long used, Mr Evans said COVID-19 had served as a reminder of the importance of having critical manufacturing onshore.Very much defence and civil infrastructure are critical to sovereignty in Australia, Mr Evans said.During the pandemic we were at critical levels of product everyone forgets that water is pretty important. If you dont have those products, you cant deliver water.Established by the previous federal government and backed by Labor, the ABGF was set up to provide growth capital for small to medium enterprises with investment from the big four banks, Macquarie and HSBC.It takes non-controlling equity stakes in businesses with proven track records that might otherwise rely on less patient sources of investment from private equity or buyout funds.Mr Evans said the previously wholly family-owned business was pleased to have not had to get into bed with the devil in finding the capital to grow.The AGBF have a real desire to work with the businesses and develop the businesses and the opportunities for Australian industry to, I suppose, move forward out of over the hill that weve had over the last three years, he said.The funds chief executive, former NAB executive Anthony Healy, said the fund was generating strong returns for the six banks that back it, but with government support it was also building strong public-private partnerships to advance other non-commercial objectives.On top of commercial returns, were measuring employment growth, were measuring exports, were measuring regional diversification and generally economic growth that is the impact of our fund, Mr Healy said.Derwent, off the back of our investment, will increase the number of people it employs by about 18 per cent over the next three years. Were measuring the hard financial returns, but were also measuring the economic returns that are important to all of the shareholders.