South African Automotive Week
to actually show their faces, and to rather
send some minions along to read their
speeches.
This may be to them a good sign of
leadership, but it sent a disturbing
message, particularly disturbing when
the country is crying out for leadership at
government level, and when the country
needs leadership to right the economic
ship, and to restrain the Luddite Labourites
via the reforming of draconian labour laws.
But enough of the grass killing elephants.
Apart from the no-shows, the conference
was a success, with some excellent
presentations from the real leaders, all from
industry and industry supporting institutions.
Over the next two issues of aBr, we’ll
be giving an overview of the most
informative presentations and panel
discussions:
KEY NOTE ADDRESS: Australia’s auto meltdown has pressing lessons for SA’s
manufacturers – Prof Göran Roos
P
rofessor Göran Roos is described
in the conference programme
as an advisor to the Australian
government on the auto sector and
manufacturing strategy, but he is much
more than that. He is an honorary
professor at the Warwick Business
School in the UK and also founder of
Intellectual Capital Services Ltd., a
leading think tank on technology and
business futures, and visiting professor
at many other universities, and advisor
and consultant to many government
bodies across the world. Despite this
stellar CV and his role as an advisor to
the Australian government, it was clear
from his presentation that the Australian
government was clearly not listening
to his advice, and his contemptuous
description of them as neo-classical
economists is either a compliment or an
insult, depending on your philosophical
persuasion.
The Australian government clearly does
not believe in hand-outs, and this has
meant the death knell for their automotive
industry. Whether this is good or bad,
only time will tell. But the message for
South Africa is that because of various
factors we cannot afford to go the free
market route and that our automotive
industry does need hand-outs to survive,
irrespective of ideological arguments.
And Prof Roos, despite his disdain for
neo-classicists and his leaning towards
“heterodox economics”, does warn that
protection is per se not good, and his
advice to the South African government
and the automotive industry to slowly
move away from hand-outs and
protectionism should be heeded, and to
learn from the Australian experience.
So what is the Australian experience?
Firstly, because of the strength of their
currency, Australia has “become the
highest cost country in the world for
His main gripe with the Australian
scenario is that jobs will be lost, and that
because the component manufacturers
have merely been order takers, they do