[WACR]

Aside from manufacturing a product which the customer wants to buy, high wages can be competitive provided productivity is high enough to justify them. I constantly hear our productivity is falling behind the rest of the world, that may be correct, but we will never learn to improve this, unless we understand how we compare and how we can improve.Generalised statements are always vague, I am sure specific productivity comparisons are available to those in the know in each industry, and more importantly the detail of the productivity work practices. If the Japanese are much more productive at manufacturing a car, then it should not be rocket science for the industry to explain how they achieve this. If its down to work procedures and processes and not a significant wage disparity, then what have we failed to learn or copy in Australia? Ford , GM and significantly Toyota must have bucket loads of data which they will have tried to replicate in Australia, but to no avail perhaps. Maybe its as simple as economies of scale? Comparing apples with apples and this is important, we dont want to compare building a hyundia to a Ferrari, what are the production line personnel in Japan, Korea , USA doing differently in their working day to us in Australia?