Last TV factory in Australia closes

Front page news in Electronics News this month: Panasonics TV factory at Penrith west of Sydney has closed due to the boom in the LCD/Plasma market.

The Penrith plant manufactured all of Panasonics medium to large screen CRTs for the Asia-Pacific market. They used to churn out a finished and boxed TV even 49 seconds or so, impressive stuff.

A sad loss for the Australian industry.

Dave :)

Reply to
David L. Jones
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what are we comming to

Reply to
crazy frog

I thought palsonic assembled in australia too, or is that the same factory?

Reply to
The Real Andy

I thought "Palsonic" was just a rip off monika trying to fool people that their "no name" Chinese made crap was actually made by Panasonic. Do you have any information to the contrary?

MrT.

Reply to
Mr.T

A country of bad spellers and lousy grammar?

Reply to
Arthur Drummond

I was close, kinda:

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Seems Palsonic is an Aussie company, that looks like it rebadges gear made by offshore manufacturers.

Reply to
The Real Andy

What do you expect! We all want a decent Pay each week, We are not Little China men working in a country earning next to nothing. We have govts with Free trade agreements saying its a good thing, They also drop the Import duty's. China do not have a floating currency, its like we used to be years ago, a fixed Exchange rate. So in reality they have a VERY cheap exchange rate. So yeah, they and other Asian Countries will ALWAYS out perform us Caucasian Wage earners.... So don't Gripe when our poor Australian Companies cannot compete against these guys, It just will never happen... Personally, I think they should have High Tariffs on ALL imported Gear, and anything Made Locally should be free of Tax and other duties. Thus putting us on a better equal playing field. It snot Just electronics, it should be across the board, Cars, Foods etc..

Allan

Reply to
Allan

I get a decent pay each week. Don't you? If not, perhaps you should consider a different vocation. Perhaps being a lawyer, doctor, surgeon, accountant, architect, mechanical, project, or electrical engineer would make you happier with your pay packet.

Quite a lot of Chinese women work in factories producing electronic goods. Their standard of living has improved vastly in the past 10 years.

Making imported goods cheaper. After all, why should my hard-earned cash go to the treasury in the form of tariff payents, to protect inefficient local companies who don't want make their goods cheaper. Tariffs amount to little more than protection money, ie extortion. And why should Australian goods be more expensive to foreign consumers, because the local manufacturers can't make their goods cheaper/better or more innovative.

Labour is also very cheap. Overseas companies also get incentives to build factories and employ local people. More investment, more factories, business want a more educated workforce so they can expand their businesses, thus wages increase, prices increase, etc.

Oh really? I don't see Australian industry falling over itself to head into oblivion because the Asians are "outperforming" us. Remember that the economy of many Asian countries were in recession for many years when Australia was booming. And still is. Japan until recently had zero growth for about 10 years.

As I understand, the factory was owned by overseas interests (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.) so the decision to close the factory would not have been made locally. BTW, Panasonic is investing $150 million for a building and equipment in Singapore. (I can just hear the steam coming out of Allan's ears right about now ;-) ) Besides, who's buying large screen crts anyway? And who really wants to stuff pcbs day in, day out anyway? Do you? That's why pcb stuffing machines were invented. Oh, and to reduce costs.

Roll over and die then, eh? Don't innovate then, eh? Don't develop new products and develop new markets, eh? Who, other than another large manufacturer would want to mass produce other domestic equipment like dvd players, tv's, to compete against other manufacturers? There ain't the incentives for a small start-up to produce and compete in those markets other than for manufacturers building specialised equipment, ie Halcro.

What equal playing field? Since when do world markets consist of "level playing fields"? Countries all over the world have tariffs to protect their local markets. Food? You want cars, food, housing, electronic goods to be more expensive, just so we can be on an "equal playing field"? Who's playing field? Yours?

I'm glad you're not in government.

Reply to
dmm

oil, software, medicine, books...

Bye. Jasen

Reply to
Jasen Betts

It was to be expected, but it is still sad news none the less.

Funny how the Panasonic factory has been going so well for so long then isn't it? It only went belly up because the CRT market has declined drastically.

I didn't, you're putting words into my mouth. The factory closed because the CRT market is in decline, that was expected. It has got nothing to do with them not being able to compete, they have been doing that sucessfully for a very long time.

The world doesn't work that way, it's a tad more complicated.

Dave :)

Reply to
David L. Jones

no it closed because it was unable to compete, were it able to compete it would have been re-tooled for flat screens, or PVRs or some other new consumer product.

Bye. Jasen

Reply to
Jasen Betts

How do you figure that? Have they *ever* assembled TV's in Australia as you suggest, or always imported and rebadged them, as they do now? It seems to me they have simply changed badges from "Princess" to "Palsonic".

Which is what I said.

MrT.

Reply to
Mr.T

Actually it was able to compete with *large screen CRT's* only because of the shipping and handling costs involved with such items. No Australian company can compete with China for small mass produced items, regardless of little Johnny's attempts at forcing a similar wage and conditions structure here.

MrT.

Reply to
Mr.T

It was able to compete just fine for large screen CRTs, and it did that for many decades. If CRTs were still as popular then it would not have closed. The factory was only set up for large screen CRTs, it would have required a completely new factory entirely for any other product. Being able to compete *from scratch* with a different product is an entirely seperate issue, that is not why they closed. Panasonic is not an Australian company, so I'm sure there are other very good (internal political) reasons why they would not set up a flat screen factory in Australia.

Dave :)

Reply to
David L. Jones

So why do you think they closed the Factory in Australia, and investing $150 million for a building and equipment in Singapore?

Because I , like YOU want a Good wage.

Allan

Reply to
Allan

accountant,

nothing.

Against the capital cost of the equipment, a few wages are (not quite, but essentially) irrelevant. Singapore gives massive subsidies by way of tax breaks, tax holidays, and a lesser corporate tax rate.

Cheers.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Taylor

"Ken Taylor" wrote in news:jpkVf.8627$ snipped-for-privacy@news.xtra.co.nz:

... and the Singaporeans aren't that far behind us when it comes to wages, and what they'll work for. It's a first world country, arguably more technically advanced than us, and the punters there have an expectation for stand of living and ability to afford gadgets that is not unlike ours.

A key difference lies in the "power distance" in their culture. They have a greater respect for authority than we do, and as a result are likely to be "better" for various values of "work harder", "quality", etc as a derivative.

If you wanted cheap labour, you wouldn't set up in Singapore. You'd go there for central location, high level of skill, high power distance, etc. Not on labour costs though.

GB

--
 "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the 
  entrails of the last priest." (Diderot, paraphrasing Meslier)
Reply to
GB

I thought that was odd that a company like that would go to Singapore, when places like india and even china (still) have much cheaper manufacturing costs. An in addition, the cost of living there is apparently quite high tdhese days, so I assume real estate is also quite scarce in singapore.

Reply to
The Real Andy

I've worked for a couple of large multi-national companies, and where the work goes has not much to do with the economics of it, it's mostly to do with internal politics. People protecting their own local jobs, managers and directors with their own career agenda, whos greasing whos wheels etc. In the case of the big name consumer giants there is probably a fair bit of government politics involved as well. Who knows, some manufacturing director with a lot of clout may simply have preferred to move his family to Singapore instead of China - bingo Singapore get the billion dollar factory.

Dave :)

Reply to
David L. Jones

While that's no doubt true to an extent, it could make good sense to put a large investment for the Asia region into Singapore rather than China or India despite the wage differential as the legal/political structure is a better known animal.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Taylor

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