Telling lack of local investment

Opinion: WA punches well above its weight in terms of technical and operational skills, but our manufacturers could do with a bit more hometown support.

Western Australians beat themselves up too much over the lack of manufacturing and technological development in this state.

I don’t buy into that way of thinking, and instead suggest we have plenty to crow about. One day, if someone ever studies the advanced skills and businesses in centres with between 2 million and 3 million people, we’d stand head and shoulders above almost any alternative.

From Woodside Petroleum’s work in AI and our mining sector’s focus on automation, to the tech leaders in education and our top notch production of food and beverages, I firmly believe our isolation drives us to overcome what would otherwise be a disadvantage.

But I do sometimes wonder about our ability to convert our inventiveness to commerciality. Often, too, it seems to me there’s a cultural cringe in backing the homegrown product.

In the 1990s, automatic ticketing group ERG was ahead of its time. It could not get local transport utilities to back it, despite winning contracts for other Australian cities as well as offshore centres such as Hong Kong and San Francisco. ERG ultimately failed, but I wonder if it might have done better with a friendlier reception at home.

Also in the 1990s, OKA Motor Company failed for different reasons. It had many local enthusiasts and a product seemingly made for WA, but things went wrong and eventually foreign interests took control.

I am glad to see it back in local hands (see page 12). I was present at the shareholders meeting when the listed company’s death knell as a local vehicle producer was announced and I always felt that was a missed opportunity.

Following up on its recent changes I had the chance to meet Swiss nationals Ruedi Schoensleben and Susi Schoensleben-Vogt, who were at OKA’s new base in O’Connor when I visited. They bought the first production vehicle in the limited edition NT series in 2007 and have toured the world in it, clocking up more than 200,000 kilometres, sometimes on roads 5,000 metres above sea level.

These remarkable retirees are huge fans of their truck, which they claim can go all sorts of places other vehicles can’t, while carrying loads required for weeks of travel without accessing supply centres.

During their recent travels in WA they joined a get together of 25 OKA vehicles in the middle of nowhere.

This is the kind of story that WA people don’t hear enough of. Our own ingenuity and entrepreneurship has created a legendary type of vehicle that, in many cases, has been driving in the harshest conditions for nearly three decades.

The, rub however, is what might have been. The free marketer in me senses that the innovators behind this idea were the wrong people to make a serious go of it. As much as I wish the government somehow intervened to keep a vital industry going in WA, I feel it might have ended up being worse if state funds had been involved back in the late 1990s when OKA was failing.

Nevertheless, billions were spent by governments, state and federal, and by the tariff-burdened public, in propping up the car industries in South Australia and Victoria. They both failed and yet here, stuck away in a nondescript corner of industrial Perth, a local vehicle maker is trying to make a revival.

Let’s hope it works.

Best wishes

I would like to wish all our readers the best for the festive season and 2019.

This year has been tough, again, for many in WA.

Billions of dollars of new projects are welcome but the opportunities from that have yet to trickle down to other sectors. Housing and construction, important drivers of our economy, remain in the doldrums.

But let’s take heart.

I interviewed Wesfarmers CEO Rob Scott recently. In his first year he has taken the plunge and excised assets that were either failing or simply taking too much management focus to be efficient.

Along with an investment in analytics, he is setting up Wesfarmers for his long (hopefully) time in charge.

WA is in a similar situation – many companies have cut to the bone, some could not survive. Many have invested in IT and other systems to be more efficient. Those that survived and invested are fitter and more capable of profiting when the market turns, as it inevitably will.