Privitaisation what has it done for our countries engineering future?

Well itís here the effects of privatisation over the past 15 years has now impacted on what we now call ìskills shortageî across all industry sectors.

Where are all the trainee draftspeople and graduate Engineers coming from? who is training them and where will we be in 3- 5 years time.

All the front end Engineering and Design will be done offshore ( It has already started) with countries like Phillipines, Malaysia and India taking these jobs from the major EPCM organisations.

Why because itís cheaper!!!

No because itís a good band-aid fix for now!!!

As soon as we lose one industry, manufacturer or service to offshore providers, we lose it forever !!! If we lose our Engineering, Design and Manufacturing capabilities in this country we will become the next ARGENTINA!!

How did all this happen?..... Well it all started when companyís like the SECV, Gas and Fuel, and other major utilities were privatised, these organisations typically took on 200 -300 trainees, graduates and apprentices per annum and churned out top quality Engineers,Draftspeople and Tradespeople, who either stayed on or moved into private enterprise, the Engineering wheel was turning !!

Many of them working in the current privatised market and about to RETIRE, some have moved offshore and others have got out of the industry all together.

We have a multitude of Excellent Engineers within the manufacturing sector who we cannot help, unless they have a mining, minerals or Road Design background.

Surely we must have more than mining and minerals jobs in this country.

Seems that is all we are recruiting at the moment, just look at all the job boards and you will see what I mean !!!! Mining Jobs, Mining Jobs !!!!!!

So were to from here? Who knows, maybe Australia will turn into a country who will only specialise in taking minerals resources out of the ground and shipping them abroad and buying back the finished product from our overseas partners at 50 to 100 times the price we sold the raw materials for in the first place

Australia needs to go back to the drawing board and start investing big in Australiaís Engineering future or we will end being a country only known for itís capabilities of exporting raw materials and no longer the ìSMART AND LUCKY COUNTRYî

We need to start becoming more independent and investing more money in RandD, Engineering and Manufacturing leave the expertise and industry in the country, start exporting our Australian Designed and Manufactured Products abroad. We can even use our own RAW materials.

We have smart people in this country and we need to nuture them, retain them and start developing strategies now for the future or we will have more than a Water Crisis on our hands !!!!!