Owen Guns Bulletin May Edition No 168, 2020

Ron Owen Blog May 25, 2020

We ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS, and Yes we Do Accept Cash.
Welcome to the One Hundred and Sixty Eighth Edition of the Owen Guns Bulletin. Owen Guns, is now in its Forty Sixth year in the firearm business.
We have been informed by many of our customers that Owen Guns is the best kept secret in the Australian Firearm Industry. The best service with the lowest prices. We save money by not having to take huge magazine advertisements, so we have the lowest prices for the best quality firearms in Australia. If you wish to shop, please give us a call, phone for a price. Phone 07 54 825070, or 07 54 824099. 0427 943 677, 0754 824718.  Or call in.
We always have the prices until we run out of present stock.  By then we will have more great prices on more stock of other products.
We sell TIKKA, Walther, Beeman, SAKO , Armed, STEYR MANNLICHER, Mossberg, Gamo, Stoeger, Thompson-Centre, S & W, Colt, Sabatti, Webley & Scott, Cometa, Rossi,  Browning, SAUR, Remington, HOWA, Marlin, Zastava, Winchester, CZ, Beretta, Perazzi, and many others. Everything Advertised is in Stock at the time of publication, we can only hold prices while stocks last. email owenguns@spiderweb.com.au
MUSEUM is NOW OPEN.
Facebook site for the OWEN GUNS TRUST MUSEUM.
https://www.facebook.com/Owen-Guns-Trust-Museum-280558165683091/
Please visit and give a like. Lots of Great  Gun Photos.

We ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS, and Yes we do Accept Cash

Due to Prudent buyers stocking up, knowing that with the suspension of firearm and ammunition manufacturing world wide, and the emptying of the USA Gun Shops that all our stock would be very hard to get in the future our Mountain of Firearms and Ammunition was reduced to 20% of normal holdings. Since then we have restocked with another mountain of ammo in all calibers but different lines but due to the Importers running out of stock and nothing much expected to come into their warehouses (ie. Winchester Australia ran out of most lines of .22 ammo six weeks ago) .  So please phone 07 54 824099, or 07 54 825070 or 07 54 824718 for prices and availability.

We have  some 12 g Emerald Lever Action Shotguns, $460. Short 20 inch and Long Barrels .
A small quantity of
Jw 15 Puma Norinco .22 lr 5 shot Bolt actions $260. Synthetic stocks.

Tikka T3 Heavy Barrel from $990.

Webley & Scott U/O 30 inch barrels Model 900 Black $792

Mossberg Centrefire rifles. 243 from $550.

Marlin 336 W 30-30 $880.

Saur Model 100 most calibres. $1049.
Howa 6,5 Grendal, 5 shot $549. Synthetic Stocks.

Howa Model 1500 .243 Win Stainless, threaded, $575.

Escort Under & Over 12g  ejectors short. $615.

Brownings A Bolt .243. .270, 308, 30-06, 300 win mag 5 shot $660.

Weatherby Vanguard most calibers from $760.

Winchester model XPR   $595. .243 and a few other calibres.

Just had a large shipment of Smart  Reloading equipment.
Thoughts For The Week.

I spent my last few weeks with which I normally write ‘Thoughts for the Week’ but spent the time responding to an invitation to submit a report on the CDIC which is supposed to support Defence Industries. I hope someone in the decision making area, at least reads it, but would still be a miracle if it changed anything for the better. We have to keep trying as if we do nothing there is no hope at all. I have included it below. If you like it please share it around your networks as most of us know, we have to be ready for the coming war, we do not know if it’s a Cold or Hot war, only that its coming. Since I wrote this submission, Chinese leaders have described Australia as, ‘US Lackey Dogs’ and “that Australia is like chewing gum that sticks to your shoe that you have to pull off”. The Chinese Communist Government has shown no regard for their own Chinese people, and much less regard for the rest of the Human race. The Bully Boys of Asia have to be faced up to and challenged or they will take all before them and call it ‘easy’.

Our Delusional Defence Disaster.
Besides that we have to deal with a Defence Force that has a culture built by idiots, like Martin Turnbull who awarded a Medal of Australia to Lieutenant General David Morrison, (High Heeled) former Chief of Army, now retired and chair of the Diversity Council of Australia, but please don’t forget our former admirals who prefer to prepare the ADF to fight climate change rather than human enemies who might want to kill us and take over Australia. Admirals who chose the already failed Super Sea Sprite, a helicopter that never flew, but whirred away a cool $1.4 billion.
The ‘Pyne Box’ Disaster.
Now French submarines (cost maybe 200 Billion) that will never swim, never mind go into battle, as few normal people would be suicidal enough to crew them. They use 100 year old lead acid battery system when instead they could be building smaller unmanned, Undersea Autonomous Submarines armed with torpedoes and protected by a range of high-tech sensors and stealth technology. The Orca can dive to 11,000 feet (3,700 metres), operate for up to seventy days without human involvement and has a range of 6,500 nautical miles. In short, we could send an Orca to the South China Sea and bring it home again without risking a single life, at a minuscule cost compared to our future French Barracuda submarine program that might take another twenty years before they are taken out and sunk.

From a Stakeholder
Ron Owen
To the co-chairs of the
Centre for Defence Industry Capability (CDIC)
Advisory Board,
Ms Kate Carnell AO and
Mr Tony Fraser AO,CSC.

Submission to the Review of ‘The Centre for Defence Industry Capability’.

“The purpose of the review described in the Terms of Reference is to evaluate the framework of programs to support sustainable growth of Australian Sovereign Defence Industry.”
This submission might not follow the sub headings of the Terms of Reference, but as it addresses the problems that raised the review, all Australians, public servants, or not, have a duty to there country so should read, agree, disagree, share and as soon as possible remedy the lack of Australia’s Defences.
You sent the invitation to make a submission to stakeholder, I believe every Australian citizens is a stakeholder in the Defence of Australia, but Yes, I am what you would define a a stakeholder, being a small manufacture of firearms for 46 years and having an application to the “Hub” which has taken 2 years to get to its current ‘acronyms’ RFP (Request for Proposal). A Mechanical Engineer in the firearm trade, a retired Grenadier Guardsmen who has inspected firearm & ammunition manufacturing factories in the UK, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Philippines, China, I have had the fortune of having many discussions with the modern day soldiers from Major Generals who have had less idea on Modern Gunnery than the Modern Major General, of Pirates of Penzance fame, to Privates who were more motivated and forward thinking than Genghis Khan, and a lot of other between those two examples.

The URGENCY Question.
If, and when China has its third attempt to invade the island of Taiwan, and the USA either intervenes but fails to stop China, or does nothing, allowing Taiwan to go down, which country will China take next, and who will stop them?

1. Do We Have More Secondary Industry and Infrastructure Than We Did Three Years ago? NO.
With the loss of the last relics of the motor car industry completely that would have to be a resounding NO. (as most of the supply chains that supplied those industries have gone and so are now unavailable for Defence Industries to source from. Without Local Secondary Industries all manufacturing in Australia is tenuous, but more importantly for Defence Industries as for one example with out Australian made cutting tools as soon as the supply chain is broken all our machine tools stop. So the CDIC efforts have been a total failure, (governments fault Not CDIC staff) and the foundations, the legislation that created the CDIC is like a cherub peeing on a bushfire. It is time to get very serious about Secondary and Defence Industries as they are part and parcel of the same thing. Defence Industries cannot survive in isolation. If our company orders special steels from overseas as they are unavailable here, if everything is perfect ITARs, export licences, transport from factory to airport, transhipment hold overs, Customs clearance in Brisbane, transport up to Gympie, the time frame is 6 months on average. Our company is in the midst of this quandary.

2. If We Had a War Situation?
A. The Country of manufacture will want it for its own Defence needs and prohibit its export.
B. If that did not happen, and that country agreed to export that steel to us, as Australia is surrounded by Chinese Bases with airfields, (even in Australian Antarctic Territory, and two Air Base being leased in Western Australia. Chinese Bases in East Timor and soon to be in New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Island, and New Caledonia.) it is very doubtful if the steel would get through, because all of our lines of supply would be totally compromised.

3. China Has Secondary Industries So its Defence Industries Have Full Supply.
Our most likely opponents have at least 20 Small Arms Factories in China, each Province has a factory that produces small arms, Rifles, Pistols, Machine Guns, with about 11000 employees each and are easily capable of producing 200,000 firearms per year. (When they are not busy with Firearms they switch to bicycles, or motorbikes and cars) and for example, if they needed Nitinol steel (very high nickel content) if they did not have it in stock they would send a man in a car to the local foundry to buy it, or buy it on line from Ali Baba and it would be delivered by China Post within a few days.
(Note, Every one of the 21 provinces has a rifle and ammunition factory except Tibet. That’s on the basis that if they are invaded their Defence Industrial base is diversified so that every item for the PLA can be supplied by one of those provincial Small Arms Factories.)

4. The Sounding of the Warning Bell.
If we do not drastically re build our secondary industries, (90% has left) Defence Industries have no chance of succeeding. We have been lucky the public has had a warning bell, they awoke to find that China did not care about its own people, never mind the people in other countries, they are awake now to find how reliant we are on China’s industries. If we do not very quickly rebuild and re equip our defence capabilities we won’t just lose a few hundred people to a virus, the serious part is losing tens of millions of people lives and the whole country to China.

5. Do Defence Force Know What They Need? Should More Information be Communicated to the ADF?
The conclusion from those discussions lead me to believe that they naturally learn from their experiences and expect the next war to be a continuation of the last, and all Defence forces find it hard to imagine what the other side is capable of and have no idea of what resources in science and materials, that they lack to combat that massive unbalance. All would love a Crystal Ball to predict the future, the battlefields for Australia could be in Antarctica or the Great Sandy Desert.
For instance rifle calibres suited for jungle warfare are not suited for mountain warfare where the enemy rifles can give grief at 1000 yds and if our General chose a Bullpup rifle as soldiers would be expect to be crowded into a Personal Carrier and then find that its in-appropriate for open, or urban warfare. We need planning that can appreciate coming conflicts on a political, scientific, geographic basis and deal with them in a strategic context, distributing this information to the Government, CDIC and defence force personal.
In Defence Force culture they historically glorify the weapons they have, to give confidence to those who have to trust their survival on those weapons.

This prevents acceptance of reality and prevents a progressive, realistic, practical re-equipment program. Australia has to be ahead of the game, not making do with Austria, or American firearms that were designed in the 1950s.

6. Appeasement.
To compound this we have our politicians who believe in appeasement and fear that if Australia has an Anti-Missile Defence or introduces national service that China would retaliate and swallow us up. They are also influenced by the big order and the big contract that will get them media coverage and so quickly acquiesce easily to the petitions of Defence heads who want the largest budget items in their lolly jar. Neither party giving any real thought to the length in time, money, danger, or inclination for the supply of a spare part. Tragic, as many good men have died keeping supply lines open. A supply of a part is a luxury that makes a battle, or a war won, or lost. The shorter the supply lines are, the easier they are to defend.

7. Why is the CDIC inadequate, ineffective and unfit for the massive ‘mole hill to a mountain’ task of rebuilding Australia’s Defence Industry?
As to do that properly we need to rebuild Australia’s once great Secondary Industries not just Defence Industries as with out the main industrial base its impossible to have a ‘coterie’. industry in a country that has an industrial desert.
On the experience of my small individual scale and discussions with other people who have sort assistance for their own defence industry, everyone agrees that the staff are helpful and polite, some respond to phone calls & emails within 24 hours but for some others it could be a week, a fortnight or never. There is never any urgency, nor a system of report for communication breakdowns. The million dollar website is bureaucratic vortex that send you around and around until you get fed up with it returning you, to where you started. I had to beg for assistance on the phone to access application forms, but was told that they were not allowed to assist in applications. Eventually, I appealed to my local Federal MP and after a few phone calls a lady from CDIC suggested that I change my browser and talked me through to the page where I could begin my application. Annually, they invite you to Canberra to sit in the audience and listen to the propaganda hype, of how good they all are, from the Minister of Defence Industries. The Morning tea is like a Gargantuan Roman Feast and should not be missed, but the only benefits are for the owners of the pikelet making machines and the ego’s of the Ministers, the small innovators, whose inventions, or machines are in the national interest gain nothing for their struggles to pay for their plane ticket.

8. Why is it Impossible for the CDIC to Rebuild the Australian Defence Industry?
The answer to that is it is a clash of cultures, each party is institutionalised believing that they have the leading part of Defence Industry.

9. The Public Service.
We have on one hand the Public Service Culture, of Parkinson Law, build the biggest budget, employ more staff that create more staff positions and the department heads get a pay grade equal to the departments budget. Public Service culture is to produce more public servants, not more industry. They have staff solely devoted to writing fresh new meaningless Acronyms.
They periodically issue translation lists but manufacture more as they go. Words are not good enough and so the Application forms might as well be written in Ancient Hebrew, but the public service wants to keep the riff raff out.

10. The ADF.
Next we have the Australian Defence Force, that even if it did know what it wanted it would not be allowed to tell anyone due to security restrictions, or more likely that it might give an unfair advantage to one defence innovator over another. Most believe that all their equipment should come from the USA. They are never in the same job for more than two years, so have no passion, or continuity. They also have staff solely devoted to writing fresh additional new meaningless Acronyms. They periodically issue translation lists but manufacture more Acronyms on a regular basis.

11. The Politicians.
Those who have not taken the paycheck from the French, or Chinese, or sold an airport, or the Port of Darwin to the Chinese and have the best interests of Australia at heart are very hard to find. As they they still have to consider and kowtow to the Australian media and if they showed too much interest in curtailing the import of cheap immigrant/labour, or try to keep the Chinese students out of our Defence Academy, or University research, or spend money on resurrecting the Firearm manufacturing industry, or suggest that we build a few more coal fired power stations which would return Australia to having competitively priced electricity, they would immediately be branded a Right Wing fanatic. They also have to employ staff to decode Acronyms such as the meaning of PANS – Pretty Awesome New Stuff.

12. Big Business, the Politicians Best Friends.
This is not referring to anyone personally, it’s a culture that give accolades to those that steal business away from their contemporaries. They only respect people that can help them and hate those that don’t. Big Business Defence Industry is not interested in a growing Australian Defence Industry they do not want competition, to them Competition is Sin. Even the big Australian Nioa Trading is tied to ‘Vista Outdoor Inc’ and ‘Rheinmetall, Northrop’and dozens of other overseas manufactures. As for the plant in Marybourgh loading artillery shells the Australian Government must have insisted that some of the manufacturing was made here and by Rheinmetall paying 51% of the project and Queensland “Jobs and Regional Growth Fund” paying $7.5 Million plus the Commonwealth paying in $28.5 million under the “Regional Growth Fund” Nioa has a 15 year contract that did not cost them much at all. Nioa partners Vista Outdoors the owners of ‘Federal Ammunition’ are hardly going to support a small Australian ammunition manufacturer. Nor is Winchester which is totally American owned even if it tries to say its owned by Browning in Belgium they too are owned by Olin Chemicals USA.
Australian Defence Industries, use to be Australian but our politicians sold it to the French “Thales” company. ADI ‘Thales’ used to manufacture ammunition in Australia from start to finish, but now do not even make the bullets, all the components are imported. ADI told me that they do not manufacture Weapons grade Tungsten for projectile penetrators all are imported from France.
The Australian Commercial market consumes large quantities of ammunition but Winchester the last manufacturer of .22 ammunition sent all of its machinery back to the USA last year. That included all the machinery to make 12 g shotgun ammunition, and Centre fire ammunition.
Owen Guns had the experience once, of manufacturing lead shot, Winchester original price for 10 kg was $35. Owen Guns price was $17 for 10 kg. It came to Winchesters attention so they dropped there price to $16. They could afford to reduce the price longer than Owen Guns so that was the end of that contest and the local small industry making lead shot had to cease. Shortly after Winchester increased the price, but now they have stopped making it and sent the machines back to the USA.
The review committee might consider that this Big Business has no input to the CDIC, but even if they have no voting rights on, who stirs their coffee, they are always present like sharks circling around sinking ships. If they can criticise, or can another’s companies idea it will be in sophisticated terms, but will get ravenous, if it looks like they can suck in a new Australian idea and send it overseas. Their major concern is to keep any growing Australian industry away from the Canberra cooky jar and if they find an idea that’s good, steal it and send it to their overseas bosses. They employ people to do nothing except decode government Acronyms and meaningless definitions. They would not complain about Acronyms as they know that small defence business cannot afford to pay for the decoder, and without the specific definitions no small business could hope to compete against them, making them more likely to approach their Big Business.

13. All the Above Points Negatively Impact Australian Defence Industry, But The Main Fox in the Hen House is the Government Imposed Economic Sanctions on its Own Secondary Industry.
The above reasons specifically inhibit the functional performance of the CDIC but it is not the main reason why the CDIC has no chance of affecting the fall and decline of Australia’s Secondary Industry. Once we are involved in the short comings of our defence inabilities we come to realise that Australian industry has been driven on to an iceberg, leaving us with no defence, no industry, not even the ability to manufacture a box of matches, the CDIC is like putting a band aid on the slowly sinking Titanic. Its intent is noble, but without government reform of their suicidal economic disaster the CDIC has no chance of sticking its finger in the Dyke wall to stop Australia sinking. Industry will still run off to China.

14. The Main Reason we only have 10% of the Secondary Industries we had in the 1960s!
If our Australian Government was seriously wanting to re-build the Australian Secondary Industry and defend Australia from the financial dominance of China. (that is the same industry that they signed into oblivion with the 1974 Lima Declaration) As they have the power under the Australia Commonwealth Constitution they would write to the UN and inform them that Australia is no longer bound by the Lima Declaration of 1974 and has withdrawn from all GATT agreements.

15. To Provide Small and Medium Enterprise Innovation Initiatives Government has to Act.
Today it should put a 5% tariff on all Chinese imported goods at the Customs barrier that would cover everything from toilet paper to motor vehicles. It should inform all exporters of goods, (This is one example that can be used in thousand of products) such as Australia Barley that the Commonwealth will pay a bounty, (taken from the incoming tariffs), of 30% of export price to any export of Australian goods, to any country, other than China. There is no future in assisting the school yard bully. This would enable Australian Exporters to compete in the world market, that would encourage international manufactures to set up in Australia.

16. To Help Build the Capability and Capacity of Australian Industry to Support the ADF. The Level Playing Field Never Existed, We have had the Warning Bell, Now Australia Has To Act.
China has placed an 80.5% tariff on Australian Barley, on the false pretext of that Australia is dumping selling it too cheaply, so effectively putting an end to Australian barley sales to China. So Australia has to ensure that we sell it to every other country in the world and make China pay for the loss. If we do not do this Australia will forever be at best a vassal state of China and at worst be conquered by invasion. A 5 % tariffs on all Chinese produced goods would raise billions and all of that could be paid in incentives to small Australian manufacturers to grow. The side effect would be to encourage manufacturing in Australia as that 5% at the import barrier would be magnified by freight, profit margins and GST. This difference in price would give advantages to the poor remaining clothing industry, steel industry, etc.

17. The Commonwealth Constitutional Power To Build Industry.
It is the Big Picture that Really Counts. To Rebuild Australian Industry, To have an Industrial Base for Defence Industry We Need to Recall How it Was Built in the 20th Century, Before the Government Gave it all Away.
I can froth at the mouth about the creation of the ‘Hub’ a system that is designed to employ the most public servants, and put off the most small manufactures from gaining access to their own Honey Pot of grant money. That is not going to change anything, it has to be a decision of government, of similar magnitude to when our Founding Fathers Henry Parks, Andrew Ingliss and Sam Griffith, Big Iron Macmillen put together our Constitution which gave power to the Government for Defence sub section 51 (vi) and gave it the power to use the public credit, ss51 (iv) to pay for it from its own bank ss51(xxi). The also made the decision to empower the Constitution for the governments to award Bounty ss91 and charge tariffs in ss93.

18. Free Trade Killed Britain’s Industrial Might.
Our Founding Fathers had already seen what had happened in Great Britain. In 1860, Britain abandoned its ‘Britain First’ trade policy for the free-trade faith of David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and Richard Cobden. By World War One, Britain, which used to produced twice what America did in 1860, by then produced less than half and had been surpassed by a Germany that did not even exist in 1860. Britain which had produced the Industrial revolution had given away it’s future, given away it’s inheritance, the work of their fathers for the false poisoned chalice of ‘Free Trade’.

“Free trade does to a nation what alcohol does to a man: saps him first of his vitality, then his energy, then his independence, then his life.”

19. To Build Industry We Need Economic Planning.
Ten years after federation our nations leaders of that time used those above specific Constitutional powers to encourage business and industry under Prime Minister Andrew Fisher (member for Gympie) government with advice from a very clever mining engineer King O Malley MP founded the Commonwealth Bank to create the public credit (instead of the commercial banks) which was used to build Australia and to pay for things like WW1, the Australian Navy and a Railway line to Western Australia, without borrowing money from overseas international banks or Australia’s commercial banks. The Commonwealth Banking Act of 1912 made the new bank the sole issue of credit, it was correctly owned by the public. When they combined that with the tariffs on imported goods being paid as bounties to Australian exporters Australia began to build its secondary industries. It was so successful companies like General Motors, Lysaght, ICI ammunition, and Ford saw the advantages of cheap natural resources, cheap electricity as we had lots of cheap coal and combined with a protected market and a bounty for all exports to a rapidly expanding Asia. There was a rush to build Secondary Industries.
The country was secure, so thousands of companies moved production to Australia. In those days most politicians even the free traders, or protectionist mostly had the countries future at heart. The approach of World War One sounded the alarm bells, work began on the Maribyrnong Cordite Factory1907-1912, in 1908 as start was made on the Small Arms Factory at Lithgow and started work in 1912 this ensured, in conjunction with the Colonial Ammunition Company`s factory at Footscray, an independent national supply of arms and ammunition on a limited scale. Over a 100 years later in 2020 we make no rifle projectiles, (bullets) we only assemble ammunition, one manufacture makes powder we assemble and ADI repairs rifles manufactured in Austria and other countries.

20. Our World War Two Industrial Base Saved Us Once, And we Must Return Like the Phoenix.
When World War two came onto our landscape if Australia had not had those secondary industries it would have lost to the Japanese, the 39th Battalion would not have been able to hold the Japanese on the Kokoda Track, they would have captured Port Moresby. The last Battle of the Coral Sea would be lost. The Torres Strait’s would have been open for invasion.
Without the Secondary Industrial Base the Defence Industry could not have produced the Rifles, machine guns, aircraft, ships, tanks, artillery, armour plate and optical glass. Between World War One successive governments also complemented our secondary industries by adding to a growing Lithgow Small Arms Factory, (In 1942/43 in 12 months they produced over 200,000 rifles and machine guns. Government Ammunition factories (Footscray, St Mary’s) Commonwealth Aircraft Co, Government Aircraft Co. These factories built ‘Hubs’ of supply and logistics and trained tradesmen. All this was mainly due to economic decisions, and the skill in the early years of the director of the Commonwealth Bank Sir Denison Miller KCMG, who provided the financial Constitutional credit ss51 (iv) to create these government enterprises but the project was carried through by successive patriotic governments after he died.

21. Australia’s Industry Betrayed.
By 1967 we manufactured all of the parts for motor vehicles , trucks, aircraft such (as Mirage), missiles, (Jindevic), electronics, knives, forks, sinks, baths, televisions, record players, radio, firearms, ammunition, ships, refrigerators, tractors, chainsaws, baths, machine tools, lathes, milling machines, nuts bolts, matches (Bryant & May), and tools Sandvic Sidchrome. We smelted lead, copper, tin and made brass. ACI made glass, we had Fuel refineries in all the major states. We had oil exploration and production. We even made our own uniforms for the Australian Army. Then we elected a bunch of traitors or idiots who signed the Lima Agreement in 1974. I can remember reading about it in the Melbourne Age at that time it sent shivers up the back of my neck. Kissenger had refused to sign, but later after pressure was applied he came to heel and signed on behalf of the USA government.
Australia and the western world declared that to assist 3rd World Nations, that they would gradually remove all tariffs and duties. They admitted that this would give third world countries 30 % of our industries, instead we gave them 90%. The level playing field was never level, Australia was sacrificed.

22. Going Going Gone.
Since then as you know we do not produce a box of matches, Red heads are made in Sweden now. Could we make a tin opener to compete with a Chinese one, I doubt it, or a mouse trap without importing the wire.
Our secondary industries have gone, our natural resources such as lead, copper, tungsten, are refined overseas and sold back to us at great expense in time and money. Specialty steels, cutting tools, machine tools, all electronics are all overseas mainly China. Even if you have a small electronics firm if it needs a part or a battery it has to come from China. If we have a problem with China, we are up a Gum tree, as gradually our industry will stop due to the lack of parts. Lots of parts can be machined & manufactured to repair machines but when we need electronics, even if it’s a machine made in the USA they also have sourced their parts from China. Same with European machines or European optical equipment, as even if the scope tubes are made on site, the prisms and lenses are made in China.

33. The Field Has Never Been Level. We Have Given Our Crown Jewels, Our Industry To China.
Are the Chinese Smarter than Us. No
Are they more Educated than Us. No
Do they have more Natural Resources. No
We Are LIONS Led by DONKEYs.
In the 1990s a Chinese company asked me to bring them a set of Leopold Binoculars with me on my next visit, (I had purchased some rifle scopes from them). I investigated why they had not bought the binoculars themselves and found that to do that they had to pay 7000 % duty on the import per item, even though they were a State owned company. I presumed that they wanted to copy them as they were the latest one out. In the early days of visiting China early 1980s we had to fill out a form on entry to China stating what we had with us, how many handkerchiefs how many shirts, underclothes, watches, camera’s, binoculars and they would sometimes pull visitors up at the airport and check the lists to make sure we were taking them back with us. I got into trouble once as I forgot some shirts in the wardrobe of the hotel, a Chinese friend, used the Customs phone and asked them to confirm that they would post them back to Australia for me, and I would pay the costs on my next visit. They had to tell the Customs at the airport before they would let me board the plane.
Bicycles are another product that has a massive tariff in China. They never cared that they signed the Lima Agreement they just view it as applying to everyone else. I was in Kumming in about 1988 and found two Brits who had been riding their bikes around the world for Charity. They had written to the Chinese immigration and got their Visa’s and turned up at the Indian border to cycle through China their sponsored bicycles were not allowed into China the tariff were more than the price of a car. If they had paid, the Chinese would have taken their bikes anyway and sold them to one of their numerous Bicycle factories. More than likely their would be no Chinese tariff on Ivory, or US dollars.
They really did want to prevent imports so it would create their own manufacturing industry and it worked. In later years they relaxed the policing of those import laws of personal property but could impose them if they wanted to accuse some one for political reasons.
My Chinese business associates explained the duties, tariffs and bounty system to me. Every time I signed a contract with them, to buy guns, ammunition, or optical goods, as soon as I had gone home they took that Contract to the Customs department who would pay the company between 10 to 15% in RMB (Chinese money) to help them fund the purchase of materials and help them keep the price lower than any other overseas competitor. My Chinese associates could see the intelligence of this system, as the government was just swapping paper that it printed itself, to encourage the import of hard international currency USD as that was the world wide currency, that really counted. RMB, at that time, was not acceptable for foreign trade.

34. We Urgently Need A Government That Has the Conviction Of Creating A Secondary Industry. We Cannot Afford, Or Encourage A Secondary Industry With Out Lots of Cheap Electricity. We Need Power Stations.
It might be too late already but very quickly we need to utilize our coal into the cheapest energy prices in the world, we need to exploit the massive reserves of oil shale and shale oil beneath most of Queensland. We need to stop giving away our gas resources at 5cents a kilogram and use it ourselves, we need to put duties on all imports, more on Chinese goods and food. (as we have to induce Australians to manufacture substitutes) Our government should pay bounties on all Australia manufactured goods that are exported. (Not water, or Gas)
We need a real level playing field, rip up the Lima Agreement, build our secondary industries or we are finished. We have the highest wealth per capita in natural resources we need to import hardly anything, we have an energetic, educated population, we have a slight chance to turn it all around and have a future for Australia, if not we will be a Chinese slave colony.

35. Its Vital to get the Economic Right first Economic Rise, Decline into the Abyss of Australian Industry.
Some people say “the ADF requires some of the most advanced equipment in the world and we definitely can’t make it all.” However we have to, if we cannot make it here every part as soon as you have one part unavailable you have to make it yourself, or cannibalise from an another, either way for every one part available you lose one whole machine eventually. There is no point of stockpiling oil, or parts in another country, when you cannot get it to where its needed. Australia is on the other side of the world to most manufacturing countries who could be Allies.
Please take into account that the stockpiles quickly become obsolete, one change of a part and it affects all of them and one missing part can make the whole ship, plane or vehicle valueless.

36. Its Not a Case of A Stitch In Time Saves Nine.
ADF might want the most advanced equipment in the world but without the ability to manufacture every part in the nation, overnight we might as well not have them. Best to invest our money into lots of ‘Shermans’ rather then the more sophisticated ‘Tigers’. As the German soldiers found out in WW2 , when the engine stop running you have to walk.
One missing part can lose a battle, lose a battle you lose the war, you lose the war, you lose the country.
Please Remember this little piece.

For Want of a Nail.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

37. The Missing Nail is a Real Factor.
When Israel was trying to prepare for the 1967 Arab war. France told them that they would not supply parts or more planes for the Mirage Jet. So they stole the plans and began there own manufacture. In the Vietnam war the Swedes would not sell Australia ammunition for the Carl Gustaff 84 mm so the Aussies had to use an inferior American rocket launcher. As China surrounds Australia with bases even in Antartica (on Australian territory) without immediate massive support which would sacrifice 60% of USA air power, Australia would not have secure Air and Sea lanes of supply. So any imports would be very problematic.

38. A Nation Cannot have ‘Independence’ Without Secondary Industry.
Manufacturing is the key to national power. Not only does it pay more than service industries, the rates of productivity growth are higher and the potential of new industries arising is far greater. From radio came television, VCRs, and flat-panel screens. From adding machines came calculators and computers. From the electric typewriter came the word processors. Research and development follows the manufacturing industries. Giving it away is a National Crime a Betrayal but its not just Australia, this Free Trade, UN, Gatt, World Trade Organisation has gutted the Western World, Australia might be the worst example but it has deeply, almost terminally affected the USA.

39. “The power of producing wealth is infinitely more important than the wealth itself.” Friedrich List
Alexander Hamilton, the architect of the U.S.A. economy, knew that secondary industry was the Key to future independence. He had served in the Revolution as aide to Washington and lived through the British blockades. He had led the bayonet charge at Yorktown. And he had
resolved that never again would his country’s survival depend upon French muskets, or French ships.
As first Treasury Secretary, he delivered in 1791 the “Report on Manufactures,” one of America’s great state papers. Reflecting on how close his country had come to losing its liberty, Hamilton wrote,
“Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of a national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing and defense.”

40. Tariffs Built American and Australian Industry.
Under the Constitution he helped write, a national internal free-trade zone was created. Similar to the Australian Commonwealth Constitution ss92. However, Hamilton’s idea was to use tariffs to end their dependence on Europe and force British merchants to finance the USA government and the roads, harbors, and canals that would tie America together with commerce. Tariffs would give the American national government the revenue to operate, while providing their people both privileged access to the fastest growing market on earth and incentives to go into manufacturing themselves. With American manufacturing thus encouraged, he knew manufacturers would soon produce the guns and ships to defend their republic and the necessities for a nations existence. So that if necessary the USA could stand alone against the world.

41. China Has Never Been a Free Trade Country, Why Do We Sacrifice Our Industry To Preserve China?
For 120 years, America followed Hamilton’s vision. On the eve of World War One, the 13 agricultural colonies on the eastern seaboard had become the richest nation on earth with the highest standard of living, a republic that produced 96 percent of all it consumed while exporting 8 percent of its GNP, an industrial colossus that manufactured more than Britain, France, and Germany combined. The self-sufficiency and industrial power that the Hamiltonian policies created inspired Australia Founding Fathers to embed those commercial powers within the Australian Constitution this enabled us to prevail through the First World War, Second World War and Korea while still meeting all the needs of the Australian people.
Then came the League of Nations /UN socialist call for free-trade, then Alexander Hamilton and our founding fathers are derided as a “protectionist.” Woodrow Wilson’s free-trade dogma is now the new gospel. Results, our trade surpluses have vanished, our deficits have exploded, our self-sufficiency has been lost, our sovereignty has been diminished, and an industrial base that was the envy of mankind has been gutted. What did we get in return Chinese toilet paper? What do we have now that we did not have before we submitted to this cult of free trade?

42. The Rise Of Tyrants.
Beijing’s boom began after it devalued its currency in 1994. While a blow to Chinese consumers, devaluation gave Beijing a competitive edge over the other “Asian tigers.” Beijing then invited Western companies to locate new factories there to tap its pool of low-wage labour. As the price of access, Beijing demanded that Western companies transfer technology to Chinese partners. What the companies do not transfer, the Chinese extort or steal.
By offering skilled workers at $2 a day, guaranteeing no union trouble, allowing levels of pollution we would not tolerate, and ignoring health and safety standards, China has become the factory floor of the Global Economy and surpassed the United States as the world’s first choice for foreign investment.

43. Scrutinize All Defence.
As we have heard the Warning Bell and everyone can accept that Australia has run down its Defence, Defence Industry and Secondary Industries for 45 years, or more. It should also be realised that the role of our Defence Forces are not to act as part of a global police force but to defend continental Australia and its interests abroad it needs an intense scrutiny of every element of the composition and manufacture of all parts that make up an article of equipment that is used by the ADF. This audit needs to begin immediately.

44. The Best Use of Synergy.
The results should not be hidden away in a computer, the screens are too small to observe its overall concepts and connexions, it should be drawn up on a vast whiteboard as big as a wall. To get the best out of the combined power of a group, of things such as an industry when they are worked together correctly, they are a machine in themselves like a clock that will only work properly if it works together. Once its working in unison it will achieve benefits of far greater proportions than the total power achieved by each part trying to work separately, as each could be wasting time duplicating skills and resources that another company has already got in hand.

45.Organisational Improvisation.
Drawing vertical objectives in columns one for Tanks, one Planes, one for two man ships, one for small two man Submarines, one for Small Arms and so on and then draw circles around each manufacturing objective with the resources to manufacture each objective named on the perimeter of the circle, where the circles intersected other circles you know that you have to draw on the same resources. When you know where your parts and components are made and by whom you can then connect those of the items which are needed first and in what proportion so resources can be diverted to those who supply mining, foundry, manufacturing industries so main objectives are not deprived of parts machines and materials that they need to manufacture all of Defences Equipment. It will be found that any are produced in the same place, so then some thought can be give to increasing the number of suppliers. Also, it will be evident where supply lines can be shortened. Any short falls can be quickly observed and resources found to manufacture those parts. This wall of information can be up dated daily and observed by decision makers who can divert the correct proportions, so not one of the objective factories could take all of a resource and store it as it would be beyond their usage and enlarge the price to other factories who could fail to produce for the lack of items like Tungsten or Nickel. Any equipment that cannot be absolutely sovereign with every part manufactured here should be returned to their overseas manufacturer for a credit. Any overseas designed goods in future should be only be entertained if 100 % is manufactured in Australia.
Please Note, with this Wall of Defence Industry, I would not suggest in anyway that government should try and legislate to control independent companies, but to encourage and advise our limited resources to its best mutual outcomes. At present all we know, is that we have a huge defence industry problem, when we know the details of the problem it will be half solved. We just have to move quickly to identify where to make the best use of our meagre financial resources.

46. Our New Industrial Revolution Needs Changes to our Educational System, As it Too Lazy.
Defence should be the leader in our new industrial revolution as its at the top of the tree and lots of acorns from it will seed thousand of other industries. That occurred with Lithgow over a 100 years ago, and will again as long as our politicians at the top see the light. Instead of propping up our GDP figures by importing thousands of un skilled labourer and sending off Australian jobs and industries to China. Schools should work the teachers a little harder so that their students can read and write and understand the multiplication tables by the time they are 15 years old, so that manufactures do not have to teach them that first, when they are 18 before starting an apprenticeship. Currently, with schools 9. am they arrive and maybe start at 9.30 am then a break then an hour lunch and play sport in the afternoon till 3 pm barely a five day week, with ten days public holidays between ten weeks of holidays. No wonder they do not want to leave and get a job, unless they want to be a teacher and work the same hours. To turn out tradesmen they should leave on their 15th birthday before they get used to long holidays, by the time they are 18 could be qualified and ready to do a degree at night school. Having had the experience of interviewing school leavers for jobs over the last 46 years their expectations are enormous. (one 18 year old asked if we gave them the day off on their birthday as his Mum never sent him to school on his birthday) When we properly use our school leavers we will not need to import Non English speaking people to stay and home have kids and take the centrelink. University Graduates are un employable in small business and seem to either go into school teaching, or stay at University.

47. Why Do Our Industries Leave Australia and Start Up Again in China?
Let’s say you want to manufacture a new product that requires 5 acres of industrial land at around 2 million dollars. Before you even turn over the first sod you will pay around 25 thousand dollars a year rates, and 25 thousand dollars land tax.

One of China’s many economic trade zones will offer a joint venture to an Australia company, they will supply an empty factory wired up ready to go with as much Chinese labour as they need at very cheap daily rates. The electricity is a third of the Australian price and the raw materials are half the price. Machine Tools are a quarter of the prices and they have very well organised freight carriers and container consolidations so the product can be delivered to Australia and the world for 50% less. No Union or Border force problems, No Environment or Work Safe problems. No Income Tax and No GST.
There are down sides as ultimately China owns the ground and can take it over and remove the foreign/Australian company but that rarely occurs so it attracts many Australian companies.
Take the opposite scenario where an Australian Innovator with a technological break though of National Importance wants to set up a factory to produce his invention at present Federal, State and Local Government all want a slice of his production in Taxes, Licences, Exemptions, and Rates. Add to that hundreds of thousands in ‘contributions’ to Council coffers for “planning permissions” and other requirement like and environmental studies. To pay for this you will likely have to borrow at 15-20% interest then, if you are lucky. By the time you jump through all these hoops you might be able to start manufacturing in 2 to 5 years time. But don’t think you are home free. That’s when the unions will step in and cause loss of production. At the same time, the Government will make you subject to time consuming unnecessary costs, paperwork, insurance and payroll tax and force you to collect sales tax (GST) on your product, all enforced with heavy penalties including jail sentences for late or non-compliance. None of this existed forty years ago. Back then we had relatively little government interference in our lives, or the way we conducted business and as previously discussed, the government actively encouraged Australian business by imposing heavy import tariffs on overseas imports. The current situation has to change before we can stop Australia’s secondary industries contracting even more.

48. We Used To Rely On the USA to Defend Us With Their Technological Superiority.
In an article in the Sunday Times, the headline and text was this.
US ‘would lose any war’ fought in the Pacific with China.
“The United States would be defeated in a sea war with China and would struggle to stop an invasion of Taiwan, according to a series of “eye-opening” war games by the Pentagon.”
American defence sources have told ‘The Times’ that simulated conflicts conducted by the US concluded that their forces would be overwhelmed. One war game focused on the year 2030, by which time the Chinese navy would operate new attack submarines, aircraft carriers and destroyers.
The analysis also found that Beijing’s accumulation of medium-range ballistic missiles has already made every US base and any American carrier battle group operating in the Indo-Pacific Command region vulnerable to overwhelming strikes. The Pacific island of Guam, a base for American strategic bombers such as the B-2 and B-52, is now considered wholly at risk.
“China has long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles and hypersonic [more than five times the speed of sound] missiles,” a US defence source said, meaning that US carrier groups could not oppose their Chinese counterparts “without suffering capital losses”.
The conclusions, described as “eye-opening” by one source, are supported by the most recent analysis provided by America’s leading experts on China.

“Every simulation that has been conducted looking at the threat from China by 2030 have all ended up with the defeat of the US,” Bonnie Glaser, director of the China power project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a consultant for the US government on east Asia, said. “Taiwan is the most volatile issue because that could escalate to a war with the US, even to a nuclear war.” “In the Pentagon and state department and the White House, China is now seen as the biggest threat. We have been too passive in the past.”
Beijing has stepped up its military activities in the South and East China Seas, harassing ships, militarising islands whose sovereignty is claimed by others and sabre-rattling over the planned reincorporation of Taiwan. President Xi has said he wants the island back under “One China” by 2050 and is prepared to use force. The US has no defence pact with Taiwan but has increased arms sales to help it to build a deterrent. US concerns are expected to be highlighted in the Pentagon’s 2020 China military power report, which is due in the summer.

A defence source said that repeated warnings by Admiral Philip Davidson, the regional commander, and a drive from within the Pentagon to fund hypersonic weapons to counter the Chinese threat had led to a significant switch in resources. “Mark Esper [the defence secretary] is aggressively moving to build the capabilities that we need to deter China from committing to a major confrontation,” the source said.
Hypersonic weapons are viewed as key to taking out China’s ballistic missiles capability, and the US also plans to deploy long-range, ground-launched cruise missiles in the Asia-Pacific region. Marine units are also to be armed with anti-ship missiles, along a string of islands enclosing China’s coastal seas.
US relations with China have deteriorated to their lowest ebb in decades as President Trump blames it for weakening the economy, and for its attempts to hide the extent of coronavirus. Although those rows have yet to result in a direct confrontation, the US intensified its trade war yesterday, announcing that it had commissioned a Taiwanese company to open a computer chip factory in Arizona to “re-shore” technology industries away from China.
Washington also announced that it would restrict the ability of the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, which it considers a national security risk, to develop products abroad that use US technology. Beijing hit back, saying it was ready to put US companies including Apple on its “unreliable entity list”

Conclusion.
I am only mortal, I left school before my 15th birthday, my means of communication are not accomplished, I am a firearm specialist not a journalist. I could have made a mistake in this submission, I could have been mis-informed, or mis-read something but this submission is freely given, its from my heart, I believe that it is not all wrong, it cannot all be discounted.
I have served as a local Government Councillor, (retired) I am a Justice of the Peace (Qualified) recently due to Covid 19 the local Court house was closed, there were no other paid JP s to carry out the witnessing of paperwork and countless other paperwork applications. So they had to come to the local Guns shop to see me, the 72 year old volunteer JP. all of these people that I discuss these issues with are horrified by the bully boy actions of China and their disregard for their own people’s lives and their obvious disdain of our existence. All would agree with the thrust of this submission. All are aware of our weakness and hope we can over come them. “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” said Saint Augustine, and I am aware that this submission goes against the policies of the past, but the warning bell has sounded and we can never go back we have to have a drastic change of direction or Australia is lost.
Ron Owen
16th May. 2020.

There is no Spring without Winter, without Mistakes there is no Learning. There is no Life without Death, without Doubts there is no Faith. There is no Peace without War, without Fear there is no Courage. For without Mistakes, Doubts and Fears there are no pathways to Wisdom.
Ron Owen

Email owenguns@spiderweb.com.au
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Ron Owen