The made-in-Australia past wasn't always rosy

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It's a natty slogan which serves a blunt political purpose. The federal government has named its signature legislation after it: the Future Made in Australia Act.

We'll hear the slogan repeated ad nauseum as the clock ticks down to the next federal election. While it might stir pangs of national pride, it's worth thinking beyond those base reactions and remembering the past when it was made in Australia.

Not all of it was good.

Take the P76, the Leyland behemoth of a car made, we were told, in Australia for Australian conditions. It was an ugly beast, with a boot capable of carrying a 44-gallon drum.

But that boot involved masses of steel overhanging the rear wheels so that when the car encountered that most typical Australian condition - corrugations on a dirt road - it fishtailed wildly. That wasn't the only problem. Knobs fell off, window winders stopped working and you only had to drive past a beach and it would rust.

As kids in the 1960s and 1970s, we were conditioned to deride "Jap crap", as Japanese cars, motorcycles and electronic goods made their way to our shores.

Often, our first cars were clapped-out Holdens or Fords but once we had grown tired of coaxing them back to life when they broke down, and had experienced a Toyota, Datsun or Mazda for the first time, we didn't look back. Reliable, economical, safer and much more comfortable, we turned Japanese without hesitation.

Since Tony Abbott killed off the heavily subsidised Australian auto industry, old Holdens and Fords are rare sights of our roads, generally identified by the one headlight that's out and the mismatched panel. The dinki-di Aussie vehicle of choice these days is the gas-guzzling Hilux or Ford Ranger, made in factories on the outskirts of Bangkok.

When the locally made, snow-prone AWA TV finally blew its last valve and was replaced with a Sony, we couldn't believe the difference. Here was a television that worked and didn't require a yoga session with the rabbit ears to receive a signal. The luxury model came with a remote, connected by wire, so you could change channels without leaving the Jason rocker recliner - and without the rotary channel selector coming away in your hand.

Living in shared terraces in Sydney, we took daily risks with the temperamental Early Kooka gas stoves. Boiling a kettle came with singed eyebrows and burned fingertips and I'm yet to meet anyone who was game enough to light the oven.

And we still take risks with our insides with some of the Australian-made food products that have somehow evaded extinction. The survival of the Chiko Roll is as mysterious as the contents of the deep-fried abomination. Diabetes made in Australia.

Who can blame foreigners for being perplexed by Vegemite? Spreading salty black stuff on toast and eating it takes a leap of faith beyond the powers of most reasonable people unfamiliar with a substance that looks like axle grease. And who can blame mainlanders for dry-retching at that Tasmanian food crime, savoury toast, which looks like white bread covered in stomach contents?

Of course, not all of our past made in Australia was bad; it was just unable to compete with cheaper products from overseas.

Before the internet arrived, Email wasn't electronic communication, it was the Australian company which made fridges, washing machines, dishwashers and electricity and water meters. Many of the brands it built were under licence, such as Kelvinator and Westinghouse - much the same as our auto industry, which turned out Opels rebadged as Commodores.

Some Aussie brands have taken on the world and survived.

In the early 1950s, tinkerer Mervyn Victor Richardson invented the powered rotary lawnmower. In no time at all, the Victa became synonymous with Australian suburbia. Victa products are still made in Australia and as well in China and the US.

Few of us of a certain age can credibly deny our roles in ruining the Hills Hoist which sat in most backyards. The clothesline doubled as playground equipment until we were caught swinging on it and copped several weekend shifts of hanging out washing as punishment.

Somewhere in my wardrobe among the Onitsuka Tigers, Merrells and Eccos is a pair of RM Williams boots, bought many years ago, still going strong and only just paid off. At $600 a pair, those boots remind me of how expensive the made in Australia past was. Let's hope the future made here doesn't end up bankrupting us.

HAVE YOUR SAY: What Australian-made products do you remember fondly? Is restoring a local manufacturing industry feasible? Or will its products be too expensive for consumers? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

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- A 10-year-old boy has been charged over an Italian tourist's sexual assault in a far north Queensland holiday hotspot. The 24-year-old woman was also allegedly attacked by a group of juveniles in the Cairns CBD when she tried to raise the alarm on Wednesday morning.

- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected Chinese accusations that Australia was spying on their troops when flares were dropped in front of a navy helicopter. The federal government has said the action of the Chinese J-10 jet, which launched the flares directly ahead of the Seahawk helicopter and forced it to take evasive action, was unprofessional and unsafe.

- Psychology and medical students say they have been "overlooked" in the government's new placement payments. Students undertaking mandatory pracs won't be able to access hundreds of dollars in government support that have been made available to their nursing and midwifery classmates.

THEY SAID IT: "Manufacturing is more than just putting parts together. It's coming up with ideas, testing principles and perfecting the engineering, as well as final assembly." - James Dyson

YOU SAID IT: By banning books, a western Sydney council steps onto a slippery slope of censorship and bigotry when it should be fixing potholes.

"It's appalling," writes David. "This is yet another indication of the malign influence here of god-botherers and dodgy politicians in the US who are hell-bent on denying/rewriting history and denying citizens access to whatever they wish to read. Their ignorance of the history to which you refer does not augur well."

Elaine writes: "Libraries are vital for many reasons: education, relaxation, conversation and gathering of like-minded people who enjoy discussion in a comfortable location plus events that encourage exploration of history, local and otherwise. This is not a place for bigots or discrimination."

"I've lived on three continents and among the first things we, as a family, did was to find the local library," writes Brigitte. "A place of information, resources, community news and sanctuary within its shelves of bountiful titles. Before that it was the mobile library - a blessing for a solitary child! No, no and no to council censorship of library contents."

Jill writes: "It's outrageous that a particular council banned those children's books. As you say, readers should be able to make their own choice of reading material, no matter the subject. We here in Tassie are very fortunate that all our libraries are state government funded, and stocked with a great range of fiction in all genres, for children, teens, and adults. Plus magazines, DVDs, and a comprehensive non-fiction section ... and we can request new titles as they are published. There are extra facilities like computers, meeting rooms for public access, and here in our Burnie library, a small cafe operates each day and I'm very fortunate to consider it a second home."

"I despair," writes Tony. "As an avid reader, especially in my youth, I abhor the idea of book burning. Councils should indeed stick to the three 'Rs' and do it properly. Traffic here in Ballarat weaves all over the roads riven with holes. Glass is not collected and our worthy council told us to buy plastic bottles (I thought we were trying to get rid of plastic), they fund weird and wonderful festivals that no locals attend ... please don't get me started on councils."

Kirsty from Dubbo writes: "The worst part of this book ban? The people voting on it, especially Steve Christou, have admitted that they haven't actually read the book! That should be the absolute minimum requirement."

"Yep, we are going to a dark place," writes Dave. "The US nightmare of psychotic revisionism, poor education and pure nastiness. Mr Pope should not have invoked Dr Who in his excellent cartoon. Now the Cumberland City Council will ban it because they dared to portray a person of colour as the good Doctor."