RE: Brisbane airtrain

[Vaughan Williams <ender2000@MailAndNews.com>]

>> Would
>>Michael mind paying 10-50% more to buy locally made?
>
>I do anyway. I am more than happy to pay 10-50% for local made products
>over stuff that is made under slave labour overseas.

This is off topic for aus rail, but there are a number of factors 
influencing 
people's preferences for country of manufacture. Simple parochialism isn't a 
very good justification. Better arguments include the damage to the 
environment and unnecessary energy use (oil, a finite resource) in 
transporting something halfway around the world which shouldn't be 
encouraged. 
Other factors are moral issues - like many people, I have boycotted Nestle 
products for some time due to their marketing of baby formula to third world 
countries and their sourcing of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, a country that 
supports child slavery. I'm in favour of an exploitation-indexed tarrif to 
protect Australian industry from competition from countries with poor labor 
and environmental standards.

This argument doesn't apply if buying something made in Europe or North 
America, though. I recently bought a dishwasher made in Sweden, because it 
was 
high quality and the best price. I do tend to prefer Australian or NZ 
products, but give me a Swedish or German electrical appliance any day.

Vaughan