Explore our historical blog articles for nuggets of wisdom (and random musings) from our crew.

I, like many others, was sad to learn of the hundreds of jobs lost when Australia’s biggest steel maker, BlueScope Steel announced the closure of its Port Kembla, NSW steelworks and its Western Port steel mill at Hastings just outside Melbourne.
Since then we have heard a litany of responses sheeting home the blame at everything from the high Australian dollar to the failure of Government to insist on Australian content clauses in resource contracts. During the debate we heard from many Australian engineering companies and smaller operators who should be prospering from the resources boom and are obviously not.

I guess it’s true that retailers and I just don’t see eye to eye. Like a hungry stomach, I hear the grizzling mumbles of so many dissatisfied voices all bemoaning the fact that for one reason or another the retail business is on its last knees. Onliners have usurped their customers; shopping hours are too long, or too short depending on who you talk with; the GFC has robbed them of their bread and butter and margins are lower than a snake’s armpit.