NATIONAL: Home-grown apparel players say they may be forced to move their manufacturing offshore if the government fails to act on requests for increased financial support.
Wholesale and retail brands including the Solomon Lew-owned business The Just Group and motorcycle clothing label Draggin Jeans are among those who admitted losing confidence in the federal government's ability to secure a sustainable future for the Australian textiles, clothing and footwear (TCF) industry.
The concerns are detailed in a series of submissions made in response to recommendations made by Professor Roy Green in the government's wholesale review of Australia's TCF sector.
Draggin Jeans has gone so far as to threaten it may be forced to move all of its manufacturing offshore if Green's recommendation to reduce the amount of funding available to Australian clothing firms while at the same time broadening eligibility criteria is adopted.
Draggin Jeans owner Grant Mackintosh, whose 10-year-old company supplies more than 2000 retailers across 22 countries, said the company had always been "fiercely patriotic" to Australian manufacturing.
"However the combination of reduced funding or none at all and possible significant energy increases as a result of [policies such as] the National Emissions Trading Scheme [have] made us less competitive and will force us to consider offshore production."
Mackintosh said he had so little faith in the government's ability to resolve the issues facing the sector he had already begun "dipping his toes in the water" offshore with product destined for countries other than Australia.
"I've done this just in case things go horribly wrong here with the industry, with the support for the industry, with policies such as the National Emissions Trading Scheme. I really don't want to manufacture offshore but the industry is at a critical point and I'm nervous about what the government is going to do about it."
Just Group operations director Wai Tang mirrored the comments of many submitters to Green's Building Innovative Capability report in identifying the possible demise of the Strategic Investment Program (SIPs) and the likely introduction of the new TCF Innovation Capability Program as a "retrograde step".
Tang said Just Group brands Portmans and Jacqui E were "most likely" the largest producers and suppliers of locally made fashion product in the Australian clothing industry. As such, its vote was to retain the status quo.
"We own the fabric and control the production process through a range of registered suppliers and believe that the general, unquantifiable proposals put forward in the Green report will greatly reduce our confidence in effective government assistance to local manufacture in the Australian clothing industry."
L&B Williams managing director Lloyd Williams argued the scope of Green's report failed to address ongoing concerns.
Williams, whose privately-owned Melbourne company operates as an independent dyer and finisher of fabrics, said it was imperative that funding provided under future programs relate to "actual value adding, manufacturing related activities in Australia".
"This is where the employment base lies and where the value is created. The finding application must not be eroded by allowing eligibility for activities that fuel offshore sourcing or are merely ancillary to the real business in Australia," Williams said.
Consultant Gerry Frittmann, of Sydney-based firm TCF Services, felt similarly.
He argued the challenges and priorities facing the local TCF industries today had moved from investment to "sheer survival" and that the onset of the global financial crisis had superseded all recommendations made in the report.
"It is doubtful in the near term, ie three to five years, that any firms - including the larger entities - will be able to secure the funding for a major strategic 'chess' move to achieve sector-wide consolidation and operational efficiencies. The current domestic climate is more akin to rationalisation and downsizing, not bold moves to enhance productive capacity to serve growth markets that no longer exist."
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, said no date had yet been fixed for when the government's final report was likely to be tabled.