In this golden age, millions of workers beavered away in factories across the country making cars, textiles, food products and more.

Many a regional centre was defined by the goods it produced. There were timber towns and steel towns, chemical towns and ship towns.

Students barely into their teens could happily leave school confident of following in the footsteps of their forebears and finding work at the local plant.

But in the 1970s, the manufacturing industry began shedding jobs at a rapid rate.

Technological advances in many industries meant a lot of menial tasks could be completed more quickly and cheaply by mechanising the workforce.

Other companies were seduced by the prospect of using cheap labour in foreign countries to produce goods bound for both domestic and international markets.

Still more struggled to attain the type of large-scale production deemed necessary to be competitive as the first vestiges of globalisation emerged and were forced to fold.

While about 25 per cent of the population found gainful employment in the industry in the 1960s, just 10 per cent do so now.

It is why yesterday’s news that Thales Australia had beaten a crack field of international competitors to obtain the $1.3 billion Hawkei contact is so important for Bendigo.

The decision, announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Defence Minister Marise Payne, guarantees the jobs of hundreds of local workers.

It means these employees and their families can continue to call Bendigo home for the foreseeable future. But it also offers the promise that Thales Australia will grow its local workforce over the coming years.

If the precedent of the fellow Bendigo-built Bushmaster is any guide, then the light-armoured Hawkei is likely to draw the eye of overseas countries, opening up the possibility of lucrative export opportunities.

While Thales deserves the plaudits for yesterday’s announcement, success has a thousand fathers and many people put in many hours behind the scenes to secure this outcome for the city.