Manufacturing proves the political issue that unites Australians

They want to make more stuff locally.

In a survey of dozens of hot-button issues, a desire for more goods to be made in Australia stood out as the statement on which most people agreed.

A combined 82.5 per cent of respondents in a representative sample said they strongly agreed (42 per cent) or agreed (40.5 per cent) with that proposition, more than any other statement. Only 6 per cent disagreed. Support for an expansion of Australia's manufacturing sector was robust regardless of respondents' age, gender, income or locality.

This finding comes from the Political Person Project, one of the most comprehensive attempts made to profile different types of Australians based on their lifestyles, social values and politics.

Conducted by Fairfax Media in collaboration with the Australian National University and Netherlands-based political research enterprise Kieskompas, the project revealed seven types of Australians, representative of the seven most dominant patterns of thinking in Australian society.

Manufacturing has been in decline since the 1970s, when one in four Australian workers were employed in the sector. The downturn has gathered pace in recent years - more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost between 2008 and 2015 - and the sector now accounts for about one in 13 workers.

Victoria, a traditional manufacturing state, is no stranger to the trend, with automotive manufacturing now grinding to a halt. Last week, Toyota confirmed it would cut 2600 jobs when it closed its Altona car making plant on October 3.

Yet, the outlook for Victoria's manufacturing sector may not be as the grim as the headlines suggest. According to analysis by the Victorian branch of the Australian Industry Group, last financial year the state was one of the few places where manufacturing output grew, rising 0.8 per cent.

Over 10 years, the state's manufacturing output has shrunk by a relatively modest 1 per cent in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, compared with a 7.2 per cent drop for the nation as a whole.

While some big, high-profile companies have gone under, many smaller producers appear to be flourishing. Of an estimated 23,163 manufacturers in the state, more than half – 51 per cent – are considered small, employing fewer than 20 workers.

Even so, the sector's importance to the state and national economies has shifted dramatically. It accounted for about 7.2 per cent of the state's output in 2015-16, compared with 11.5 per cent a decade earlier. The sector still employs about one in 10 of the state's workers, and one in eight full-time workers.

The Australian Industry Group's Victorian head, Tim Piper, said the Victorian sector's growth over the past year was "probably surprising" given the negative commentary on large-scale manufacturing.

"What it does show is there is a resilience and growth in smaller companies in non-traditional manufacturing, such as in the medical technologies area and agriculture and innovative construction," he said.

But Mr Piper said he would be surprised to see real manufacturing output increased over the next year, given the loss of the car industry.

The national decline means Australia is relying more on foreign producers to supply manufactured goods to the community. In 2015 Australia exported just under $100 billion in total value of manufactured products, and imported $246 billion.

High-income earners, young adults and university graduates were at least twice as likely to disagree with the statement "We rely too heavily on foreign imports and should manufacture more in Australia".

Opposition was highest among those earning more than $91,000 a year, with 14 per cent disagreeing or strongly disagreeing. This figure dipped slightly, to 13 per cent, among 18 to 24-year-olds, and to just under 12 per cent for participants with a bachelor degree or higher.

Notably, the sentiment was still widely backed even among these groups, with support reaching 69 to 71 per cent.

Overall, support for Australian manufacturing increased with age and fell as income rose. It found its strongest support - more than 90 per cent - among Australians aged 65 and older.

People living outside our capital cities were more likely to support Australian manufacturing, with nearly 90 per cent agreeing, compared with 79 per cent in capital cities.

The results are in keeping with support for local manufacturing revealed in other studies. Almost nine out of 10 respondents rated manufacturing as important or very important to the economy in a poll published last year by The Australia Institute think tank. Almost 80 per cent said the health of manufacturing should be a "national priority".

Economist Saul Eslake said that while a "manufacturing fetishism" was deeply entrenched in the Australian psyche, there was no reason to think factory production was more valuable than other forms of economic activity.

"While most Australians appear to believe it would be a good thing if more Australians worked in manufacturing, there doesn't appear to be a strong desire among Australians for their own children to work in factory jobs," he said.

Many economists oppose government intervention to protect the manufacturing sector and argue it is inevitable for advanced economies such as Australia to become more reliant on service industries.

But not all experts agree. Jim Stanford, an economist from the Centre for the Future of Work at The Australia Institute, estimates Australia now has a lower proportion of manufacturing workers than any comparable advanced economy. He says the manufacturing sector remains strategically important and that Australia risks paying a long-term price if the decline continues.

"Manufacturing still matters to the economy and Australians know it," he said. "The public's gut instinct is absolutely right."