“We need to get away from that doomsday attitude that we can never be competitive in manufacturing. We’ve got to be smart in our manufacturing, and we’ve got to rethink how we do our manufacturing. And we’ve got to get a balance between people and technology. But if you get that right, you can be competitive,” he said. Although China was investing to play catch-up regarding the environmental controls and technology upgrades that Australia had long used, Mr Evans said COVID-19 had served as a reminder of the importance of having critical manufacturing onshore. ‘Critical to sovereignty’ “Very much defence...