Consumers should have bought Australian: Sue Morphet
Pacific Brands chief executive Sue Morphet believes that if consumers had bought Australian, the 1,850 jobs at Pacific Brands would still be intact. Last month, the parent company of iconic Australian brands such as Bonds and King Gee announced it would move its local manufacturing offshore to China.
“Long, long gone are the days when Australians are actually prepared to pay more for Australian-made goods,” Morphet said. “The only time that we’ll pay for Australian goods is if they are giving us something that buying elsewhere or cheaper isn’t giving us.”
Morphet is not apologetic about the jobs lost, saying it was her job to cut manufacturing roles to save another 7,000 Australian jobs in the company.
“The rest of the company is propping up the local manufacturing and we can’t afford for that anymore,” she said. “A company such as ours has to make itself more flexible and one of the things that we can’t afford is the luxury of local manufacturing.”
What do you think about Sue Morphet’s comments?
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I think Sue Morphet’s comments are an outrage. This woman is a joke. First she cuts 1,850 jobs, then she takes a tidy $1 million bonus, and then, to top it all off (as if it couldn’t get any worse) decides to blame consumers for the job cuts because they don’t ‘buy Australian.’ Wake up to yourself Morphet!
I don’t like what she did, but she’s right. I suggest that we relax Australias employment laws and introduce the the use of ‘sweat shop’ style working environments, reduce the minimum wage and promote child labour to get those jobs back.
As an ex Pacific Brands employee, I believe Sue Morphett made the right decision based on what\’s best for the Pacific Brands entity as a whole. As she says, had she not have taken manufacturing off shore, thousands more jobs would have been lost further down the track. I do feel for everyone who has lost their job however I believe her decision was inevitable and the sooner people realise that, the sooner we can move on and leave Sue alone!
Lauren, do you also go under the name of Sue Morphet?
The terms “Australian Made” and “Australian Owned” do not reveal the actual level of Australian inputs and are in fact, almost Un-Australian in their usage requirements. To remedy this problem a new “Australian Authenticity Logo” has been unveiled. Visit http://www.ozcompliance.com.au to see what is behind the labels and logos such as Australian Made.
Oz Compliance makes a qualified statement as to the Australian level of inputs for Content, Ownership, Manufacture and its Packed Status. This is Truth in labelling.
Consumers have the right to know where their Food and Goods come from. Without Oz Compliance they cannot make an informed choice, regardless if it is a health choice, a cost choice, a patriotic choice or one of principle.
OzCOMPliance provides a reasonable basis upon which to compare any two items. It provides a means of comparison that gives a truthful impression which in itself, makes it unlike any other Country of Origin label (COOL) or similar “Trust Mark” that we are all familiar with.
By looking for the OzCOMPliance Logo, you can see for yourself just how much of any item is actually Australian by the stated percentage scores for Content, Owned, Made and Packed.
Truth, however disenchanting is better than falsehood, however comforting. -Schweitzer