We have outdistanced the economic rationalists, adherents of the new economy are counting their trading losses and some people are even having second thoughts about the unalloyed benefits of globalisation. However, we now have a new slogan. Economic sustainability is the new mantra on the block and it is being used to justify the death of manufacturing industry in Australia's country towns. There has been a constant stream of industry losses in regional areas of NSW, Victoria and South Australia in the past 20 years. Like most deaths, we mourned their passing for a while and then forgot about them.
Indifference is a common feature of the human psyche.
However, there comes a time when the death is too close to be ignored. The current state of affairs in Orange is just such a case. Orange is the childhood home of my wife, her parents, her grandparents, her sister, her brother and a troop of cousins and other relatives. It is one of those small cities where everyone seems to know each other. They have worked at Email for 50 years, sold materials and services to it and loved people that worked there.