When was the last time you were able to buy underwear, socks & even most outer garments & footwear not made in China?

Up until the late 1980's a lot of areas in the Melbourne's Inner Northern suburbs of Brunswick; Richmond; Fitzroy; Abbotsford. Coburg, & etc, had a strong garment manufacturing industry. Factories lined the tramlines to transport migrant workers ("New Australians" - Who remembers that phrase?) to their machinist & other manual labour jobs. The ability to speak English was not a requirement for most & employment was booming until the early to late1970's.

Now all those factories are closed & transformed into apartment blocks. My elderly Dad managed a menswear factory in East Brunswick.; Tramstop to City out the front.  It is now a student apartment block catering to OS (Mostly Asian) students of Melb Uni & RMIT City campuses.

Aussie students can't afford the rent there - even though the bedsits are tiny & substandard in facilities (Think a small bedroom with student desk, bar size fridge & a hotplate & small microwave on a small 2 door kitchen cabinet). They even have shared bathrooms off the hallways! (My daughter visited a fellow student there & took pics for my Dad of his former workplace) 

When the factory was upgraded in the late 1960's it had an underground carpark added & was about 4 storeys tall in height to allow for cooling towers on the roof. Now even the UG carpark it student lets (No windows!) There are over 820 student apartments in that same ex factory!

Which leads me to a whole other area of contention... student fees & debts for same for Aussie kids! A discourse for another time & place than here. Do please remember that our current politicians all got their degrees for free!  The same ones now upping student fees that are already too high for most Aussie families!