Aussies Prefer Local Food but Pick Foreign-made Goods

While Australians prefer home-grown food over imported ones, the case is not true for furniture, health and beauty items, clothes, hardware and household appliances which Aussies prefer to buy imported ones due to lower cost and better value.

Australian Made Campaign Chief Ian Harrison said the findings are extremely worrying and warned it could result in more job losses unless Aussies change their outlook.

The Roy Morgan research commission by Australian Made Campaign found that Aussie shoppers are indifferent as to the where the item they are buying were made. The only exception is local food and drinks which was preferred by almost 90 per cent of the survey respondents.

"The decrease in preference for Australian products across key sectors of the economy is bad news. There is a growing sense of complacency. Consumers need to be more aware of their purchase decisions," Mr Harrison said in a statement.

As a result of the growing preference for imported consumer goods, except food, among Aussie consumers, over 100,000 manufacturing jobs had disappeared in the past five years, according to a manufacturing task force report released in August.

The report said 40 per cent of consumers had difficulty identifying if the product on supermarket shelves is produced in Australia or not.