To be called a man of steel used to be a great compliment. The most powerful man in the world ,George Dubya Bush, himself an amalgam of cheap gunmetal , fool’s gold and toasted Texan marshmallow, once said our Prime Minister, John Howard , former US Deputy Sheriff of South- East Asia, was a man of steel . Unfortunately , Little Johnny went rusty at the Bennelong U-bend and ended up on the A. G. Sims political scrapheap. Maybe the Mad Monk knew something when he said he just wanted to be regarded as a (pig ?) iron man?
While Australia’s iron ore is feeding the voracious steel mills of China, some of the products made from it are poor quality. Tradesmen and handypersons have reported that heads are falling off screws, drill bits are not only snapping, but bending under slight pressure. Some honest hardware store staff even tell you a certain made in China tool or appliance is less than impressive . One wonders what the steel is like in whitegoods and so many other household appliances made in China which flood the world’s markets. It is to be hoped that all that structural steel used in Chinese skyscrapers is of better quality than that in some of the building aids sold in Australian .
