Australian manufacturing is in trouble. Profits are down and jobs are going. The industry employs around one million Australians – five times more than mining. But it’s haemorrhaged 86,000 jobs in the last decade and more workers are being laid off each month. Manufacturing is the only industry that has declined in 'Gross Value Added’ to the Australian economy over the last 25 years. To give it a boost, the government is handing out subsidies at public expense – such as the $275m recently given to Holden. But are government rescue packages simply propping up inefficient industries and preventing innovation? Can we really compete with cheaper labour overseas – and should we even try? On Insight, manufacturing workers front up to managers and economists to debate whether the industry is worth supporting, whether government subsidies are good policy, and what the future might hold.