going global

Many older farmers will remember the days when Australia manufactured tractors and harvesters. Some may even have heard of one of our greatest farmer inventors, Headlie Taylor, who designed both our first combine harvester in 1914 and our first self-propelled header, the Sunshine W model, in 1924.

However, by the 1990s, the abolition of protective tariffs combined with increasing international competition resulted in local tractor and harvester manufacturers being run out of business.