Australia Branch to end magazine printing (page 4)

steve2

Um, where is it mentioned that the Australian branch will close?

This makes no sense. Japan is too far away from Australia, NZ etc. It will cost more to ship magazines than to print them. If Watchtower really wanted to save money, it could just outsource the printing in Australia to a commercial printer.

I don't believe it is to avoid payments related to ARC, either.

I suspect the explanation is one of the following:

(1) Some clown in Brooklyn thought it would be a good idea, without researching it, and given the Borg's inability to tolerate internal dissent, nobody pointed out it would cost more, not less.

(2) Watchtower wants to sell some of its better real estate in Sydney, and this is a preliminary step.

(3) It is not true.

I guess time will tell.

konceptual99

So in the absence of any 100% confirmation I am still happy to accept this has the "ring of truth" about it. The model is being implemented elsewhere in the world with the SA and DE branches becoming the super branch for their continental regions.

Printing the mags in Japan maybe cheaper as I expect the number of mags needed in OZ/NZ has dropped considerably due to the use of online materials and the reduction in issue numbers. Don't forget as well that the Japan branch would be looking after the rest of the region so you get economies of scale.

Real estate in Australia, especially Sydney, has rocketed in value over the past 10 years and the opportunity to cash in on this has never been better. A smaller branch with less overheads again fits with the recent changes elsewhere. No where has anyone said the branch is actually closing.

I accept that the risk presented by the ARC is probably not the only reason this move might have been considered but I would not be so sure this is not an influencing factor. Australia has been the most high profile investigation into child abuse anywhere so far and the WTS did not look good. I think restitution for victims is a real possibility and although the WTS is a master in prolonging legal matters, I don't think they could afford to be seen to be highly resistive to this for a long time. There is also the impact on the local Witnesses to consider. Finally this could spark some serious questions about the tax status of the WTS in Australia.

Whilst all of this is a long time off in terms of legal requirements, the WTS were very quick to act when in dispute with the French authorities over tax. They shifted everything virtually overnight to the UK. We also see large amounts of money going between branches already. I spoke to a sister back in December who worked until the middle of last year in the accounts department in NY and she was quite open about the way the organisation moves funds between all sorts of organisations to reduce legal exposure.

Time will tell on the precise details but I see nothing in the premise of the OP that would be out of harmony with anything else that is going on in JW land.

ZAPPA-ESQUE

All [most] of Sub-Saharan Africa is serviced from Johannesburg South Africa - its a huge Bethel .

no-zombie

If anyone doubts what I wrote from the outset, all they will have to do is go to their Christian Life and Ministry meeting for this week and hear the letter for themselves during the announcements.

freddo

This is simply another manifestation of a worldwide phenomenon.

Less magazines need printing. Very few donate to cover the literature taken anyway.

It is that simple. So the "printing branches" can be fewer and farther between. I mean a cheap tablet that can take jwonline library and be rolled out to the masses is now £100.

Think about Australia's geographical position. Who is going to take literature and donate for it? Little old jw ladies in Oz and NZ and that's it.

Indonesia is Muslim and poor, Philippines is poor and ripe for tablets over hard copy (and close enough to Japan). South East Asia make all the tablets anyway!

All they need now is a printing branch per continent.

My money is eventually on:

USA/CANADA for North America

MEXICO for everything south including South America (Maybe Brazil for a while?)

GERMANY for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East

JAPAN for Asia (India, China, Indo-China and the Pacific

SOUTH AFRICA for Africa below the Sahara

shepherdless

It has the "ring of truth" about it for me, as well. In fact, I want it to be true.

I want it to be true, because I see it as a mistake. konceptual and freddo make good points. And they probably reflect Watchtower thinking. However:

(1) Watchtower will have to keep printing its rags for its field work, etc. Printing half as much paper doesn't halve the costs. I just can't see JW's going door-to-door with a tablet in their hand, and even if they do, they will still have to leave something behind with the householder to make it worthwhile. Also, what are they going to stack their trolleys with? So JW's in Aust (and NZ) will still need lots of printed material.

(2) Yes, nobody will donate for their rags in this day and age (and that is why I said their business model is broken, in a thread some months ago), but they have to keep producing them for their style of preaching. There is no real halfway option.

(3) It is one thing to have one printing branch in, say, Europe or North America, where you could distribute by road or rail around the whole continent. Asia and Oceania combined is huge. For Australia, they would have to airfreight the printed material from Japan to Australia, over a distance much greater than between London and New York. If each Australian publisher were to need even just 20 Watchtowers/Awakes per month, my rough calculation is that would amount to 100 tonnes of airfreight per month. That is nearly a full Boeing 747 freighter per month, flying a third of the way around the world, just to supply Australia, alone.

So I am not disagreeing with anyone. I just think that it will prove to be a mistake by Watchtower.

stuckinarut2

Well the fact is that the branch is already only half filled now, with several residence buildings not even being used!

The land is huge, and not used for farming or anything else, so it's sitting there wasting away.

The real estate developers are building all around that area, and it would be bought in a flash by a developer...

All they need is an administrative office nowadays....

steve2

Air freight be damned. In a perfect world, the magazines would be printed in heaven and delivered to each congregation by angels.

freddo

@steve2

What you describe is a kind of air freight isn't it?

Australia Branch to end magazine printing

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