In early 1987, Hills Industries bought Cole Hoists, which had a Sydney-based clothesline manufacturing business. Cole was supplying a Melbourne-based company with its products, which included galvanized rotaries, the Hideaway shrink line, and folding lines. Melbourne-based company Trimline had a contract with Coles that if purchased by Hills, that supply would continue for a period of 6 months. Dennis Skerry (now deceased), the owner of Trimline, after trying to interest the owner of Alert Hoists in Sydney, contacted John Anderson who then reviewed the proposal and decided that the proposal was sound and decided to invest. Austral needed an Australia-wide distribution from the start, so John approached Wally Genesin to be involved with the project. Austral was founded by two very smart pioneer friends, John Anderson and Wally Genesin, in 1987. Both John and Wally remain the principal directors of the International Austral clothing line company to this day. Together they have successfully led the company through the difficult economic times of the global recessions of the 1990s, to make Austral the Australian success it is today.
John Anderson and Wally Genesin first met in October 1986 during the Royal Australian Navy 75th Anniversary celebrations in Sydney, Australia. Austral officially went into production in 1987. This led to John and Wally setting up the first Austral production line at Mordialloc. Austral was able to secure the services of a former Hills employee, John Prior, to be Production/Factory Manager. John assisted in the installation of the White St. factory, Mordialloc Victoria, as well as many of the design features of the Austral range. John Prior retired in 2004.
Outgrowing these facilities, Austral moved to a larger factory in Dandenong, where they still reside. Austral now has distribution warehouses in every state in Australia except Tasmania for customer convenience in getting products to suppliers quickly. In more recent times, Michael Drapes from the Gold Coast joined the company and now holds the position of company secretary.
Austral has employed local workers for over 21 years with continuous production and orders that keep coming. Austral is now a favorite of many large national construction companies, government bodies and architect specifications, this is due to the fact that Austral products work smoothly, are made in Australia and are of a high quality with many product variations.
Today Austral’s market share stands at 50% and continues to grow with John Anderson now taking on the new role of addressing the global internet economy to introduce the Austral product to the world and showcase Australian pioneer style engineering. This is especially important for countries that have yet to see the values of wearing a clothing line. In the US, where clothing lines have been ignored for so long, Austral has been making inroads as Americans have begun to get excited about the clothing line for economic and environmental reasons. Other clothesline manufacturers have tried in the past, such as Hills in the 1990s, to make it in the United States and have failed. This failure was mainly due to environmental timing and the fact that the hills are made in China. Austral has been accepted by some of the largest US retailers as the best quality product to come out of Australia to date and they are in the early stages of capturing the hearts of Americans for our Australian clothing lines.
Innovations include the powder coated Elite 4 Rotary, the first colored rotary clothes airer in Australia and they continue to be hugely popular to this day. What sets Austral apart, apart from the fact that they are quality and made in Australia, is the application of smooth operating worm gearing to Austral’s galvanized folding and swivel models 45/51, the partial pre-assembly of all folding clotheslines with additional fixing packages and many other innovations such as patented line tension locks.
Many of the improvements over the years have evolved from experience, patents, packaging genius, and other changes that have been driven by consumer demand.
Today a letterbox division, also a premium product, has been added to the Austral range of Australian made products.
