Australia is still riding on the mining boom - even though the boom has just about ended, the currency hasn't quite stopped riding that wave.
In the early 1990's the Aussie $ was in the low to mid 70's against the US$, mid 90's it was sitting in the mid to high 70's, and late 90's it was the high 50's to low 60's. At those rates, importing would be pretty expensive.
Pre 9/11 and the Aussie was in the low 50's to the US$, after that it started to rise quite steadily.... mid 2000's it was mid 70's, pre GFC it was in the 90's, and then took a bit of a drop (0.96 to 0.65 in 4 months!). By the start of 2010 it was back up to 0.91, and has stayed at that sort of level through the mining boom of the next few years (with a spike to parity, starting in late 2010 and all through 2011 and a chunk of 2012) Starting to drop in 2013 it's been gradual all through to now and is settling at around the 0.78 mark.
Now why is that important?
The Chinese Yuan (Rimbini) is a pegged currency that is kept artificially low against the US$, and therefore Chinese imports are priced in US$ first...
If the Aussie $ makes American stores look cheap, then imports are going to be cheap - if American stores look expensive, then Chinese imports are going to be expensive...
As soon as the dollar drops to the lower side of 70, even into the high 60's, watch the imports get close to the domestically made things before the price point makes quality drop a bit... but it might not be the quality of the manufacture, it'll be the accessories that come (or don't) with it. I've seen it happen with mountain bikes over the years, you get a good year sometimes depending on the currency, and other years they might not be as well specc'd without a 10% price rise, and a move to the next price point.
