Great job, Australian finally killed auto industry in own homeland
Frank Oct. 19, 2017 in Waterloo, Canada
Oct. 11, 2017, GM warns Canadian union it could wind down striking SUV
plant: "DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co on Wednesday warned
leaders of Canada’s Unifor labor union that it will start to wind down
production of its popular Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicle at an Ontario
factory unless workers there call off a month-long strike."
Canada's auto industry is in following the road dust of the failed Australia's auto industry. Please look at the record high again and again in export surplus of Germany, for the decline in manufacturing, the Australians and Canadians have no any reason for self-consolation.
In this Oct. 15, 2017, historic Holden cars parade through the streets of Adelaide, Australia. The Australian auto manufacturing era ends after more than 90 years on Friday, Oct. 20, 2017 when General Motors Co.'s last Holden sedan rolls off the production line in the industrial city of Adelaide. The nation has already begun mourning the demise of a home-grown industry in an increasing crowded and changing global car market. David Mariuz
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA
The Australian auto manufacturing era is about to end after more than 90 years when General Motors Co.'s last Holden sedan rolls off the production line in the industrial city of Adelaide on Friday.
The nation has already begun mourning the demise of a home-grown industry in an increasing crowded and changing global car market.
GM Holden Ltd. is the last of an array of carmakers that once included Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Chrysler and Leyland to abandon Australia in recent decades.
With the Holden plant's shutdown after the last red Holden VF Commodore, a six-cylinder rear-wheel drive sedan, leaves its doors, 900 factory workers will clock off the last time.
Technical manager Peter Allison had been employed at the Holden factory for 19 years and had once expected to stay there for the rest of his working life.
"If we're not Holden fans, we're cars fans. Building cars is what we love," Allison said.
Thousands of jobs in businesses that have supplied components and accessories to Australian auto manufacturers are also at risk.
Though it's a subsidiary of a U.S. automotive giant, Holden is an iconic Australian brand and has been a source of national pride for generations.
The name came from English immigrant James Alexander Holden, who arrived in Adelaide as a 17-year-old in 1852 and set up a saddlery business.
The family business evolved from horses and buggies when the automobile age arrived. In 1931 GM bought what was then called Holden's Motor Body Builders. Such was the brand recognition that the Detroit headquarters decided to keep the Holden name.
The first mass-production model of the brand that became known as "Australia's own car," the FX Holden, was built in 1948. A decade later, more than half the new cars registered in Australia were Holdens. The market was built on a reputation for cars engineered for rugged Australian conditions.
The reasons behind the demise of Australian auto manufacturing are numerous.
The first Holden cars were built in an era of high Australian tariffs and preferential trade with former colonial master Britain, which encouraged global carmakers to set up local factories to increase market share.
Australian import tariffs have since tumbled through bilateral free trade deals with car manufacturing countries like the United States, Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia.
High wages and a relatively small population of 24 million people living far from large export markets denied the Australian industry economies of scale.
There were exports, including the V8 Holden Commodore that has sold in the United States since 2013 as the Chevrolet SS.
A decade of surplus federal budgets ended in Australia in 2008 with the global economic crisis. Car industry subsidies have since weighed heavily on the burgeoning budget deficits.
Holden, Ford and Toyota — the final three carmakers — announced their departures in 2013 when a mining boom made the Australian dollar for the first time stronger than the greenback. That made Australian-made cars increasingly uncompetitive.
Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull said a lack of government support was not to blame since the government had provided a total of 7 billion Australian dollars ($5.5 billion) in subsidies to the industry since 2001.
"The manufacturers who have progressively closed their operations in Australia have made it clear it's not because of a failure of government subsidies," Turnbull said when Toyota closed its doors earlier this month.
"It's because of changes in market taste. People stopped buying the sedans that were being made in Australia, or stopped buying them in sufficient numbers to support the industry," he said.
Ford shut its Melbourne and Geelong plants a year ago after 91 years of Australian operations.
The opposition Labor Party accused "rightwing economic rationalists" within the government of "goading General Motors to leave Australia" but refusing to guarantee future subsidies.
"We're not just losing a car, we're not just losing an industrial capability. We're losing an icon and that is a tragedy," Labor lawmaker Nick Champion, who represents the Holden factory region, told reporters on Thursday.
In this undated photo provided by General Motors Holden, cars are assembled on the production line in Adelaide, Australia. The Australian auto manufacturing era ends after more than 90 years on Friday, Oct. 20, 2017 when General Motors Co.'s last Holden sedan rolls off the production line in the industrial city of Adelaide. The nation has already begun mourning the demise of a home-grown industry in an increasing crowded and changing global car market. General Motors Holden via AP)
End of the line for 400 jobs and the locally made Holden Cruze, but Commodore to stay until late 2017
AN ambitious plan by a Belgian entrepreneur to save the Holden factory has been formally canned — the same day that 400 workers learned they would lose their jobs by December.
Joshua Dowling
News Corp Australia NetworkFEBRUARY 27, 20162:19PM
A HIGHLY ambitious plan by a Belgian entrepreneur to save the Holden factory has been formally canned.
A joint statement from General Motors and businessman Guido Dumarey of Punch Corporation issued late Friday said: “Both parties concluded that a viable business model was not possible. Therefore the proposal will not be taken forward.”
Despite the apparent backing of federal politicians from both sides of politics, including Kim Carr and Christopher Pyne, the deal never stood a chance, say industry observers, because the factory would not have produced enough volume to support a supplier base.
Mr Dumarey wanted to sell the Holden Commodore sedan, wagon and ute under another name, and rely on exports to boost production — if the Australian dollar remained low.
“General Motors and Punch Corporation have undertaken and completed a detailed global evaluation of a proposal from Punch Corporation to continue manufacturing vehicles at Holden’s Elizabeth plant in South Australia,” the statement said.
“The challenges to domestic automotive manufacturing in Australia — lack of scale, high production costs, supply base contraction and increasing market fragmentation — persist and cannot be overcome for this business case.
“In particular, the wind down of the supply base following the manufacturing exit of the three existing car makers, and the critical production mass they represent, is insurmountable.”
The last small car ever made in Australia, the Holden Cruze, will reach the end of the line in December, taking an estimated 400 jobs with it.
But the Holden factory at Elizabeth in Adelaide’s northern suburbs will continue to make Commodore sedans, wagons and utes until late 2017 as planned.
Production line workers were told of the widely expected decision at a meeting at 2:30pm on Friday, at the end of shift.
Holden had forecast since 2014 that production of the Cruze would end about a year before the Commodore.
The launch of the Holden Cruze at the Holden factory in Elizabeth, South Australia.Source:News Limited
The model will be replaced by the Holden Astra, which will be imported from the UK.
The company says it made the announcement at least six months ahead so that suppliers had certainty until the end of 2016, and could restructure their business to operate until production of the homegrown Commodore ends in late 2017.
Every Holden worker has access to transition services and up to $3000 in approved training, as part of Holden’s $15 million contribution to the Federal Government’s Growth Fund for former factory workers.
Holden builds about 240 cars per day and the Cruze represents about one in three of vehicles made.
Further job cuts at local parts suppliers to Holden are expected.
General Motors Holden is to cut 400 jobs at its factory in Elizabeth, South Australia.Source:News Corp Australia
However, of all the cars assembled locally, the Cruze had the highest foreign content. About 70 per cent of Cruze parts are sourced from overseas.
The relatively low amount of local parts content in the Cruze — and the declining production volumes — means its departure is unlikely to affect the continuation of Commodore production until the end of 2017.
Ford will be the first of Australia’s three remaining car manufacturers to close its factories.
Ford’s Broadmeadows car assembly line on the northern outskirts of Melbourne and the Geelong engine and stamping plant are due to close on October 7.
The Ford shutdowns will end 91 years of production in Australia for the US car giant, and end 56 years of car-making in Broadmeadows.
The Cruze will be replaced by the Holden Astra, which will be imported from the UK.Source:Supplied
Holden will be next to close its car assembly line, in late 2017, followed by Toyota.
The Toyota Camry assembly line at Altona, on Melbourne’s western outskirts, will be the first factory Toyota has closed anywhere in the world.
Fast facts: Holden Cruze
The Holden Cruze was originally imported from South Korea. But during the Global Financial Crisis in late 2008 and early 2009, a deal was struck between then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and then Holden boss Mark Reuss to build the Cruze sedan and hatch locally.
“This is an epic day,” said Mr Reuss at the June 2009 announcement designed to secure Holden’s manufacturing future. “We are safe, we are part of the new GM.”
Holden had received $149 million from the Rudd Government’s “Green Car Innovation Fund”. The Cruze qualified because it was a fuel-efficient four-cylinder car. The scheme was also used to fund the four-cylinder Ford Falcon, diesel engined Ford Territory and Toyota Camry hybrid.
The first Holden Cruze went into production alongside the Commodore to help boost output at Elizabeth in late 2011.Source:News Limited
“We’re fortunate to have a Government and a Prime Minister that actually cares about manufacturing,” Mr Reuss said at the time.
The first Holden Cruze went into production alongside the Commodore to help boost output at Elizabeth in late 2011. At the time the Holden factory employed 2300 workers and built 430 cars per day.
More than 125,000 locally made Holden Cruze sedans and hatches have been sold since 2012; the 100,000th was built in November 2014.
The first Holden small car to go into production was the Torana, in 1967.
The last small car Holden made in Australia prior to the Cruze was the Gemini, in 1987, also made at Elizabeth.
This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling
https://twitter.com/joshuadowling
Why Australian car manufacturing died — and what it means for our motoring future
Joshua Dowling, National Motoring Editor, News Corp Australia Network
February 3, 2017 6:00am
BY this time next year, the doors will have closed on the Australian car manufacturing industry forever — after almost a century of car making.
Australia’s oldest car maker assembled almost 6 million vehicles since 1925.
General Motors began manufacturing in Port Melbourne in 1936 — assembling cars from parts imported from the UK and USA — before gearing up to support the Australian military in World War II by making aircraft engines, armoured vehicles and weaponry.
Prime Minister Ben Chifley at launch of the first Holden. Picture: Supplied
But Holden did not manufacture from scratch its first car and engine until 1948, when its first sedan rolled off the production line and then Prime Minister Ben Chifley declared “she’s a beauty”.
In that time Holden built more than 10 million engines in Australia and, by the end of this year, more than 7 million cars.
Holden has already wound back production after the Cruze small car reached the end of the line in October 2016, the same day the last Falcon was built.
The Ford Falcon reaches the end of the line. Picture: Supplied
Over the decades, the car industry has employed generations of workers and, until the end, kept close to 50,000 people in a job — once you include the small businesses that supplied parts and services to Australia’s car manufacturers.
But the tax payer has largely footed the bill, shelling out more than $5 billion dollars in “industry assistance” over the past 10 years alone.
The car industry says it invested three dollars for every one dollar of taxpayer funds.
That figure may be debated but one thing is certain: the end was inevitable.
With low — or zero — import tariffs over the past decade, Australia became flooded with foreign cars that were either cheaper to buy than local models, better equipped, or both.
That had the effect of eating into the volume that Australian car factories needed to remain viable.
In the late 1990s the Commodore filled the role of “dual purpose” car. Now utes and SUVs dominate. Picture: Supplied
Fifteen years ago, the Holden Commodore led the market with close to 100,000 sales per year.
For five of the past six years, small cars such as the Mazda3 and Toyota Corolla have topped the charts with a little over 40,000 sales. Last year the Toyota HiLux ute led the total market with a similar number.
There is not a car factory in the world that can survive on such small volumes — other than the likes of Ferrari or Lamborghini who sell supercars with super-high prices.
The flood of imports has given Australian car buyers more choice than ever before — and more than every other country on the planet except China.
Australia has 64 automotive brands, the US has 38 and the UK has 42.
While we are literally spoiled for choice, the Australian car market became so fragmented, the car manufacturers couldn’t solely rely on domestic sales for survival.
But they couldn’t export their way out of trouble either. They were caught in a pincer movement.
Australia is surrounded by developing countries with much cheaper labour costs.
The last small car to be made in Australia, the Holden Cruze. Picture: Supplied
The minimum wage in Thailand equates to less than $2 an hour.
Car assembly line workers are paid more generously — about $6 an hour, or close to $12,500 a year.
But it’s nowhere near the average Australian car manufacturing worker wage of $69,000.
By the time you add currency exchange rates into the bargain, you can cross exports off the list of possible saviours for the local car industry.
Of all the Free Trade Agreements Australia has with other countries, none was more brutal and swift than the deal with Thailand, introduced in 2005.
Since Australia agreed to lift the import tariff on cars from Thailand, we have bought close to 2 million vehicles from our Asia-Pacific neighbour — from familiar brands such as Ford, Holden, Toyota, (the three companies closing their factory doors) as well as Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda and others.
In return, Australia has shipped to Thailand just 100 cars. Not 100,000. Just 100.
That’s because Thailand maintained hidden, non-tariff barriers while Australia opened its borders completely.
Ingeniously, Thailand continued to impose higher registration fees on cars with larger engines — such as those made by Ford and Holden.
Production costs are cheaper overseas, so manufacturers have moved factories offshore. Picture: Supplied
Toyota already has a Camry factory in Thailand, so doesn’t need to export any cars there.
Ten years after the free trade deal was signed, Australia is shutting its doors on an entire industry — and with it more than 50,000 jobs.
Australia was the only country in the world to manufacture cars and not have some form of protection for its local industry.
Now those jobs have been transferred to Thailand, known as the Detroit of the Asia-Pacific.
Thailand is now the second-biggest source of motor vehicles in Australia after Japan and ahead of South Korea.
Should we have kept the Australian car industry alive, or was it right to end taxpayer handouts and suffocate it to the point of extinction?
How many former factory workers will find employment in hospitality, tourism, IT, or in a job that involves “innovation”, the catchcry of government? We’re about to find out.
Holden builds its last V6 engine at Port Melbourne in November 2016. Picture: Supplied
A 2013 report by University of Adelaide Associate Professor John Spoehr estimated about one-third of sacked blue collar workers are likely to become long-term unemployed.
The statistics were gathered after the closure of the Mitsubishi car factory in Adelaide in 2008, and from other associated industries.
“We know from the research that a high proportion of manufacturing employees go on to be long term unemployed,” Professor Spoehr said. “It requires significant retraining to work in … other sectors.”
As Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett wrote recently, there is also a rise in “mature-age” unemployment, as manufacturing closes.
“These people are often breadwinners with good personal values who have been paying taxes and charges for years,” Mr Kennett wrote.
While we wait to count the social cost of wiping out an entire industry, car buyers may well be wondering what the impact will be in showrooms.
The answer, to be blunt, is almost nothing.
A flood of imports squeezed out the local car manufacturing industry. Picture: Supplied
New-car prices are not suddenly about to go up. Australia is the most competitive market on the planet and that keeps prices low. It’s one of the key reasons our car factories are closing.
The biggest void to be filled — and no-one yet has any idea on how to fill it — is the lack of affordable performance sedans from Ford and Holden.
There is no replacement in sight for Holden Commodore V8s, or the choice of supercharged V8 power or turbocharged six-cylinder power for the Ford Falcon.
These were the fastest and most powerful sedans in the world for the money. But they could only be built thanks to the families and fleets that bought the regular models.
Historically, Ford and Holden sold so many of their fleet sedans that they could afford to fit bigger engines, bigger brakes and wider tyres to appeal to enthusiast customers.
Unfortunately, “rev heads” only account for a third of sales of our big fleet sedans — and that’s not enough to justify the investment in a unique performance model.
Ford has no direct replacement for the Ford Falcon XR8 and XR6 Turbo performance sedans. Picture: Supplied.
This is why police highway patrol divisions across Australia are scrambling — and struggling — to find suitable replacements for their Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore pursuit cars.
The best candidate in terms of performance and price is the Ford Mustang.
Police used to run two-door coupes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It may happen again — for specialised purposes — if the Mustang passes muster after some initial hurdles.
In Queensland, the police have announced they’re running Hyundais. Criminals are presumably delighted.
General duties police officers, meanwhile, will migrate to sedans like the Toyota Camry, SUVs like the Hyundai Santa Fe, and prisoner vans like the Volkswagen Transporter or Hyundai iLoad — as they do currently.
In the meantime, Australians will continue to have just as many — if not more — cars from which to choose once the last of the local assembly lines closes.
Take a picture ... the last generation of Holden Commodore V8. The imported replacement will only have four-cylinder or V6 power. Picture: Supplied
But the type of vehicle we are buying is changing.
Sales of passenger cars dropped dramatically in 2016 as SUVs continued their record growth.
In 2015, passenger cars had a lead of 100,000 sales ahead of SUVs. In 2016 passenger cars were just 37,000 sales ahead of SUVs.
It looks like 2017 could be the year that SUVs finally overtake passenger car sales in Australia.
“A lot of people are replacing small cars with SUVs,” says Jordan Pakes, car industry director at Roy Morgan Research, which surveys 6000 car buyers each year.
“It’s possible SUVs could overtake passenger cars (in 2017), we know it’s a booming segment and there so many new small SUVs hitting the market.”
The latest Roy Morgan research shows 278,000 private buyers are considering an SUV in the next 12 months, versus 254,000 with a passenger car on the top of their shopping list.
In case you’re wondering, an SUV couldn’t have saved the car industry, because no single model sells in sufficient numbers to justify local manufacturing.
Then there is the rise and rise of utes to consider. In October and November, the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger led the market outright.
It was the first time in Australian automotive history that utes filled the top two sales spots. As noted earlier, the HiLux took the title as top seller for the year in 2016 — the first time a ute has led the market in our entire motoring history.
Mercedes-Benz believes utes are “the next SUV” trend, and has forecast massive sales growth globally over the next 10 years. Which is why Mercedes will join the ute brigade in 2018.
Ten years ago, the idea of a Mercedes-Benz ute would have been unimaginable. Now it seems overdue.
And who would have thought a Mercedes would be Australia’s second-best selling medium-size car — after the Toyota Camry and ahead of the Mazda6, Honda Accord, Ford Mondeo, and others.
With our rich, diverse and rapidly changing taste in vehicles — and fickle buyers who chant “buy Australian” while driving foreign cars — it is no wonder the Australian car industry never stood a chance.
The local auto industry was a creature of Government policy.
It rose under import quotas, limiting foreign exchange allocation, high tariffs, Imperial Preference Tariffs that resulted in tariffs of 20% on vehicles from Empire countries, 55% from all others, Holden's smart action to design and build a large 6 cylinder vehicle when fuel prices were low, and when UK was the only Right Hand Drive producer, but did not have a reasonably priced large sedan. Ford followed belatedly with the locally built Falcon.
The oil price shock of the early 1970s reduced Australian exports to right hand drive non car producing countries.
The Fraser Government eliminated Imperial Preference when the UK joined the Common Market, and dropped imperial preference.
Tariffs on vehicle imports were progressively reduced, and high fuel prices gave the improving Japanese auto industry a boost in exports to right hand drive markets, Australia included.
It became obvious that the auto industry was becoming uncompetitive, further driven by protectionism world wide with import bans, government subsidies, exchange rate manipulation
It became clear that Government wanted rid of the auto industry, which accommodated them..
The worst Government in Australia's History (Whitlam) had minister Cameron announce that he was Going to make the Public Service the leader in wages and conditions rather than following the private sector.
Three years later, with Labor thrown out, Cameron observed that that was the worst decision ever made!
40 years later we are still committed to a wage/inflation spiral out of control. wages in the Auto industry follower public service wage movements, as did the rest of the private sector.
It was not only the auto industry that collapsed, bur textiles, white goods, electrical products etc., etc.
The pressure to maintain a private tradeable sector to provide the necessary foreign exchange now falls upon mining, agriculture, tourism, all of which are price takers, not price makers, so that the economy suffers the variability of global prices, AND agricultural protectionism, And currency manipulation. All of this was magnified by the GFC where the Labor morons decided the debt was the answer, spending most of it on non income producing investments requiring further recurrent borrowing.
Labor argued that national debt was lower than other first world economies (the Pigs-Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) to say nothing of the rest of the first world.
Notwithstanding the instability of our primary product exports they punted on the nascent boom in demand for minerals, and when the drop came they borrowed more.
The banks funded this increase in debt, because the Government has the monopoly on taxation.
Clearly, this is to be Labor's (Greens, cross bench in the Senate) get out of jail.
They will substantionally increase income taxes, personal and company, in the hope this will boost their short term advantage in the 3 year election cycle.
In line with this approach we have declared that we are going to make subs, and other naval vessels in Australia, with ,of course, national defense independence occurring.
Nothing could be further than the truth. At best , there will be little more than assembly, with the import of major high tech components, and delete items priced at variable cost. Total costs of this program, over import of complete units will be many billions of dollars-and more debt,merely designed to boost electoral prospects in SA.
In the absence of any likely efforts to address these many political problems, our long term sees rising unemployment, higher taxes, and declining standards of living, particularly in low income and unemployed sector
Neither Political parties, with the deadlock of the Senate will or can do anything about this, while Labor focusses on short term electoral advantage.
Maybe we should vote them in, and allow the future decline unroll.
The Button plan was the real demise of our once thriving vehicle manufacturing industry, however it alone cannot wear all the blame. A succession of Govts, of both persuasions ... mis-managed their way through short sighted poor planning and poor politics, of course not helped by the simple fact that we in Australia can never compete an the World stagewith our tiny population base. 23 million people in this country - today - is a drop in the bucket to other countries who can boast of having such types of numbers in single cities !! It is there that true volumes of scale become readily apparent, and graphically show why our car industry was a dead duck regardless of what 'strategy' we employed trying to stave off the inevitable. Unfortunately, while I could see all this coming long before it did ... like 99 of 100 others ... I stayed on in the industry for too long - and ended up as one of those long term unemployed.
To suggest that this can all be blamed on the Button plan, while making many of those 'out there' feel better, really is not the whole answer - but it sure as heck didn't help ...
First car I drove was a Toyota Corolla built in the 1970's yeah quite old. After that I moved to a Volkswagon Polo built in 1997. Local or not I just want a car that's reliable, not too expensive and will get me from A to B in a cost effective way
Our car industry is dead because Abbott and Hockey refused to subsidise it. All western countries with an auto industry subsidise it by far more than Australia was doing. The trouble with the car industry from the point of the arch conservatives is that is highly Unionised, and we all know how they'd just love to get rid of the Unions because they stand for fair pay and safe work places, which cost the big boys too much money.
@Raelene Lack of tariffs and protections didn't help. That's why the US dairy market survives despite the sheer volume of dairy coming from New Zealand. They have huge levels of protections which basically locks EVERYONE out of the market over there allowing the local market to remain viable.
We should have made dual cab utes here, over 155,000 sold last year. Plus 4wd.
The high margin vehicles.
Stupid corporate and government policies on the above killed it. Plus the car makers were all foreign. We should have made our own 60+ years ago and we would have been the ones owning the new factories in Asia. But we have control over like in so many areas along time ago.
We worry about the Chinese owning stuff here, we should look at what Birish and USA companies own.
I used to own both a Holden and a Ford. Always had problems. They kept the RAA call out guys in jobs. Now I drive a Mazda and haven't looked back. Unions and Labor didn't help the cause by demanding too higher wages and extra benefits.
Thre is only one reason the car industry has been destroyed in Australia
UNIONS You priced your members out of a job with never ending strikes and payment demands over the years starting in the 80s You priced your members out of a job while the organisers remain employed and live a life of luxury
Well done.Unfortunately the car industry is not the only casualty the manufacturing base in Australia continues to be driven off shore.
@Steve Spot on Steve. And thanks to unions there is now a huge unemployable underclass - resorting to drug manufacture and other criminal activity to support their lifestyle.
When the car industry and all its support businesses also shut down, just what jobs will there be, who will employ these people
Long term unemployment will continue growing and the cost to the public coffers is getting larger all the time
Those on benefits do not add to growing the GDP, so new industries need to be setup to get people back to work, so the welfare bill drops
For the Minister of the LNP the other week to say Manufacturing jobs are finished in Australia says all that needs to be said about the type of politicians Australia has
@Rodney Except the government is progressively turfing people off welfare by generating debts against them. Once a debt is flagged anyone on welfare losses all payments until the debt is cleared. Debts seem to be from about $3000 - $150 000 :/
@Eric Tariffs stopped China sending $3 items for sale here compared to a local item that might be $10 or even $20 locally for example.
As for up skilling that's the cost and blame the government for privatizations and watching the cost of a degree go from $3000 to $20 000+ because for profit colleges popped up driving TAFE out of business
I am very glad that Mr Dowling has cleared up the reasons for the closure of the car industry as the SA State premier had me believing that the demise of the car industry (and every other problem in the state) was entirely Tony Abbott's fault The exception, of course, was the closure of Mitsubishi in 2008 when Labor was in power both in SA and federally and that was just bad management by, er, well, Mitsubishi I suppose!
One word explains the demise of manufacturing in Australia "Politicians". Playford had a vision of manufacturing for South Australia and achieved it. Today's pollies embrace economic rationalism theories and destroy or economy.
It's not just the car industry, it is our entire manufacturing industry. Other countries, bigger than us and smaller than us, have managed to keep and build their industries, but we have systematically destroyed ours. And we, the "lucky country" have had so many advantages over most of the others.
There are a number of factors at play, some within our control and some not, but the obvious fact is that we have squandered so much. We are to blame. If we are prepared to honestly acknowledge and accept the things we did wrong and change our approach than we stand an excellent chance of making Australia truly great. But sadly, I expect there are too many vested interests to allow that to happen.
@Brian We are lucky, because we the taxpayers have the privilege of paying for car workers to have two cars and a holiday cottage, while we go without providing it.
@Fred@Chris@Brian I don't think Asian workers have to pay $500,000 to buy a place to live. That is because of governments holding back releasing land for housing to support their deficits.
Until Australia removes all the extra add-ons to employers that most other Countries don't have - like Long Service Leave, Leave Loading and Superannuation, we will never be competitive in the Export Market for manufactured goods.
The reward for staying with an employer for over 10 years should be to keep your job, not get months of extra holidays at the employers expense (Long Service Leave).
@David You would be interested to know that Hyundi workers in Sth Korea tend to have a few strikes,get over $100,000 Aus a year and their children get free university.
The last Commodore was certainly their best but in reality both Ford and Holden made very basic and standard quality cars for too long. They left it too late and people had already moved away from them. Plus Unions did a marvellous job of destroying the industry. I watched a show on the ABC about two fitters in the Ford factory. They have a 3 car garage a massive shed out the back and their house was palatial inside. In reality 2 factory workers shouldn't have a house like that unless they were being overpaid.
Mercedes and BMW just build cars that everyone wants, Toyota came out with LEXUS (Luxury Export USA). We just built cars that no one ever wanted. We did export some, but it was all arranged exports by the parent companies. We can't blame the unions or high wages because all car workers around the world were highly paid. We can't blame the high Aussie dollar because the Euro was always higher. We have to admit that we just built rubbish!! Australia has never been a manufacturer of anything, we import everything. Why are we getting other countries to supply our military hardware? It's time that we came clean and admitted that we aren't as good as we think we are and start to change the way we work.
What a surprise. Not one mention of the excessive wage deals by Militant Unions. Australia was never going to be able to support factory workers on $120000 with overtime. The Government knew it and why it pumped $5B in subsidies.
Unions and high wages. As for the politicians going on about blaming each other, that's another lie by both parties. GM in Detroit made the decision to close GMH in 2009, but the media don't like printing the truth.
It's terrible that so many males who are family breadwinners are losing their jobs -not only in the motor industry. Banks which used to have multiple branches staffed by more than a handful of staff have closed, or running a "shop" with machines to do the work of tellers and 2 or 3 youngsters looking after the place - see Westpac's new outlet in Rundle Mall. Shop assistants are hard to find behind counters, but at least On the Run is giving jobs to youngsters -but no driveway service! Sad.
Then again I remember when the Commodore was the most popular and the industry hadnt even thought baout closing down.
The choice we were given in cars was weak. The cars were basic, "extras" such as air conditioning didnt exist for a long time, its not like Australia is a cold country. Radio's were basic. It took a long, long time, for a Commodore to even have a single CD player installed. Power windows, well they were just a dream.
No wonder why people flocked to other brands that offered more for less money.
Who are the clowns that go over these "free trade" agreements. All the time we're hearing how we get reamed over our deals. Like Thailand flooding us with cars and we exorted 100 to them.
I'd like to hear an example of something in a "free trade" agreement where we did similar to another country. But you know what? I bet there isn't.. we get shafted on everything.
What that whole story can be boiled down to is Union Greed that priced Australian cars out of the market. Every time there was money from the Federal Government the Unions demanded pay rises and over the top conditions using the threats of strikes and go slows to get what they wanted. I have no pity for those that lost their jobs as they were greedy and paid the price.
Unions will be the death of Australian manufacturing and by the looks of it Construction as well as we see in Queensland where the CFMEU runs riot with Government backing.
@Paul.A The unions have already caused the death of so many of out industries.
It's a joke really, as Shorton is a stance union heavy and he and his labor cronies continually sprout on about labor government is about creating jobs, not destroying jobs, but creating jobs.
I would like to know where as even here in S.A. they are starting to feed us with the same B/S
@Chris@Paul.A But shorten is the one who sold his own Union members down the gurgler for personal gain. Just imagine if he was PM and the price was right, who would he sell us out to.
Police scrambling for pursuit vehicles - errr, in case you haven't notice, police are no longer allowed to pursue so no need for them - they can now do patrols in a Barina.
The buzzword called "Innovation Economy" that is spouted by so many of the educated, liberal and political elite is nothing but a black mass from the rear end of a male bovine.
Any country if it needs to feed high tech industry needs a necessary and large mass of apprentices, operators and technicians trained and practising basic manufacturing processes. No ideas like iPod or iPhone would have been possible, if Apple had to send its products to be prototyped elsewhere. For a country that is increasingly being educated in Sociology courses and so called Gender awareness classes, a gradual reduction of technical IQ is a logical end.
@Aravind It is the end for kids in the Government Education system, with the exception of those in areas where parents hop in and help with all the extras, Innovation cannot be forced it usually comes from having to make do when money is tight all round, so it will not be long and this will happen in this State, and J will have another first.
Dont fotget the unions pushing for higher wages for less work ..how does someone who works on the line take home 80 odd k a year ..when the Europeans arrived in the 50s production was at its best they were happy to work for a pittance and work hard
@Nick I do not agree with working for a pittance, but certainly the unskilled workers had it easy thanks to the union demands who finally put them out of business.
50k a year ..trouble is we all cant afford to live cos we want our new tvs new cars new everything ..it just wasnt like that once ..and only one person was bringing home the money and worked hard ..thats the other problem its less for more ..its the culture unfortunately
@Nick The last pay rise at Ford was 5%, the unions asked for 3.5% and the management decided the workers deserved more. Don't blame the unions, management wasn't overly bright either.
@Darren@Nick I have had to, in the past to ensure I kept the job - either that or the business went under, and it survived and prospered, so along came the pay rise again.
@WAYNE@Nick What happened to the basic wage - after all they are ONLY assembly workers (I worked at Holden's Elizabeth for 2 years - boring job - too slow)
You keep asking this question so let me answer it on behalf of Nick and, previously, Sylvia.
The minimum wage... + overtime and loadings where applicable.
Many workers out there are working - often without any possibility of overtime and/or loadings - for the minimum hourly wage which I believe is somewhere in the $23 to $25 range.
I sincerely hope that satisfies your repeated question.
@Kevin@Darren I didn't say that 80K was good or bad, I was merely referring to the fact that Nick wouldnt take a pay cut.
And the workers were hardly unskilled. A lot have trade qualifications and other qualifications. And to get $80K on the line you'd have to work afternoon shift and take all the overtime they threw at you. And spend all that time away from your family.
And no, I've never worked in the car industry and I'm not a union member.
Most of the story lies in one line: "... the average Australian car manufacturing worker wage of $69,000." This is a manager's salary in the rest of Australia, and brain-surgery wages in the rest of the world.
It also helps to explain the rest of the story that goes on to say that our cars were unable to compete with imported vehicles on value and we were unable to export our cars - clearly on value as well.
BTW, you can change the words 'car industry' in this story and insert virtually anything else such as white goods industry, shovels, penicillin or flip-flops.
@Sylvia The USA car worker was on similar rates plus private health insurance and their kids got support with school fees. German car workers earn $67.14 USD per hour. Wages never have been the problem, you have to be able to sell the product! The Japanese car worker is on $64K plus. Wages don't mean a thing. We are just rubbish at building anything.
@Eric@Sylvia Both, but mainly the German industry, is heavily subsidized by the Government.
It costs them less than the dole and has many side benefits and satellite industries which create other employment and bring in tax dollars.
Our government is too busy giving our monies away to others than to worry about Australians and could have supported the car manufacturers which would have kept the other industries going as well and would have cost less than the dole, medical and the rest that they are going to have to fork out for unemployment.
Our leaders are not worth a bucket full of you know what. Both parties.
@Eric@Sylvia Hang on a sec Eric... Holden is not in the same category as Mercedes Benz or BMW ... these are luxury products and the skills and productivity that it takes to build these vehicles is something that we'll never see at a Holden plant in Australia. Rather compare the Holden wages to the workers producing a Ford in USA, for example. That would make sense!
The local auto industry was a creature of Government policy.
It rose under import quotas, limiting foreign exchange allocation, high tariffs, Imperial Preference Tariffs that resulted in tariffs of 20% on vehicles from Empire countries, 55% from all others, Holden's smart action to design and build a large 6 cylinder vehicle when fuel prices were low, and when UK was the only Right Hand Drive producer, but did not have a reasonably priced large sedan. Ford followed belatedly with the locally built Falcon.
The oil price shock of the early 1970s reduced Australian exports to right hand drive non car producing countries.
The Fraser Government eliminated Imperial Preference when the UK joined the Common Market, and dropped imperial preference.
Tariffs on vehicle imports were progressively reduced, and high fuel prices gave the improving Japanese auto industry a boost in exports to right hand drive markets, Australia included.
It became obvious that the auto industry was becoming uncompetitive, further driven by protectionism world wide with import bans, government subsidies, exchange rate manipulation
It became clear that Government wanted rid of the auto industry, which accommodated them..
The worst Government in Australia's History (Whitlam) had minister Cameron announce that he was Going to make the Public Service the leader in wages and conditions rather than following the private sector.
Three years later, with Labor thrown out, Cameron observed that that was the worst decision ever made!
40 years later we are still committed to a wage/inflation spiral out of control. wages in the Auto industry follower public service wage movements, as did the rest of the private sector.
It was not only the auto industry that collapsed, bur textiles, white goods, electrical products etc., etc.
The pressure to maintain a private tradeable sector to provide the necessary foreign exchange now falls upon mining, agriculture, tourism, all of which are price takers, not price makers, so that the economy suffers the variability of global prices, AND agricultural protectionism, And currency manipulation. All of this was magnified by the GFC where the Labor morons decided the debt was the answer, spending most of it on non income producing investments requiring further recurrent borrowing.
Labor argued that national debt was lower than other first world economies (the Pigs-Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) to say nothing of the rest of the first world.
Notwithstanding the instability of our primary product exports they punted on the nascent boom in demand for minerals, and when the drop came they borrowed more.
The banks funded this increase in debt, because the Government has the monopoly on taxation.
Clearly, this is to be Labor's (Greens, cross bench in the Senate) get out of jail.
They will substantionally increase income taxes, personal and company, in the hope this will boost their short term advantage in the 3 year election cycle.
In line with this approach we have declared that we are going to make subs, and other naval vessels in Australia, with ,of course, national defense independence occurring.
Nothing could be further than the truth. At best , there will be little more than assembly, with the import of major high tech components, and delete items priced at variable cost. Total costs of this program, over import of complete units will be many billions of dollars-and more debt,merely designed to boost electoral prospects in SA.
In the absence of any likely efforts to address these many political problems, our long term sees rising unemployment, higher taxes, and declining standards of living, particularly in low income and unemployed sector
Neither Political parties, with the deadlock of the Senate will or can do anything about this, while Labor focusses on short term electoral advantage.
Maybe we should vote them in, and allow the future decline unroll.