Thread: Holden Wants How Much ?

Originally Posted by rangieman

True but do you realise how much your Australian car is un Australian 3 years ago 70% of your Ve dunnydore was imported parts(yes china)
[snip]

The FIL is chairman of the board of a mid size engineering company that supply steel pressings, etc and one of their customers is (was ?) Holden.

We don't talk too often (I'm the good for nothing son out of law ) but he was telling me a couple of years ago how GM said to them they had to lower their price by 30% or Holden would source their seat bases from China.
Of course that was well below the cost of production here, let alone trying to make a quid on it.

They have the same problem with tooling (they have a huge toolroom and make large, intricate dies) as Australian companies are outsourcing all their plastic moulding dies to China.

Often, it bites the customer on the bum big time between faulty dies and not supplying anywhere near on time, but the Chinese are getting better and better.....

China will become too expensive and so the big movers will speak to warring Africal states, things will settle and the manufacturing will move there... eventually...watch this space...in 30 yrs time

Originally Posted by roverrescue

Rangieman,
I started working with %Health 10 years ago.
Back when I started I read a statistic that 80% (yes 80%) of staff employed were NON clinical. It made sense why we had so many memos, committees and policy documents pouring up from Brisbane.

At first it made me really angry - ...

And how many of those non-clinical staff were the hotel services staff who do the cleaning, linen, catering, reception and maintenance probably the same as an equivalent sized hotel. Then there are the logistics staff, the people who transport the goods, like linen from the laundry, or produce from the warehouse and patients from location to location you'd find it is not dissimilar to a general freight or taxi service. When you calculate the hotel services, maintenance, logistics and clinical staff your 80% figure would drop to something in the order 10% to 20%.

If you look at any industry such as banking, manufacture or even the auto industry a rate of 10% to 20% administrative staff, starts looking less like a work for the dole and more like a real job. Thank you very much.

Originally Posted by Hoges

China will become too expensive and so the big movers will speak to warring Africal states, things will settle and the manufacturing will move there... eventually...watch this space...in 30 yrs time

Clothing is already starting to leave mainland China and move to Bangladesh and Pakistan

Lotz a Landies,
The figure 8 or 9 years ago was staff who had no patient/client contact.
Most TOs ('hotel' staff) and AOs (on ground admin) deal with patients daily.

The 80% are paper shufflers doing the payroll (important I guess ) writing memos and policy documents (life changingly important).

As I said though - I dont care now. It has its place in our soceity.

And a to CraigE. I get the impression you are in the mining sector. If you think that the Australian Government DOESNT subsidise the mining sector the same it does manufacturing then you are sadly misguided. It may not be a direct tariff but the Aussie taxpayer (gov'mint) supports each and every "profit" making enterprise in this fine country of ours - including digging rocks.

Deal with the reality and move on. We need need government "subsidies".

This is no different to the US or any other "capitalist" soceity.

American farmers have tariffs - Australian farmers have OS workers on short term visas and reduced PAYG tax rates.

American manufacturers have tariffs & gov. support...

Australian manufactuers need gov. support OR they no longer employ tax payers.




Our messed up 4% targeted growth is the real problem.

To set out in life aiming for exponential growth whether it be your peepee or your bank account is NEVER GONNA WORK, just ask any bacteria colony in a petrie dish.

Sorry if this is a rant. Beer is good, but not good for my self control.

S

Originally Posted by roverrescue

Lotz a Landies,
The figure 8 or 9 years ago was staff who had no patient/client contact.
Most TOs ('hotel' staff) and AOs (on ground admin) deal with patients daily.

The 80% are paper shufflers doing the payroll (important I guess ) writing memos and policy documents (life changingly important).

As I said though - I dont care now. It has its place in our soceity...

If that is the case, the 80% figure is an urban myth. And you can take that to the bank from someone who has worked in health (including Qld Health) for 37 years.

Fair enough. I'm happy with Urban myth.
Either way its not really my point

But, if you have worked in health that long you surely will be of the opinion that there is an awesome amount of memos and policy documents produced when compared with sick people being treated...

S

In an attempt to bring this thread back to where it started.....
IF we as tax payers are to subsideise GM, Ford, Bluescope Steel or any other multi-national, it MUST be conditional on a GUARANTEE from the reciient that they will continue manufacturng here at least the same level, with NO redundancies for a period of say... 5 years. If they close plants or break the agreement, the grant is repaid WITH penalties.
i have memories of Kodak in Melbourne taking about $80m in industry support then closing about 12 months later. I think that $80m equated to about $36,000/employee from you and me...... they still ended up redundant.
Free handouts do not make a bad business into a good one.