Thread: Holden Wants How Much ?

Might be the only way to keep a manufacturing sector going in non 3rd world country, pay for peoples jobs, keep them working or pay them social security and reap the social problems.

Have to agree with Bill here.

Either we pay to keep a manufacturing sector or we pay the dole untill we run out of things to dig out of the ground and then we turn into Ethiopia.

Maybe that is a little dramatic, but there are a lot of other jobs associated with an automotive plant, component manufacturers etc.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Have to agree with Bill here.

Either we pay to keep a manufacturing sector or we pay the dole untill we run out of things to dig out of the ground and then we turn into Ethiopia.

Maybe that is a little dramatic, but there are a lot of other jobs associated with an automotive plant, component manufacturers etc.

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) and im guessing that figure has grown and and will keep growing till all that is left is a assembled car from imported parts but Australian made
Aso this is a company that makes a profit all they are doing is holding Australia to ransom for what 3000 jobs !

If Holden came out with something remotely interesting they might sell more units.

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 then I realised it is in essence an amazingly efficient 'Work for the Dole Scheme'.

Most of those jobs are jobs that are not real jobs BUT someone is doing them, probably has pride in them, feeding their families and paying taxes with the money from them.

Australia by its very disparate population size vs physical size can never really be capitalist. It can have capitalist ideology at every level, BUT white collar welfare will remain to be a part of our landscape for a long time yet. I think we need to think about this and realise that this is not really such a bad thing! Pure Capitalism is not the Australian way.

Steve

Look I am a Holden man through and through, but the tax payer can not go on subsidising an industry to that extent. AFAIK Holden have been posting a profit so why should they get handouts.
Ford the same.
I dont think subsidising is the answer. It is rife in the US so they expect it here, but how long can taxpayers go on doing this.
The quote about 100,000 Commodores is fine, the Falcon is way below that and due to corporate greed we will see the end of both Marques and that is sad.
A good start maybe for the govt to slash duties on parts brought in to create these vehicles and drop the luxury tax and GST on locally built and designed vehicles.
We missed the boat completely in the 60's, Holden or Ford should have created a decent 4x4 as that is were the big market is in industry.
If we had our own steel smelters and componentry manufacturers in Australia then maybe it could be sustainable.
And maybe if all govt departments and major fleets supported the local industry by buying Commodores and Falcons as their sedan fleet, this could change.
We are heading to the point of having no manufacturing base at all in Australia in the next 20 years to gross negligence and no foresight by successive governments.

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) and im guessing that figure has grown and and will keep growing till all that is left is a assembled car from imported parts but Australian made
Aso this is a company that makes a profit all they are doing is holding Australia to ransom for what 3000 jobs !

Holden has never been an Australian car, right from the first 48/215 it was a wholly owned GM subsidiary, the design was a stillborn post-war US model that never went into production, the engine and transmission came out of the US, basically only the body building was Australian and that is what Holden always were, motor body builders fitting their production onto Chevrolet rolling chassis.

It doesnt matter who owns the company, or the fact that some components come from elsewhere, as long as we keep some of the production and assembly here, to retain some heavy manufacturing and its associated skills base.

It is fairly simple. Labour and legislative imposed (OH&S/WH&S environmental compliance at plant) costs in Australia are higher than in the 3rd world. Even if a company is making a profit while operating manufacturing factories in Australia, they will make bigger profits by relocating to the 3rd world. If you drop tariffs to lower the costs of importing components it is no different than providing Holden/Ford a hand out as its another form of taking money the Gov would have got and keeping it the vehicle manufacturers pockets. Not sure that there is that much of a tariff that applies to the import of parts for car manufacturing (and there could be other effects by doing that any way).

Once we protected our manufacturing industry by applying tariffs to the products that were imported and competed with the locally produced. World trade agreements have lowered the tariff walls and as a result prices have gone down but there have been job losses as the industry has relocated, footwear, garment/clothing and now it looks like automotive manufacturing. We have to pay for our standard of living somehow, while there are countries that have people with lower standards of living and lower labour costs we will struggle to maintain the status quo without some very creative policy settings.