Thread: The end of the Australian Ford

Originally Posted by incisor

so it isnt red tape and government interference after all..

and the beat goes on.....

Oh well, i go and stay with friends in France and compare average wages. They seem poor by comparison until you compare their grocery bill, way cheaper. Houses are cheaper. About the only thing they pay more for is petrol. Like I said, I'm not bitching about our wages and benefits but facts are facts. Big manufacturers know it and they can set up where they please. Small business people are stuck here. I also don't think it matters which government is in charge, I'm not making a political statement.
Ford is walking away because they aren't making any money. I'm contending that the workforce costs too much. Common sense says they should set up where the work force doesn't cost as much and then sell cars back too us because after all, we have fat pay cheques to pay for them. It's stupid to add the cost of that fat pay cheque into the car before you sell it.

Originally Posted by Chucaro

Interesting contrast in point of view. comments like yours makes me very sad.
Tax money have given to allow business managers to subsidize their bad practices.
In your comment you agree that they took to long to come with new models.
Of course the politicians in present and pass governments are at fault as well to support manufacturing of models of cars that were not suitable for the local market.

I'm not sure why the comment would make you sad.
Would you prefer the company had shut down earlier and all those workers were out out of work a few years earlier costing the taxpayers much more money in benefits ?
Governments across the World subsidise industries to keep people in employment.

One point you make is valid. If a subsidy is provided then someone from outside should be involved directly with how the company uses the money.

A colleague in the UK contacted me last night about the Ford Australia closure. I hadn't realised that Ford no longer manufacture in the UK.
The last plant to shut was the Transit plant in Southampton. Now manufactured in Turkey and most of the sub-suppliers are within Turkey.

A lot of people drive around in fully imported vehicles and complain when Australian car manufacturers close. The question is whether they are buying the imported cars because they are 'better' than the local offer or whether they are buying because they are just cheaper.
Manufacturing is steadily moving overseas and each Goverment has done nothing to stop it happening.


Colin

Originally Posted by mikehzz

Oh well, i go and stay with friends in France and compare average wages. They seem poor by comparison until you compare their grocery bill, way cheaper. Houses are cheaper. About the only thing they pay more for is petrol. Like I said, I'm not bitching about our wages and benefits but facts are facts. Big manufacturers know it and they can set up where they please. Small business people are stuck here. I also don't think it matters which government is in charge, I'm not making a political statement.

yep

client of mine is an international leasing agent.. he tells me I can get a shop in a nice spot in the middle of paris cheaper per sq metre than I can in down town morayfield..

something is way out of kilter..

a mate just bought a large estate in france for less than he sold his house in down town Caboolture for..

he is moving over next month with enough money in tow to take his beloved mg with him..

makes you wonder

Originally Posted by Dougal

When you have a product that sells and is profitable, manufacturing is successful.
When your product doesn't sell, it doesn't matter how good the manufacturing is. It's doomed.

This is the big picture.

Tariffs/subsidies never work as intended. All they do is hide problems and let them grow. It's like giving the fat kid a 40m head-start in a 100m sprint.

Exactly.
Up to roughly 10 years ago the Falcodores were successful because they were what the buying public wanted (the big family 'six').

Then the market trend shifted, if you needed something to tow your boat, you bought an SUV, if not, you bought a smaller, cheaper to run car.

Both Holden and Ford are culpable in not recognising these trends earlier (although to be fair, they're trying to compete with the Territory and the Cruze), so the home market for their Falcodores started shrinking.

So, what do you do if your home market gets smaller? You export.
Only the trouble is that, whilst Australia is playing nicely and letting every man and his dog import cars here for either 0% or 5% tariff, no-one else is playing the same game. We have a free trade agreement with Thailand for example, which is where the majority of our imported small cars and pick ups (BT-50, Ranger, Colorado etc) are made, so they come here with zero import tariff.
Now you'd think that, what with the free trade agreement, we would be exporting cars to Thailand at 0% tariff too. Technically yes, but they imposed an 'environment' tax on cars with engines over 3 litres when the agreement was made, which made our cars prohibitively expensive, so we never bothered exporting. Only with the advent of the 2.7 diesel Territory has there been any significant export to Thailand and even that attracts a 50% tax.

So tariffs DO work at protecting manufacturing, Thailand's manufacturing is thriving.

Regardless of how good or otherwise you think the local car products are (and I will reiterate that I think the local management are hugely culpable in their apparent willingness to let the Falcodores die off without any radical re-think to either model), their success or otherwise isn't simply a result of how good they are selling in the home market because we as an exporting nation are fighting with one hand tied behind our back.

The whole argument comes back to protection/free trade, same argument we saw here over a hundred years ago.

Apart from the point mentioned above that protection rarely, if ever, has solely the intended effect, it should be kept in mind that while there are some advantages in artificially maintaining a manufacturing industry, there are also disadvantages. And manufacturing only imploys a small fraction of the workforce, where the disadvantages (either cost of living if tariffs or taxes if subsidies) apply to the whole population. Most informed voters will vote against protection unless they are employed in a protected industry.

Car manufacturing has probably never been really justified in Australia. For example, Ford (and Holden) started after the import of car bodies was banned in WW1 to allow shipping to be used for materials needed for the war effort. Full scale manufacture was started after WW2 to keep employed the manufacturing skills and facilities that had been set up by necessity during the war when Australia was substantially cut off from its traditional sources of supply for all sorts of manufactured goods from electronics to munitions.

This shift was encouraged by restrictive policies, major subsidies and later protection, that evolved into large scale protection policies in the fifties, for virtually everything from agriculture to mining to manufacturing.

John

I just wonder Dave if these cases are the ones that the "grass is greener on the other side of the road"?
EU is in big trouble now and racial problems are serious.
I can have Belgian passport if I like and with a french name and some connections will be reasonable easy to emigrate there but still believing that Australia is the country to live.

Originally Posted by gromit

The diesel Territory took about 4 years too long to get to market. They have ecoboost diesel Falcons & Terri's on test but again it's taken them too long to get to market.

Ecoboost are all petrol. There are no diesel falcons. Or do you know something we don't?

Originally Posted by gromit

I remember the GM of Ford Australia being asked a few years ago why they had no diesels in the range, he commented that you'd be mad to go for diesel when LPG is so cheap in Australia.

Problem right there. Cheap fuel should never rule out more efficient (diesel) engines). Especially if you ever want to export anything.
Which is why Holden's diesel cars are all imported from Korea.

Originally Posted by Dougal

Ecoboost are all petrol. There are no diesel falcons. Or do you know something we don't?

There has been discussion for some time on Forums that smaller 4 cylinder diesel engines were in test mule Falcons & Territorys.
Maybe they were from the Mondeo.
My bad, I was under the impression that EcoBoost was the diesel version.

Colin