Holden to stop making cars by 2017

[Idle]

Maybe now's the time to really bite the bullet.

Let's get rid of at least one level of government, take the labour force generated by all the closures and do something useful with it.

Use it to grow food that the world market desperately needs (instead of selling our farms overseas) and to convert the raw materials we're letting overseas companies take away for next to nothing into products.

It could be done!

[wai]

Maybe they need to see what other manufacturer would like to move their operations to Australia? After all, there is the support industry here, and there are the people with skills to do the work.

[BenM]

Maybe they need to see what other manufacturer would like to move their operations to Australia? After all, there is the support industry here, and there are the people with skills to do the work.

So long as it's not any VAG brands. Like them just how they are, thanks. If they were built here they'd be significantly more expensive and fall apart twice as fast

In all seriousness though, the only problem with your idea is that any manufacturer would want massive govt subsidies to come here, we're then still stuck with another company that can't survive on its own without taxpayers propping it up.

[Lima]

Subsidies on their own aren't the issue. The wider benefits they bring to the economy are worth the spend and as noted plenty of other sectors get government benefits too, what is it $4bn in diesel concessions to the mining industry, a crap load more than car makers are asking for.

The point will always be that sufficient domestic and/or export demand must exist for any model to be viable, regardless of brand etc. While wages, high AUD etc all play a factor in the costs involved, including the sale price, people have to actually want to buy the car in enough numbers to make it feasible.

[Tom87]

Be interested to know where the govt of the day thinks all the people in that industry are going to find jobs.

Sad day for SA and Vic manufacturing.

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They're putting on a happy, smiling face infront of the cameras because they know that the majority of them are unskilled assembly line workers who will not get another job which pays them anywhere NEAR what they're accustomed to and won't accept a job with a normal salary because they'll see the pay as beneath them. Luckily it is only a very small number of them who will be eligible for immediate government assistance. Majority of them will be able to live for quite some time without a job on their $300k pay outs.

If Holden does leave, workers will receive the most generous redundancy benefits around. Holden says leaving will cost $600m. Most of this will go to staff payouts. The fellow interviewed agrees with my calculation: the average production-line worker will walk away with a redundancy package of between $300k-500k.

Not entirely. It has more to do with the fact that we are not buying the large cars that Ford and Holden are making. The cars from Ford and Holden that we do make are already allocated to other manufacturing plants, and there is simply not the economic muscle that Australia can exert.

Unions and the deals do have some impact, but if people bought the cars they used to, there would not be a problem. There is NO level playing field out there. We took away our protection, but there is plenty of protection where we would like to sell the Commodores and Falcons.

Well, now here's an opportunity for Toyota to get a foot in. As Holden and Ford are no longer manufacturing in Australia, maybe we need to get on board with Toyota and make sure they do not go the same way.

Sir, Holden's death is almost entirely to be blamed on the staff.

In 1991, the pre-enterprise bargaining award wage of a Holden entry level process worker was $462.80 a week. In 1992, Holden began enterprise bargaining and now a worker at that same classification level has a base rate of $1194.50 a week, a 158 per cent increase, or a compound increase of 4.4 per cent year on year for 22 years. Right now, base wage rates for process workers in the Holden enterprise agreement are in the $60,000 to $80,000 per year range and in recent times, "hardship payments" of $3750 were given to each worker.

The modern award for such workers mandates base rates in the $37,000 to $42,000 range. This means that before we add any of the shift penalties, loadings, 26 allowances and the added cost of productivity restrictions, Holden begins each working day paying its workforce almost double what it should. After you add in the other employment costs, I estimate Holden's workforce costs it somewhere close to triple the amount it should.

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Nowhere in the world is this acceptable. Unfortunately for many great Australian companies we do not have the same forgiving financial system as seen in the USA which has allowed many giant corporations nullify their outdated and impossible to service staff agreements.

[Finance_Analyst]

the houses that the foreigners are buying and than rent back.

I think you will find the actual proportion of these foreigners are quite small in absolute numbers, given that they cannot buy a landed property, only new ones (which is a good thing to prop up new housing approvals).

People who complain about foreign investment should remember that without money from China, this whole economy was done for years ago. Plus the fact the there is not enough local capital to swallow investment here locally.

[Sharkie]

Sir, Holden's death is almost entirely to be blamed on the staff.



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Nowhere in the world is this acceptable. Unfortunately for many great Australian companies we do not have the same forgiving financial system as seen in the USA which has allowed many giant corporations nullify their outdated and impossible to service staff agreements.

Exactly, this and nothing else (not even any government past or present) is the sole reason Holden is stopping production in Australia.

Common sense says, if you price yourself out of the market, do not be surprised if the market passes you by. Trouble is common sense is not very common these days.

[Tom87]

Exactly, this and nothing else (not even any government past or present) is the sole reason Holden is stopping production in Australia.

Common sense says, if you price yourself out of the market, do not be surprised if the market passes you by. Trouble is common sense is not very common these days.

Actually I kind of disagree.

I think this could have been prevented.

If action had been taken 10 yrs ago when the check engine lights were flashing it is possible Ford and Holden would be looking at a healthier future. The issue of course is back then the every day plebs or indeed the population would have taken sides with the employees and unions in wondering why on earth it was required. If anyone can't remember, 10 yrs ago was 2003. it was pre GFC, and money was flying around everywhere. Things were looking pretty peachy.

[Transporter]

I think you will find the actual proportion of these foreigners are quite small in absolute numbers, given that they cannot buy a landed property, only new ones (which is a good thing to prop up new housing approvals).

People who complain about foreign investment should remember that without money from China, this whole economy was done for years ago. Plus the fact the there is not enough local capital to swallow investment here locally.

Is that right?
Just look at the German economy, they don't have the amount of minerals we have, their farming land is non existent compared to ours, they have 4x more people to feed and yet they are second to China when you compare their production on their homeland.
Maybe our economists should learn something from them.
Smart people don't sell their own factories and utilities to foreigners, that's the bottom line.

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[Sunny43.5]

I think part of the problem is that for years Holden and Ford have fed a frenzy of rev heads with their constant V8 battles on the road and on the track , meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on from gas guzzling oversized dinosaurs . So they can only blame themselves for fuelling the V8 and big car crowd with their tired old line that Aussies like big cars , the autobahns in Europe are crowded with small to medium size cars running diesel turbo engines and they run all day at high speeds on the smell of an oily rag . The US on the other hand is littered with big cars as their fuel is cheap as so are their cars . I think there are many other reasons we all will trot out for this demise of the local car industry , but one story told to me by a motoring insider twenty plus years ago was that we pay twice as much for our cars to keep 20.000 workers in a job .