Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
Another one bites the dust. Holden are pulling the plug by 2017. Politicians are all pointing fingers at each other but let's face it, who is going to build cars at a loss?
To head off the perennial Abbott blamers, this decision was taken in Detroit weeks ago. The whispers about the decision have been doing the rounds in the States for weeks.
They've been jerking us around by not announcing it until after the big subsidy they want us to pay them was decided on. It can't be laid at this Government's door.
Considering the decision to close had already been made, and Holden still had the hide to be negotiating for a handout then that makes it fraud in my books and Joe Hockey was 100% right to call them on it.
We handed Ford multi millions to stay here too. They took it and pulled up stumps anyway! (...and Abbott wasn't in charge.)
Same story with Mitsubishi, Nissan and for that matter even Kodak that a previous Labor govt naively bribed to stay. But didn't.
Let's look beyond our own backyard at how these things are going... if Detroit has lost their car industry, not sure if all or most, when they have a market of 300mill how would our industry be expected to be profitable with a market of 22 mill?
The emotional attachment to Holdens is being peddled as some kind of valid reason for it's continued existence. What rubbish!
It's not 'our' car. It never was. The boss is in Detroit! Get over it.
Remember too that we pay around 3 grand more for a Holden here where they're made than do in the US where they're rebadged as something else! 'Our car'? !! Really? We subsidize them to overcharge us?? Howzat work again?
Toyota may stay, they focus heavily on exports, Holden didn't! It exports very little of it's production. Why would the government be expected to support a company that was bringing no income into OZ?
I have no problem subsidizing Toyota to keep our exports figures, up but I resent like hell paying Holden and Ford to turn out rustbuckets for the local market only.
I hate to see manufacturers and even worse, their subsidiary parts makers close down as anybody. Their workers are going to pay the price for the Union and Banking games that have been played with successive Governments.
But we are not getting the message yet. It's not about loyalty, or sentiment. Nor even about the ineptitude of politicians, it's about the global economy leaving us in it's wake. We haven't been adaptable enough to keep up with it's evolution. We've painted ourselves in a comfy corner and we are going to be really hard to pull out of it. So until we wake up that the good ole days are gooorn we can only sit and wave our industries goodbye.
To head off the perennial Abbott blamers, this decision was taken in Detroit weeks ago. The whispers about the decision have been doing the rounds in the States for weeks.
They've been jerking us around by not announcing it until after the big subsidy they want us to pay them was decided on. It can't be laid at this Government's door.
Considering the decision to close had already been made, and Holden still had the hide to be negotiating for a handout then that makes it fraud in my books and Joe Hockey was 100% right to call them on it.
We handed Ford multi millions to stay here too. They took it and pulled up stumps anyway! (...and Abbott wasn't in charge.)
Same story with Mitsubishi, Nissan and for that matter even Kodak that a previous Labor govt naively bribed to stay. But didn't.
Let's look beyond our own backyard at how these things are going... if Detroit has lost their car industry, not sure if all or most, when they have a market of 300mill how would our industry be expected to be profitable with a market of 22 mill?
The emotional attachment to Holdens is being peddled as some kind of valid reason for it's continued existence. What rubbish!
It's not 'our' car. It never was. The boss is in Detroit! Get over it.
Remember too that we pay around 3 grand more for a Holden here where they're made than do in the US where they're rebadged as something else! 'Our car'? !! Really? We subsidize them to overcharge us?? Howzat work again?
Toyota may stay, they focus heavily on exports, Holden didn't! It exports very little of it's production. Why would the government be expected to support a company that was bringing no income into OZ?
I have no problem subsidizing Toyota to keep our exports figures, up but I resent like hell paying Holden and Ford to turn out rustbuckets for the local market only.
I hate to see manufacturers and even worse, their subsidiary parts makers close down as anybody. Their workers are going to pay the price for the Union and Banking games that have been played with successive Governments.
But we are not getting the message yet. It's not about loyalty, or sentiment. Nor even about the ineptitude of politicians, it's about the global economy leaving us in it's wake. We haven't been adaptable enough to keep up with it's evolution. We've painted ourselves in a comfy corner and we are going to be really hard to pull out of it. So until we wake up that the good ole days are gooorn we can only sit and wave our industries goodbye.
