Just seen on the news Ford is Closing its Australian Manufacturing??
WTF...
Where is this going to end??

Does anyone really care?

I was more upset in '68.

It is a shame about the Australian car industry. The govt worked hard in the 50's and 60's to build the industry by offering huge incentives for local made cars and taxed the buggery out of imported cars. Now it is a level playing field and we cannot compete when our labour rates are 3 times what they are through Asia. Ford has been on the chopping block for some time now so it is not a shock. Holden may only have about 5 years left before they are in the same boat. The unfortuinate thing with Holden is they make large cars (the Commadore) and also the Cruize. The demand for large cars has shifted and now people are buying suv's and smaller cars. This does not bode well for holden. They will have to look at more than just the Cruize to save them.

Also....

The Govt is pushing the line that Australia is doing really well. That is complete BULLSH!T, how can this country be doing well when large companies are pulling out of Australia, Ford being the most recent? Large companies are going bankrupt and are calling in administrators, Good examples here are a nationwide trucking company, WOW home entertainment and the list goes on. Add to this established companies are downsizing, In Canberra, Harvey Norman closed it longest running shop here, Myer is pulling back on expansion plans. Dick smith is closing shops. In a southside shopping centre there are more and more vacant shops. Look at the amount of offshoring that is taking place, this is because companies are trying to reduce costs to stay afloat.

You look at all of this and tell me we are in a good position.

I work in a bank,. and a good indicator of how the bank feels things will be in the future is to look at fixed home loan rates. Now if the 3 year fixed rate is 4.95% then that show the bank believes interest rate will not go much higher than that over the course of the next 3 years. So all thoses people chasing the best rate hoping it will go up are not going to do well in the near future. The bank is not going to lend people money for a period and then have a higherr rate in their savings accounts.

Ok, so who wants to join together and start a new aust small car company? we'll approach the govt for insentives or part ownership. I'm keen

Oh! and it has to have a separate floor pan from the body, so we can make modern day buggies.

If enough people get togther we could call it the "people's car".

As buggys aren't real cars, we could make them in Clayton!

A lot of Australian companies go broke because of bad management.

Dick Smith, Harvey Norman etc. They'll be the next.

Maybe if the Australian car manufacturer built an innovative product that people wanted then there wouldn't be a problem. Holden will be next.

What about the Adventra and the Monaro?

Both could have sold well, but the bean counters stopped them.

Just face it. Holden cannot build a 4 cylinder car. They have all been disasters. That's where they keep losing millions.

I know that I may be a bit cynical but couldn't these shut down threats be just a ploy to get a few mill from our tax dollars?

Shell Oil Refinery down here in Geelong is on the market, Ford is going off shore, I think Alcoa might shift out of Geelong too, all our prime meat & fish go offshore and we get flooded with disgusting substandard imported meat and fish being palmed off to us as Australian goods!!!! One example, our prime Australian Gummy shark (flake) is sent over seas and in return we get this shit called "Bassa" (freshwater catfish from taiwan) and passed off as Australian flake in most fish shops. Aussies that dont know any better are paying the full price for a piece of Australian Gummy Shark that really is just shit bassa that only costs the fish shop owner a couple bucks a kilo

Holden is exporting cars, and that is their only saving grace. The Australian government will prop them up a bit more as they are an exporter also.

The writing was already on the wall for Ford years ago. They don't export anything! The reason Toyota is going well is because they export more Camrys than they sell locally. Toyota and Holden both build LHD versions of their cars for export, but Ford decided that they couldn't justify the expense of converting the Falcon to LHD. There are no suitable RHD export markets for large cars other than New Zealand.

The problem is the fickle nature of the consumer and Australia's huge variety of choice in new cars. Australia has more car brands available than the USA, and they have 300 million people to our 20 million. 10 years ago the large local cars were doing well, and then for some reason Australian consumers abandoned the segment almost completely and went over to SUVs. Look up the stats if you like, but in about the last 15 years, the large car market segment has dropped from about 25% of new cars down to 4%, whilst SUVs have shot up by roughly the same amount. Small cars have nothing to do with it, because their sales have stayed more or less steady.

Very sad for all the people losing there jobs....

I think its time for government owned car manufacturing. Sounds like the tax payer was taking all the business risk at Ford anyway. Maybe shipbuilding next. We have the resources.

Unfortunately, the government hasn't supported any industry in this country for a long time, whether it be clothing and textiles, food, car, farming, etc.

The government, especially this outgoing one, has taxed the hell out of local industry, strangled them with the carbon tax we weren't going to have, but allows imports in from countries that have tariffs on imported goods into their country.

People will say that wages are too high when compared with other countries. That may be so on the face of it, but so is the cost of living here. Increases in Medicare Levy, high health insurance costs, high general insurance costs, GST, high income tax, Carbon Tax, Payroll Tax on employers, high utilities costs and worst of all, high social security payments and overseas aid. No wonder we have the deficit we have for the population we have.

Unfortunately, for any country, take away manufacture and production, you have no economy. We can't survive just as consumers, and the government will have to start printing money to pay the social security and loan interest bill.

Also, people want waaaaay too much for so little. This is the greed creeping into everyone.

The reason these companies leave is simply costs. Our high standards of living make it uneconomical for them to operate. I know that's the simplified version, but that's really the crux of it.

Everyone complains about taxes but then expects the government to prop up failing industries and subsidise power, provide health care etc etc etc. You can't have it both ways.

Damn Keynesians lol

OK, I've got the answer.

No need to work your arse off!

Say whatever you like! [Lies OK].

Get paid well....even if you stuff up! [and even when you retire].

WE"LL ALL BECOME POITICIANS.

With the tax concessions and impport duties of the past, many foreign makers set up loacl factories in Australia. GMH, Ford, Chrysler, BMC (Austin/Morris), Renault, AMI-Toyota, Volkswagen. They have all lost money and almost all are gone. Sydney used to have car factories at Pagewood (GMH) and Homebush (Ford).

Volkswagen invested over $50 million in Australian production from 1955 up to 1966 (about $585 million today), budgeting to make 50,000 vehicles a year with 95% local content. They never made more than 35,000 a year and by 1967 were down to 15,000. With such a small turnover they could not afford the annual improvements of the Wolfsburg parent (which made 800,000 a year). Crippling losses led to closure of Australian manufacture in 1968 and bankruptcy for Volkswagen Australasia. The factory survived as an assembler of German CKD kits only, but was sold to Nissan in 1976. Nissan in turn lost over a billion dollars trying to make cars in Australia by the time they sold the former VW plant in 1992.

Volkswagen never received a cent in government assistance when their factory closed - in fact the government cut their import quota to less than 10,000 cars a year when they reverted to a full importer. Ford has collected 1.1 billion dollars over the last 20 years, while the government plans to spend another $5.4 billion (from where?) up to 2020.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ca...

Hi Vlad
Fact is, You cannot put 3 car seats in the beack of most cars and SUVs..
They are just too wide.. so a 7 seater is needed for many families.. with 3 small kids [up to 7 years old depending on size of child] [or longer]

The smaller SUVs [many now with 2 wheel drive] like the Mitsubishi outlander, Rav 4, KIA Sportage HYundai X35 CAPTIVA etc are now cheaper than aFalcon or Commodore and You sit up high, good vision and look great too [IMHO]
something different..

Fellow from FORD said cost of making a car in Asia is 4 times cheaper than they can make them in Australia..

CARBON tax of $27 a tonne compared to $4 in Europe...
naturally is NOT going to help anyone in Australia..
[if there are any left that is...]

That also means the FORD Territory won't be made here either..
FORD lost sales for years by NOT having a diesel territory...

LEE