It's time for the government to stop propping up the Australian car assembly industry, says the car review website, dogandlemon.com.
Dogandlemon.com editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says:
“Every year, the government hands over a huge bag of money to the car companies. Yet every year, the Australian car industry takes the money, sells fewer cars and fires more workers. Surely everyone can see how this sad story is going to end.”
Matthew-Wilson was commenting after Holden announced that it will cut 500 jobs in its South Australian and Victorian operations, even before the new VF Commodore goes on sale.
The government has pledged $5.4 billion to support the local car industry through to 2020, but Matthew-Wilson believes the industry will soon collapse under its own weight.
“Australia’s car factories are losing money on every vehicle they make. No amount of bailouts from the State and Federal governments can solve this basic problem. It’s not a matter of whether these factories will close down, but when.
“To survive as a car-building nation in the 21st century, you need either a huge local market, a huge export market or very low costs. Australia has none of these.
“The Australian government can throw $6 billion or $600 billion at these car plants, but they still won’t be economically feasible. The Australian car industry can re-focus on small cars, green cars, blue cars or red cars. None of this will make the slightest difference.”
Matthew-Wilson believes the government subsidies should be paid directly to the redundant car workers, rather than the companies that employed them.
“The car companies will still be in business after the handouts stop, but the assembly workers will be hit hard. The government should spend the taxpayers' money helping redundant car assembly workers pay off their mortgages or perhaps start small businesses. At least that way the money wouldn't be wasted. As things stand, the taxpayers' billions are simply paying the bills for a few multinational corporations, while doing nothing to solve the underlying problems.
“It’s pretty obvious that the Australian car manufacturers are planning to milk the Australian taxpayer for every last cent, and then close down anyway. I’m wondering how much longer the Australian taxpayer is going to put up with this.”
Additional material: youtube video bites
