Australia’s politicians need to spell out how long they’re prepared to prop up Australia’s ailing car assembly industry, says the car review website dogandlemon.com.
Dogandlemon.com editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says:
“On one hand, the car companies have been coming to the government asking for larger and larger taxpayer handouts. On the other hand, they’re busy closing down many operations. They can’t have it both ways. Perhaps it’s time for the government to ask for some of its money back.”
Matthew-Wilson was commenting after news that Holden plans to send the design and engineering work for the Commodore overseas, with a probable loss of 350 jobs from Holden's Port Melbourne operation.
It is also widely believed that Ford has already decided to wind down its Australian assembly operations in the next few years, following poor sales of its locally built models.
Matthew-Wilson believes that Australia’s car assembly industry is unsustainable and that the massive government handouts to the local industry will merely postpone the inevitable shutdown.
“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.”
“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 money would have been better spent by giving it to the affected car workers.
“If the Australian government had simply shared its multi-billion car industry bailout among the affected car workers, these workers could have paid off their mortgages or perhaps started small businesses. At least that way the money wouldn’t have been wasted. As things stand, the taxpayer’s 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.”
