While Holden is an icon in Australia, it is a very small player in the global automotive industry — an industry rapidly being relocated to low cost manufacturing nations. To survive in Australia there is no doubt that it will need substantial co-investment from the Coalition government. There is nothing unusual about this.

The automotive industry is one of many that receives government assistance, joining the agricultural and mining sectors as major beneficiaries of government support. The key questions for policymakers remain — is there significant public benefit from continuing to support the industry and what level and form of investment would help to secure GMH till early 2020?

Let’s look at the cost of keeping GMH in Australia relative to the cost of losing it. The price of keeping GMH appears to be around $150 million per year of government co-investment.

Research commissioned by my organisation to verify recent modelling we undertook on the impact of closure on South Australia and wider impacts on the nation provides a sobering perspective. The research undertaken by one of Australia’s leading economic modellers, Dr Peter Brain from the National Institute for Economic and Industry Research, examined impacts on economic activity and employment from closure of GMH in 2016.

It estimates that around $4 billion in lost economic activity would flow from closure of Holden nationally. The impacts would be widespread with Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia worst affected. Employment losses of up to 65,000 were projected reflecting assumptions that the vast majority of large automotive suppliers to Holden would not be able to continue their operation, affecting hundreds of other companies that form part of the automotive supply chain and others that benefit in the wider economy.

These are very substantial losses that cannot be easily absorbed by other sectors experiencing growth. Automotive industry skills are not readily transferable into health and community services. Where might the jobs losses be concentrated? The majority would be in Victoria (24,000), New South Wales (15,000), South Australia (12,000) and Queensland (8,000).

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-heavy-cost-of-losing-holden,5977

Iconic car maker Holden has announced it will stop making vehicles in Australia by the end of 2017.

The decision means 2,900 people will lose their jobs - 1,600 from the manufacturing plant in South Australia and 1,300 in Victoria.

The company's general manager, Mike Devereux, announced the closure in a statement just as he was set to inform workers at the Elizabeth plant in SA.

"This has been a difficult decision given Holden's long and proud history of building vehicles in Australia," he said.

"We are dedicated to working with our teams, unions and the local communities, along with the federal and state governments, to support our people."

The company cites the high Australian dollar as the main reason for its closure, stating that "at the Australian dollar's peak, making things in Australia was 65 per cent more expensive compared to just a decade earlier".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-11/holden-to-cease-manufacturing-operations-in-australia-by-2017/5150034

Time for some smart cookies out there to develop, manufacture and market the next level of intelligent individual transport system that won't cost the earth...:

 http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/26526

Is there anybody left for this government to disappoint, to betray, or just to piss off?

It has been a remarkable 100-plus days, culminating in this week's cage fight with General Motors-Holden; a ham-fisted brawl, shirts ripped, faces bruised and knuckles bloody. But completely one-sided. With the snarling Joe Hockey throwing haymakers in the air while demanding Holden put up or shut up.

Watching on from Detroit, the company bosses declined to climb into the Octagon with Hockey, quietly saying, "We'll just shut up then, thanks."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/blogs/blunt-instrument/joe-hockeys-fighting-spirit-encapsulates-all-that-is-wrong-with-the-abbott-government-20131212-2z8ys.html#ixzz2nGHJlTvT

Pissing off people is the modus operandi with which the Abbott government operates... The Australian public got conned by the spruiking and the support of Uncle Rupe... another dangerous idiot who sees only one thing : his bottom line, not yours.... 

Meanwhile:

The South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill, expressed deep disquiet after crisis meetings with the prime minister and treasurer over the demise of Holden, saying: “I don’t think they understand what they have done … there is no plan.”

Weatherill, whose state will lose 1,600 jobs as a direct result of Holden’s decision to close in 2017 and probably many more through its knock-on effects, asked Tony Abbott and the treasurer, Joe Hockey, for an immediate go-ahead for South Australian infrastructure projects already in the pipeline as part of a long, and expensive, list of measures that might save his state’s economy.

And he accused the government of failing to prepare for a decision that it had asked Holden to make.

“I don’t think they understand what they have done … I do not think there is an appreciation in Canberra about the enormity of the changes for the South Australian and national economy as a result of this,” Weatherill said.

“This is a government that was calling for this decision to be made. You would have thought there would be a plan, but there is no plan. The sense of urgency is completely lacking.”

Weatherill said the cost of the bailout packages to South Australia and Victoria would “cost many multiples more than it would have cost the government to keep Holden in Australia”.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/12/holden-south-australian-premier-accuses-government-of-having-no-plan

The top of the line Holden Caprice was recommended by the Attorney-General's Department last year as the preferred option for a fleet of nine specialised blast-proof VIP vehicles to be used by the prime minister and other dignitaries, according to confidential government documents.

These extraordinary events give every indication the government pursued a vendetta against Holden 

The revelation appears to contradict reported Abbott government sources as saying Holden had not even submitted a bid in the tender because the car maker simply ''was not interested''.

Holden viewed that claim - which appeared in a News Corporation newspaper on Wednesday, just hours before the car maker announced its withdrawal - as part of a deliberate negative backgrounding campaign by Coalition ministers designed to make the company look uncommitted to Australia.

The report also cited government sources revealing the multimillion-dollar contract to replace the ageing fleet of Caprices was about to be filled with ''off-the-shelf BMW High Security 7-Series vehicles'' at a cost of $525,000 each.

Part of a confidential ministerial brief from the Attorney-General's Department to then attorney-general Nicola Roxon has been shown to Fairfax Media.

......The opposition, which on Thursday moved unsuccessfully to censure Prime Minister Tony Abbott after he revealed he had not met with Holden before its Wednesday decision, said the claim that Holden had not wanted to supply the cars was part of a pattern of behaviour designed to discredit GM Holden because the government believed it was leaving Australia.

''These extraordinary events give every indication the government pursued a vendetta against Holden,'' said opposition industry spokesman Kim Carr.

''What we have here is a proper tender process being run and won, legitimately, by a BAE-GM Holden consortium. Yet suddenly, in the midst of a concerted backgrounding campaign against Holden by senior government ministers, BMW emerges with a contract for this work.''

That claim has been rejected by a spokeswoman for Justice Minister Michael Keenan, who said the tender remained open.

Senator Carr described the assertion that Holden was not capable of meeting the standards required as ''patently untrue''.

Mr Abbott adopted a more conciliatory tone in the Parliament on Thursday after the more bullish approach of his Treasurer and other ministers, pledging that the government would commit itself to working with Holden, with its staff and with the state governments of Victoria and South Australia to develop replacement industries.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/holden-angered-by-media-reports-it-did-not-submit-bid-to-supply-blastproof-vehicles-for-australian-government-vips-20131212-2zaai.html

------------------------

Yes, the honourable Anthony Abbott pleaded with us with a conciliatory tone not to blame anyone on the whatever debacle but to praise the lord for having had to foresight to guide his government to get rid of gas-guzzlers and Yank tanks. 

The new industries that Abbott now envisages for Victoria and South Australia include billycarts, tricycles and bicycle hand-pumps manufacturing. A win-win situation for the environment...

Meanwhile the merde-och press should remain blameless for spreading blameless porkies, honourable lies and rumours without fundament...

If there is one person to blame for the shomuzzle, go for Gus... Gus has for too long claimed without solid proof, but under the influence of liquid proof beverages, that Tony Abbott was an idiot... Now the proof is there to show Gus was wrong: Tony Abbott is officially a blameless idiot. 

Employment Minister Eric Abetz has defended the Coalition's decision to provide chocolate company Cadbury with $16 million of taxpayers' money in the wake of its rejection of SPC Ardmona's bid for government assistance, arguing the Cadbury funds will be good for regional tourism in Tasmania.

Last week, after a meeting of the federal cabinet, Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced his government would not provide $25 million to SPC, reasoning that the business should be responsible for its own "restructure". This was despite Labor, unions and local Liberal member Sharman Stone arguing that without government help, the fruit grower would not survive, with devastating effects for the north-east Victorian region.

On Sunday, Senator Abetz said that it was wrong to make comparisons between the government's pledge to support Cadbury - in his home state of Tasmania - and its tough love approach to SPC.

"Can I say, it's not a fair comparison," he told ABC's Insiders program.

He explained that the government had announced the $16 million for Cadbury during the federal election campaign to help fund tours of the chocolate factory and in turn, generate regional tourism.

A Liberal MP has described as “cruel” the Abbott government’s attempt to justify its refusal to provide a grant to food processor SPC Ardmona in light of its pre-election pledge to chocolate maker Cadbury.

The Liberal MP for the Victorian seat of Murray, Sharman Stone, said the Cadbury grant was all about trying to win a marginal Tasmanian seat yet the loss of SPC Ardmona from her region would present a “real manufacturing emergency”.

"That is just desperation politics as people thrash about looking for excuses," Stone told Guardian Australia on Sunday.

Her warning against pitting industries against each other came after the employment minister, Eric Abetz, said comparisons between the two cases were unfair.

Abetz, being interviewed on ABC television on Sunday, was defending cabinet’s decision to reject SPC Ardmona’s $25m request, which was to be supplemented by $25m from the Victorian government and a larger investment by parent company Coca-Cola Amatil.

Cabinet’s decision on Thursday to not support the last remaining major fruit and vegetable processor in Australia was criticised by the opposition, unions and Stone, whose electorate includes Shepparton. SPC Ardmona warned last year it would be forced to close if the government refused to proceed with the $25m grant promised by the former Labor government. It was seeking to save its loss-making business by retooling and modernising.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/02/spc-cadbury-comparisons-unfair-eric-abetz

That the free market is just a tool to achieve this is evident in the hypocrisy of neoliberal governments. Whenever it suits big business, they suddenly abandon their professed free market principles and intervene to save the corporations —sometimes for immense sums of money.

It makes sense when you understand the real goal isn’t a free market, but to make the rich richer and ensure those at the top of society remain there. Privatize their profits, socialize their losses.

This is a nuance missed by many commentators bemused by the apparent contradiction between the Government’s stated free market ideology and supposedly “Soviet style” socialist direct action climate policy. In reality, the Emissions Reduction Fund could not be further from a socialist policy. Whereas socialism would give money to the poor, the Fund will give money to rich, powerful industries that don’t need government subsidies.

When Hockey says the age of “entitlement” is over, he really means welfare for the disadvantaged is over.

Welfare for the privileged lives on.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbott-and-hockeys-entitlement-hypocrisy,6140

''Well I saw the report this morning and it is accurate … the fact is that they were very concerned about the conditions that existed at Toyota in Australia.''

However, Toyota became the second company after SPC Ardmona to seek to correct the record over its industrial relations by issuing a short statement denying categorically that it had ''blamed'' the unions for its impending withdrawal.

''Toyota Australia has never blamed the union for its decision to close its manufacturing operations by the end of 2017, neither publicly or in private discussions with any stakeholder,'' the statement said.

''As stated at the time of the announcement, there is no single reason that led to this decision.''

The embarrassing argument opened the way for a full-throated political attack by the opposition claiming Mr Hockey was verballing Toyota, just as he had been caught over-egging the role of unions in rendering SPC Ardmona's Shepparton factory unprofitable.

It came as a senior car industry source told Fairfax Media that all three car makers were deeply concerned at calls to ditch the existing 5 per cent import tariff, now Ford, Holden and Toyota had decided to leave the country within the next three years.

The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said nothing was set in concrete when it came to departure, predicting that Ford was likely to pull out of Australia by the end of this year in any event, more than a year earlier than its announced 2016 closure date.

The closure of car manufacturing could cost Australia nearly 200,000 jobs and $29 billion in lost economic output, a new report predicts.

The nationwide impacts will extend far beyond the core car-making regions of Victoria and South Australia.

Victoria will be hardest hit by the closure of the car plants when first Ford, then General Motors Holden and Toyota stop manufacturing in Australia over the next three years.

The study estimates that up to 100,000 direct and indirect jobs will be lost in Victoria when the plants shut their doors.

Nearly 24,000 jobs will be lost in South Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-14/study-warns-carmakers-exit-could-see-200000-jobs-lost/5389682

-----------------------------------

Meanwhile I was nearly impressed by Ergas's uttering today...:

Ah ah!... If Ergas refers to Abbott being a buffoon, Ergas is on the money... BUT after having pledged BEFORE THE ELECTIONS  that "he" (Abbott) would not touch Education, Health, the ABC and Pensions or that he had no intention of bringing back "Imperial" honours, one can see that Abbott is about to become a rolly-polly hypocrite as well... I don't really care for the choice of a Buffoon-Abbott or a Hypocritical-Abbott. It's no contest. After having destroyed the car industry and a few other industries, except the chocolate fondant, Abbott is a ning-nong of turdic buffoonary performance with tons of hypocrisy...

But to tell the truth I have no idea whom Ergas is referring to and I don't care.

The words in the toon above are Joe Hockey verbatim... FRIGHTENING!!!

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has accused Treasurer Joe Hockey of being an "arrogant", "cigar-chomping" politician over his remarks that poor people will not be affected by the increase to the fuel excise because they "don't have cars".

This morning Mr Hockey defended the budget measure to reinstate a biannual increase to the excise by saying that high income earners will be hit hardest.

"The people that actually pay the most are higher income people, with an increase in fuel excise and yet, the Labor Party and the Greens are opposing it," he told ABC Radio in Brisbane.

"They say you've got to have wealthier people or middle-income people pay more.

"Well, change to the fuel excise does exactly that; the poorest people either don't have cars or actually don't drive very far in many cases."

Mr Shorten has seized on the comments as evidence the Government is out of touch and "remarkably arrogant".

"Joe Hockey just doesn't get how rotten his budget is," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-13/shorten-seizes-on-hockeys-poor-people-dont-have-cars-comment/5668468

See verbatim toon at top ... Joe Hockey ALWAYS  talks crap... CRAP in big letters... He has NO IDEA about what he's talking about and his god, that vengeful god of the bible is apparently mysteriously forgiving Joe's ccrappppp. 

Joe is a class one idiot.

Here we must look at what the Libs (CONservatives) did to the car industry in Australia. The Libs (CONservatives) COALition killed the said car industry. The car industry in Australia could have been at the forefront of innovation, but instead of forking out a bit of cash for the development of better and more economical cars, including electric cars, the Libs (CONservative) COALition government opted to finance "innovations" in accounting and political fiddles. (Note: every car manufacturer in the world receives assistance from their respective government)

Should we look at Rwanda for example:

Wikipedia tells us:

As of 2015, the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda estimates Rwanda's population to be 11,262,564.[1] The 2012 census recorded a population of 10,515,973.[2] The population is young: in the 2012 census, 43.3% of the population were aged 15 and under, and 53.4% were between 16 and 64.[210] According to the CIA World Factbook, the annual birth rate is estimated at 40.2 births per 1,000 inhabitants in 2015, and the death rate at 14.9.[59] The life expectancy is 59.67 years (61.27 years for females and 58.11 years for males), which is the 26th lowest out of 224 countries and territories.

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda

And now look for innovation in Rwanda:

Germany's major automotive corporation plans to produce cars primarily for local sales and will become the first international car maker to invest in the African country.

Germany's Volkswagen is planning to produce its vehicles at a new plant in Rwanda beginning spring this year, Deutsche Welle reported.

The cars will be manufactured mainly for local car drivers.

The first vehicles are expected to be assembled by May. VW also seeks to produce electric cars in Rwanda in the near future.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/business/201801211060943788-first-made-in-rwanda...

Read from top. Joe Hockey and his mates of the Libs (CONservatives) have been, are and will be idiots.

Scott Morrison has slammed General Motors’ decision to axe the Holden brand, accusing the US car giant of allowing the iconic Australian marque to “wither away” while accepting billions in taxpayer subsidies.

GM announced the end of Holden on Monday, saying it would exit the “highly fragmented right-hand-drive market” and “retire” the Holden brand by 2021.

The decision, three years after the company ceased production in Australia, means about 600 of the company’s remaining 800-person workforce in Australia and New Zealand will lose their jobs by the end of the year.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/17/holden-brand-to-be-axed...

Scotty-from-marketing should vent his anger at Joe Hockey and his mate, Turdy Abbott, for the demise of the Holden car. Read from top.