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The Abbott Government

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Knobby22 said:
It is not about protecting jobs, its about keeping our manufacturing base.
There are many companies that supply components to the car industry that also compete on the world stage supplying niche products.

Once we have lost our engineering design skill base it is difficult to get it back.

The other point is that running the country involves priorities. The previous governments priorities were wrong. This governments priorities so far appear to be wrong also. We should reduce some of the money paid to the rent seekers and use it to support our industry so it can renew itself once the $A drops.

Other countries have industry policies. Germany is a great example. For instance, we in Australia invented ceramic fuel cell technology. Due to government encouragement the factory has been built in Germany! Germany with high wages and 8 weeks holiday a year for workers! You can't tell me we couldn't have built it here, but we have no long term vision.

This stuff about us all being on a flat playing field is rubbish. We all know its not true so lets develop an industry policy and compete!


Good comments Dr Smith. Quite perceptive about it being a long year. A few weeks off with reflection should do a world of good.
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Yesssss.:xyxthumbs

The lack of forward thinking, and back-slapping about the last 20 years in Australia is pathetic.

Why is the CSIRO being run into the ground? Why don't we have a top 10 engineering school like an MIT, or Cal Tech?

You're completely right about the need to have an industry policy. I can see what will happen, the money will get flung at Holden, everyone shuts up and goes back to what they were doing and in 5 years time, wash, rinse and repeat.
 
Tony abbott head arse.jpg
 
banco said:
Maybe you don't read the newspapers but it was a pretty big story.
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"WAS" being the operative word in that sentence. Now "WHERE" is it? :rolleyes:

Surprising none of the media are drawing conclusions/comparisons about "THAT" now is it? Did the government of the day try and save them? Nup ... have some more money to assist in the closure of Ford.

She said the Federal and Victorian governments would contribute $39 million to help the Geelong and Broadmeadows communities deal with the job losses, and called on Ford to make its own contribution.

"The fund will work with local communities so that we can source new opportunities for those communities, new work for those communities, new work for people to have in the place where they are proud to work and so happy to live," she said.
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The demise of the automobile manufacturing in Australia is a foregone conclusion. And just like Ford it will be yesterdays news. :2twocents
 
trainspotter said:
"WAS" being the operative word in that sentence. Now "WHERE" is it? :rolleyes:

Surprising none of the media are drawing conclusions/comparisons about "THAT" now is it? Did the government of the day try and save them? Nup ... have some more money to assist in the closure of Ford.



The demise of the automobile manufacturing in Australia is a foregone conclusion. And just like Ford it will be yesterdays news. :2twocents
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Not for South Australia it won't be. They will be an economic basket case.
 
Well put trainspotter, if GM or Ford was going to make the Australian car industry survive, they would have done so already.
Australian manufactured cars made up 13% of new cars sold last year, that means roughly 130,000 cars between three manufacturers. That's approx 40,000 cars each, as if that's sustainable.lol

If GM or Toyota don't make there production facilities into export orientated producers, they are bound to fail, not if but when.

Maybe we could start up a fund 'car aid Australia" then people could donate to keep it all running.
 
banco said:
Not for South Australia it won't be. They will be an economic basket case.
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South Australian government seems pretty chirpy on their website? Mining, Petroleum, Geothermal Energy.

South Australia’s economic performance has been steadily improving.

Along with the rest of Australia, South Australia was in a strong position to maximise opportunities as they emerged after the global financial crisis. Now we are progressively closing the gap between our performance and that of the nation.

Total employment is 20 per cent higher than a decade ago and unemployment hovers at a low rate.

Despite the increasing value of the Australian dollar, exports have rebounded strongly, giving us the second fastest growth rate, after Western Australia.

Our vast mineral and energy resources, coupled with our proximity to the high-growth economies of China and India, place us in a very strong position.
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http://www.dmitre.sa.gov.au/why_south_australia/economic_overview

What's this then? A mining boom in South Australia? 15,000 new jobs to be created? Instead of giving millions of dollars of taxpayers money to the communities how about RETRAINING the plant operators at Ford and Holden? :rolleyes:

According to a new report, South Australian resource companies will require an extra 35,000 employees if 40 new mining and infrastructure projects get off the ground by 2030.

The preliminary figures of South Australia’s future workforce needs were released today ahead of a full report by resource workforce and skills industry body, the Resources and Engineering Skills Alliance (RESA).

The report builds on earlier work by RESA which found employment in the sector over the next seven years will approach 15,000 employees, with a small decrease in overall demand for employment between 2015 and 2016, down to around 14,800.
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http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/35-000-new-mining-jobs-to-be-created-in-south-aust
 
McLovin said:
Yesssss.:xyxthumbs


You're completely right about the need to have an industry policy. I can see what will happen, the money will get flung at Holden, everyone shuts up and goes back to what they were doing and in 5 years time, wash, rinse and repeat.
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Yes McLovin, spot on, more of the same. Forward thinking seems to be lacking in all our governments.
Sustainable manufacturing is just that, Germany survives not because it produces cars, but because it invests and develops state of the art car technology.
They wouldn't survive if their government proped them up to produce the same product year in year out, untill the competition forced it to improve.
Mercedes, Porsche, VW,Audi. These are the vehicles the Japanese and US manufacturers aspire to.

If GM invested in Australian ingenuity, maybe we would be up their who knows?
But one thing for sure, when the government is putting more money in than the parent company, it is not a go ahead scenario.
It's a bit like Swiss watches, in the 70's everyone said they were finished, Japan and digital watches was going to wipe them out. Well we all know how that ended.
I supose the comparison with Holden is, if the Swiss had made watches like Holden makes cars, they would be finished, like second tier watchmakers have been.
Like I said the only people who can save the Australian car industry is the Parent companies, they have to decide that it is an opportunity to develop a top quality product that can be exported to the world.
Otherwise it will be just a run down small producer ,that is proped up by a small government, to make a small population feel better about themselves.
 
banco said:
Given that they should still be in the honeymoon period that's a pretty crap result.
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Yeh, given that they aren't sending out $1000 cheques in the mail, I suppose it is to be expected.

The last government is a hard act to follow, they were throwing dollars away like confetti.:xyxthumbs
Now we have to pay the piper, people don't like it.:xyxthumbs

It is hard for an entitlement society to adjust, say la vie.
 
sptrawler said:
Yes McLovin, spot on, more of the same. Forward thinking seems to be lacking in all our governments.
Sustainable manufacturing is just that, Germany survives not because it produces cars, but because it invests and develops state of the art car technology.
They wouldn't survive if their government proped them up to produce the same product year in year out, untill the competition forced it to improve.
Mercedes, Porsche, VW,Audi. These are the vehicles the Japanese and US manufacturers aspire to.
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To be fair, sp, the Germans do actually support their car industry. The car industry is a funny beast, because even the top German marques (with the exception of Porsche) don't enjoy super nomral returns on capital, as you'd expect them to. Basically, the Japanese, and now Koreans, have eaten away at any advantage. The car industry is often used as a case study of having a desirable, well respected, premium brand but being unable to leverage it to higher returns.

But I digress. I think we agree, I'm not against government assistance per se, but I'm absolutely against giving an industry a handout just to keep the doors open, ie without any plan on how to get the industry to a profitable self supporting point.

As I said before, the Germans manufacture pencils and export them. So it's not like it can't be done. One thing Germany has, that we don't, is the Mittelstand. Instead most of our industries are dominated by a few large rent seeking companies, with no incentive to be export orientated.
 
sptrawler said:
Yeh, given that they aren't sending out $1000 cheques in the mail, I suppose it is to be expected.

The last government is a hard act to follow, they were throwing dollars away like confetti.:xyxthumbs
Now we have to pay the piper, people don't like it.:xyxthumbs

It is hard for an entitlement society to adjust, say la vie.
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Oh, so $5000 baby bonuses and increased family tax benefits didn't count?

Labor certainly fed the entitlement so many Australians have, but Howard gave the expectations we could cut taxes, increase spending and save money, all the while never worrying about the structural deficit all that increased spending and reduced revenue was leading us into.
 
sptrawler said:
The last government is a hard act to follow, they were throwing dollars away like confetti.:xyxthumbs
Now we have to pay the piper, people don't like it.:xyxthumbs
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..and with alot of borrowed money too, we just passed 300 B on way to 500 B...easy ~600B to 1 trillion by next federal election.

can we afford the repayments?
 
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