D-Day for Holden tomorrow

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

How do we "protect the local industry" and what exactly would that mean?

There's really only two ways to do it: Go back to the bad old days by severely limiting consumers choices by heavily taxing all imports, or using even more taxpayers dollars to heavily subsidise cars that, to be blunt, people just don't want anymore, ie: Falcon and to a lesser extent Commodore...?

Tax imports and impose stupid tariffs like we had in the old days, and you also have to realise that you are forgetting one little thing...how many cars on the showroom floor at Holden and Ford dealers are actually made here in Australia? They're nearly all "imports", and if you tried to tax and tariff one import, but allow another in unrestricted, you will very quickly find yourself in trouble before the world trade organisation and facing severe retaliatory action from countries that import our goods to their countries.

Subsidise with taxpayers dollars the few cars that are actually built here, and you breed lazy manufacturers, knowing that the public is virtually being forced to buy whatever they make.


There's no easy answers, but pretending that you can force the public to buy cars they don't want isn't facing reality.

There's plenty of other way to support locally made cars, tariffs would be last on the list. They could do what most other countries do with imported vehicles, finding reasons to tax them, we should put the same taxes on their cars as they put on ours, and they can offer incentives to buying Australian, like cheaper rego, less stamp duty and gst etc.

Your idea that it would force people to buy locally made cars and that the manufacturers would then get lazy is idiotic, because the imported cars are still available to anyone who wants one, but they don't get the incentives a buyer of a locally made car would get. The competition is still there so they can't get lazy and reduce quality etc, plus Toyota and Holden export so it would destroy export sales by doing that.

[mik]

The days of lazy local manufacturers are long gone, its dog eat dog out there, it always amazes me people coming up with this crap in this day and age, falcon and commy imo are top cars, even if we went down the tarifs road, it doesn't stop anyone buying an import, it just levels an articially lop sided playing field that favors the bloody imports, it wont happen anyway , since we have become puppets of the UN.

[Cuyper]

Every other high wage country that produces cars manages to do it for a profit, there are no excuses unfortunately. You either produce a car that's good enough to sell all over the world at a competitive price or you don't produce one at all. If you can't produce a large car good enough for 30 grand, well then make it better and sell it for 100 grand, the international market is there if you have the car.

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by Cuyper

Every other high wage country that produces cars manages to do it for a profit, there are no excuses unfortunately. You either produce a car that's good enough to sell all over the world at a competitive price or you don't produce one at all. If you can't produce a large car good enough for 30 grand, well then make it better and sell it for 100 grand, the international market is there if you have the car.

What, countries like America and Germany that have good Government assistance, and good industry protection?


Lol at a $100k Falcon being exported lol

[Cuyper]

Originally Posted by Nikked

What, countries like America and Germany that have good Government assistance, and good industry protection?


Lol at a $100k Falcon being exported lol

It doesn't have to be a Falcon, doesn't have to be made by Ford or Holden, but if you seriously wanted to build a car here for profit. With a modern factory you could do it. Ford and Holden are both so far behind the times in the cars they are building and the factory's efficiency it was never going to happen for them unless they made a major improvement in one or both.

[fte50]

Originally Posted by Cuyper

Every other high wage country that produces cars manages to do it for a profit, there are no excuses unfortunately. You either produce a car that's good enough to sell all over the world at a competitive price or you don't produce one at all. If you can't produce a large car good enough for 30 grand, well then make it better and sell it for 100 grand, the international market is there if you have the car.

Sorry to break it 2 ya, but Australia's big 2 do in fact produce the worlds best value for money rear wheel drive sedans for their price/market segment.
So much so in fact, had they worn a Euro badge, they would easily sell more and at a higher price.
Problem today, consumers choose brand/ image over proven value for money, and it applies from cars to clothing to appliances etc.

Image focused fools who are more focused on a cars I-pod connecting gadgets than its inherit active & passive safety systems and its design as a whole.

[mik]

Originally Posted by Cuyper

Every other high wage country that produces cars manages to do it for a profit, there are no excuses unfortunately. You either produce a car that's good enough to sell all over the world at a competitive price or you don't produce one at all. If you can't produce a large car good enough for 30 grand, well then make it better and sell it for 100 grand, the international market is there if you have the car.

yep they manage to do it with more gov assistance and probably better trade conditions.

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by fte50

Sorry to break it 2 ya, but Australia's big 2 do in fact produce the worlds best value for money rear wheel drive sedans for their price/market segment.
So much so in fact, had they worn a Euro badge, they would easily sell more and at a higher price.
Problem today, consumers choose brand/ image over proven value for money, and it applies from cars to clothing to appliances etc.

Image focused fools who are more focused on a cars I-pod connecting gadgets than its inherit active & passive safety systems and its design as a whole.

They are virtually the only vehicles in that large car/RWD segment though.

I'm a major Ford and Falcon fan, but I don't agree they would sell more at a higher price with a Euro badge, they are not in the same class engineering or quality wise as Euros or even the likes of Honda.

They simply don't have the same development money here, however they do do a very good job with the resources they have.

[wrongwaynorris]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messen...-1226697021919 Wow, just wow...........what hope have local manufactures got.......

She is actually 100% correct , I'm amazed the VE was able to be sold with the front pillars the way they are .

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by mik

yep they manage to do it with more gov assistance and probably better trade conditions.

(My bold).

I think that's the source of the problem right there.
We're a western democracy, with western living standards, with a tiny population, sitting right down here smack bang in the middle of an area populated by billions of Asians in countries where the cost of living is very low (so wages don't necessarily have to be high for them), with belligerent governments who import a lot of Australian stuff.

There's not a lot we can do to fix this problem without shutting off trade and becoming isolationist, putting our fingers in our ears and going "lalalala" when people want to import goods to this country from Asia.

The world is sourcing so many goods from Asia, of so many sorts, that we can't pretend we are a special case.
The problem is that we could restrict trade and whack up a high tariff wall...but the retaliation is what we have to worry about. Our economy would, literally, crash if Asian countries suddenly decided that our internal trade protections were too high and were harming their exports, and they decided to do something about it...

We're not an island...well, we are, but you know what I mean...and can't pretend that it's fifty or sixty years ago when those Jap fellas were making those funny little cars that no one wanted, and the public would just keep buying whatever Ford and Holden dished out because daddy bought one and his daddy bought one.
The world has changed, and unfortunately some of our industries haven't changed with it.

[zilo]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messen...-1226697021919 Wow, just wow...........what hope have local manufactures got.......

In that article it says..."The two models built at our Elizabeth plant - the Cruze and Commodore - are both 5-star safety performers and among the safest cars on the road, bar none


What absolute nonsense to say the Cruze is as safe as other cars on the road....bar NONE.

[zilo]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

...aaaand...we're assuming that the bosses will be kind-hearted enough to return those hard-fought-for, and easily-given-up conditions again at a later date when things turn around for the company, so workers should just happily give them up...?

Trusting souls, ain'tcha...

Once something is given up, it's gone. Wage cuts or freezes are different...you can easily put in a contract that it's for a set period of time...that's fairly common and has been done before.

Worker rights and conditions of employment are another thing altogether...they're something that make a job enjoyable, that make you secure in going to work, that give you peace of mind sort of like insurance.

There's one...and only one...reason that employers want to wind back conditions that have been in place for decades. That's not to save money, it's not to make a workplace more productive, it's not to make the workers happier, and it's not to make the company "better".
It's to make an environment where the workers are kept on thier toes like the good old days, when the buggers were afraid to ask for any little concessions in case they turned up one day to find the factory gates locked and a whole lot of new and more tractable workers arriving.

Having shareholders is another reason...once you have shareholders, only one thing matters: increasing return to shareholders.
it doesn't matter if workers are happy or unhappy, enjoy working there or not...as long as the shareholders see an increase every year, that's all that matters.


I really don't like where the industrial relations side of things is headed in this country...and don't say "under Abbott it will be bad"...because anyone who has had anything to do with Fair Work Australia will know they couldn't give two craps about workers.

So your declared position is "the glass is half empty".

Thanks for letting us all know....


(anyone got a rusty Gillette I can borrow for a few minutes in the luke warm bath tub?)

[2011G6E]

I generally find that "facing up to reality" is perceived as "glass half empty".

Having been once (and never bloody again...) involved in enterprise agreement negotiations as a delegate representing workers, you soon get a feeling for how the whole "worker/boss" relationship works when push comes to shove...

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by wrongwaynorris

She is actually 100% correct , I'm amazed the VE was able to be sold with the front pillars the way they are .

Its the norm...cars have big A pillars...its the way it is...a little lost visibility for stronger passanger cells and air bags.

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by Nikked

Its the norm...cars have big A pillars...its the way it is...a little lost visibility for stronger passanger cells and air bags.

Yep...even small cars now have very thick A pillars...the Commodore is nothing out of the ordinary.
The good old HQ-shape Kingswoods might have the thinnest A pillars of any production car in Australia, but as much as I love our old Kingswood ute and older cars in general, if it was a choice between that and a modern large car with massive A pillars, deep down I really know which one I'd rather be in if a big accident loomed...

[zilo]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

I generally find that "facing up to reality" is perceived as "glass half empty".

Having been once (and never bloody again...) involved in enterprise agreement negotiations as a delegate representing workers, you soon get a feeling for how the whole "worker/boss" relationship works when push comes to shove...

I must tell you one day about workers these days and their delusion that they are indispensable in a capitalist economy.

Particularly highly militant unionised workers.

Workers are simply a commodity freely available.

Workers are only employed when absolutely necessary, if they can be replaced by a machine or a smarter procedure they will be.

Shareholders love it, management loves it...in manufacturing, redundancy is a fact of life sooner or later a "smarter" economy retires a worker and all the benefits and social/statutory financial responsibility to maintain him.

Even if ford and holden kept manufacturing here they would eventually end up with a shed full of robots.

Don't like it? Then start your own business and you won't be subject to all the whims and capriciousness of an employer.

The govt wants you to start a small business.

A guy selling donuts and hot dogs at the Sunday markets can pull in $2-3K
profit in a weekend....in cash.

One of the best kept secrets in Australia is that you can never make enough money to retire by working for others as a slave all your life.

A lot of new migrants to Australia have been heard to say that there are so many opportunities here, the only ones who can't see it are those who have a sense of entitlement....the Australians!

To me ... the workers at Holden have made a damn good decision.

Their union has advised them sensibly, after all without employed members their union is impotent.

They have bought some breathing space for their families.

To their credit Holden made that an option instead of just pulling the pin.

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Yep...even small cars now have very thick A pillars...the Commodore is nothing out of the ordinary.

I think it was the pillars on a Civic that I found more intrusive, or something similar...

The combination of the Thick pillar, useless 1/4tr window and a seating position far back from the windscreen...was much worse then the VE.

[mik]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

(My bold).

I think that's the source of the problem right there.
We're a western democracy, with western living standards, with a tiny population, sitting right down here smack bang in the middle of an area populated by billions of Asians in countries where the cost of living is very low (so wages don't necessarily have to be high for them), with belligerent governments who import a lot of Australian stuff.

There's not a lot we can do to fix this problem without shutting off trade and becoming isolationist, putting our fingers in our ears and going "lalalala" when people want to import goods to this country from Asia.

The world is sourcing so many goods from Asia, of so many sorts, that we can't pretend we are a special case.
The problem is that we could restrict trade and whack up a high tariff wall...but the retaliation is what we have to worry about. Our economy would, literally, crash if Asian countries suddenly decided that our internal trade protections were too high and were harming their exports, and they decided to do something about it...

We're not an island...well, we are, but you know what I mean...and can't pretend that it's fifty or sixty years ago when those Jap fellas were making those funny little cars that no one wanted, and the public would just keep buying whatever Ford and Holden dished out because daddy bought one and his daddy bought one.
The world has changed, and unfortunately some of our industries haven't changed with it.

I don't go along with the notion we have to be second class trading country, Australia should be more self sufficient, if any country on the planet has everything going for it, it is Australia, there is just no excuse for us relying on other countrys to flood imports we should be making ourselves, if the country was in better shape dipstick politicians would not be bailing out car companies, and on the radio this morning they were saying rudd is now giving holden more money.

[fte50]

Originally Posted by zilo

I must tell you one day about workers these days and their delusion that they are indispensable in a capitalist economy.

Particularly highly militant unionised workers.

Workers are simply a commodity freely available.

Are you for real ??
A highly skilled worker is not easily replaced. Not withstanding a worker with bare minimum education, most workers are a value added component to any business and compliment the business by bringing their skill set with them.

If your in business and have employees, you of all people should know it.
Yes there are bad employees, just as there are bad employers, but for the record no person is indispensable, regardless what side of the fence they sit on.

[roberts]

didn't Henry ford believe that a worker should be paid enough to be able to afford to buy the car that said worker had made, he also shot at striking unionist. Guess he felt the dog was biting his hand when he was trying to feed it.

[buggerlugs]

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1...-cash/?cs=2452

[bobthebilda]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1...-cash/?cs=2452

84.5 percent currently say its not good policy, 15.5 % say it is. Must be all those guys wearing AMWU tshirts I always see jumping out their Japanese / Thai made four wheel drives, that are voting no.

[mik]

i would rather see them get incentives other than cash handouts willy nilly, how about making the manufacturing environment cheaper instead of giving out baby bonuses every 5 minutes, and that doesn't mean low wages for the workers.

[BHDOGS]

The opposition can't afford these hand outs only thousands for working mothers haha

[mik]

One is as bad as the other fairdinkum, still 22 days left of throwing money around by both sides , a word that rhymes with tankers comes to mind, holden will be so cashed up they wont need to dock the workers pay by sept 7 .

[GCRXR6]

Originally Posted by mik

One is as bad as the other fairdinkum, still 22 days left of throwing money around by both sides , a word that rhymes with tankers comes to mind, holden will be so cashed up they wont need to dock the workers pay by sept 7 .

... and buy the rest of the V8 Supercar field.

[GQ_Smooth]

Originally Posted by mik

i would rather see them get incentives other than cash handouts willy nilly, how about making the manufacturing environment cheaper instead of giving out baby bonuses every 5 minutes, and that doesn't mean low wages for the workers.

And handing out tax rorts allowing people to claim 80% vehicle use for work when it's used 100% for personal use.

It's only a rort when you can't access it.

Eventually we will run out of fingers to plug the leading dyke (hopefully I spelt it right).

No politics!

[Joe5619]

I do have to laugh when politicians start talking about funding for the year 2020!!! Long, long, long after they are gone..


These are the days of our lives.

[buggerlugs]

http://www.news.com.au/business/comp...-1226708362985
Ouch !!

[Random Ranger]

Originally Posted by GCRXR6

... and buy the rest of the V8 Supercar field.

I've seen posts like this quite a few times, from what I understand Holden isn't buying the field, Ford "cut it's spending" on a few teams and Holden just supplies cheap body parts that ford wouldn't, so the teams were better off using Holden. Which was obviously a terrible thing to do for the teams concerned