D-Day for Holden tomorrow

[malazn mafia]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

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

Not a Holden fan, but idiotic comments like this is uncalled for and not funny at all. No Barbaric Motor Works cars EVER for me from now on, even though I am in financial position to buy one. I will continue to have fun destroying BMW driver egos in front of all their missuses at sets of lights in a FPV, mustang, rice rocket, Lexus or whatever else is available.

[Angeldust]

definetly uncalled for.. and yes, i have a BMW and a Holden...

i feel like kicking the **** out of the beemer lol

[Kingsley]

I feel for the workers who under threat from losing their jobs. I've had it happen to me twice through companies I worked for going insolvent. I'm angry as I watch manufacturing in this country going down the gurgler. I try to buy Aussie where I can or at least Aussie made. I believe the government should've helped the industry by buying local. But as a company, I have no sympathy left for Holden what-so-ever. This company has spent decades portraying itself as the 'battling Aussie under-dog' which is utter crap. It's been an American owned company since 1930 when GM bailed Holden out of the 1929 stock market crash by buying it out lock stock and barrel. The number of Aussie designed Holden's can be counted on one hand and at least two series of them, the FE/FC and FB/EK, were direct rip offs of the 1955 and 1957 Chev's respectively. Every thing else has either strong American influence or flat out American designed before the Commodore then European after. I'm sick of of the patriotic hand on heart Brock loving Holden fans who constantly bag anything non Holden as non Aussie but can't wait to get home in his latest Commodore to rip the Holden badges off so he can put those stupid Chev badges on even when there's no Chev in it. And yes I own a Holden, a 1974 Monaro. I also own a FG Falcon XR6 I bought new. Sorry, but I'm just sick of this 'save the Aussie Holden' propaganda.

[Random Ranger]

I see where you're coming from BUT, forget about Holden for a sec and think about the jobs for Aussie workers.

[smoo]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

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

Unreal, this Pom has the nerve to tell his host country to snub quality local product in favour of some cheap tacky imported **** boxes.

Does anyone know what the AMWU vehicle fleet consists of??

[Kingsley]

As I said in my opening line, I have a lot of sympathy for the workers under threat of losing their jobs. Been there myself. It's a horrible, hopeless feeling. But for how many more years do we keep subsidising the US owned Holden for??? Particularly while it's producing cars that are no longer relevant to the market.

[flooded one]

the only reason I hope holden stays is the workers. I feel sorry for them. the company and their one eyed fans can get ******!!! the company, I don't like as the demands they have made toward government about money and the one eyed fans for not being more open minded!!

[Adamz Ghia]

I don't know why people in this country find it so hard to understand that every single car manufacturing countries governments subsidises its auto industry. We provide one of the lowest subsidies in the world. And forget who owns them, Holden don't employ Americans, they employ Australians in their factories...

[bobthebilda]

Originally Posted by Adamz Ghia

I don't know why people in this country find it so hard to understand that every single car manufacturing countries governments subsidises its auto industry. We provide one of the lowest subsidies in the world. And forget who owns them, Holden don't employ Americans, they employ Australians in their factories...

Now all you have to do is provide some unbiased and official figures to back up that statement? Let me guess, the americans give $250 per capita. The problem is that works out to be 80 odd billion dollars, which works out to be approx. $8,000 per car made.

What i do find hard to understand, is that with nearly 2 million unions members in the workforce, why this is not translating into 400,000 Australian made car sales each year (change over every 5 years).

[RANGEREST]

Another way of looking at this is, from what I understand (admittedly very little research on my behalf) is the government get the handouts back in tax (manufacturing workers, transport, sales people, parts suppliers etc) before the cars leave the dealers floor.

[RANGEREST]

Originally Posted by bobthebilda

Now all you have to do is provide some unbiased and official figures to back up that statement? Let me guess, the americans give $250 per capita. .

Far from pole on the car subsidy grid
“By international standards our support [of the automotive industry] is modest, so we have to work hard to attract the new investment.” – Industry minister Senator Kim Carr, Lateline, July 22.
The idea that the future of car manufacturing in Australia is on shaky ground is nothing new. So when it comes to supporting auto manufacturing, how does Australia compare internationally?
The answer depends somewhat on how you define “support”. Direct subsidies usually comprise cash injections. But there are also indirect subsidies, These can include tax incentives such as research and development tax deductions and export subsidies such as tax deductions or any other direct financial contribution to an exporting industry.
Tariff protection also provides a form of subsidy, as tariffs tax imports, meaning other products are less price competitive. Similarly, luxury car taxes can give locally-produced vehicles a competitive edge.
If we just look at direct subsidies and tariff support in Australia, under the current Labor government car plan $5.4 billion will be extended in subsidies to the industry over 13 years from 2008 to 2020, totalling about $415 million a year.
Over the last 10 years or so, Holden has received $1.8 billion – $150 million each year from a potential $2.17 billion pool – while Ford has obtained an estimated $1.1 billion.
Toyota will not comment officially on subsidies, but it is estimated the Japanese company received about $1.2 billion in the last decade.
So in per capita terms (see Table 1), Carr is correct: government funding is modest in comparison with other developed countries, such as Germany and the United States.

When you look at the cost of government funding for each vehicle produced, Australia sits in between these two countries. Each Australian unit costs the taxpayer approximately 1.5 times that of a German vehicle but only around 67 per cent of a US-produced vehicle, despite the scale economies available to the American auto industry.
How do we compare?
When you compare Australia to a few other key markets, our direct subsidies are dwarfed by those overseas.
For example, in the United States, the Bush and Obama administrations allocated $US80 billion to direct assistance under the Automotive Industry Financing Program. This included rescuing automotive firms’ financing operations, such as the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC). There were also debt guarantees. Treasury notes that it has recouped almost $US51 billion of the $US80 billion allocated to the program.
An extensive New York Times investigation found that Chrysler received at least $US1.4 billion since 2007 from 14 grants in 3 states. GM received $US1.77 billion from 208 grants, while Ford was awarded more than $US1.58 billion from 119 grants.
The Canadian automotive industry, which has some similarities to Australia’s, also received $CA4 billion in loans in 2008, alongside manifold existing federal and state subsidies for GM Canada and Chrysler Canada. These loans were also extended beyond the 2008 financial crisis.
The European Union also heavily subsidises its industry.
Most recently, considerable French subsidies have been announced for “green” or electric vehicles. And in 2009, Germany introduced a €5 billion “cash-for-clunkers” scheme.


Costs of production
In Australia, the domestic manufacturers in 2012 produced approximately 140,000–150,000 vehicles. This represents a minuscule proportion of global vehicle output, which accounted for 63 million units in 2012. Australia ranked 29th among domestic vehicle manufacturers in 2011, with 148,000 units, which is only approximately 10% of total domestic vehicle sales (see Table 2 below).

But it’s important to note that the unit cost of Australian-made models is four times that of Asia and twice that of Europe, according to Ford Australia’s comparisons with its international manufacturing costs.
Consequently, the lack of scale, the costs of importing key components and labour costs result in higher unit costs for taxpayers compared with more heavily-subsidised, but more efficient producers, such as Germany. By contrast, the Australian industry is more efficient and less costly to maintain in both per capita and unit costs than vehicles produced, for example, in the United States and elsewhere.
Carr is correct: by international standards, annual assistance to the Australian automotive industry is relatively modest in raw dollar and per capita terms.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article here.

[Kingsley]

Originally Posted by Adamz Ghia

I don't know why people in this country find it so hard to understand that every single car manufacturing countries governments subsidises its auto industry. We provide one of the lowest subsidies in the world. And forget who owns them, Holden don't employ Americans, they employ Australians in their factories...

So does Ford and Toyota. Neither are Australian owned either. At least one of them saw the writing on the wall for the industry in this country. Sadly people will lose their jobs through no fault of their own. I hate seeing manufacturing continue to disappear in this country. But the government can't continue to subsidise everyone while failing to protect the industry through lack of tariffs. It's ridiculous and makes no sense.
Yet you would rather continue to see your tax dollar go to an American owned company which continues building cars more and more irrelevant to it's target market? Ignoring the fact that the parent company was given a free kick by the US taxpayer (and ours) allowing it all to continue in the first place. If GM stopped constantly going cap in hand to our government for money while playing the false patrioism card and started building cars relevant to it's target market it wouldn't need so much subsidy in the first place. Protect the workers jobs through subsidies? Yes. All for it. But help yourself by building something relevant to your target market. I'd rather see the money go towards protecting our farming and primary industries and the government do it's job and protect local producers first.

[RANGEREST]

Whilst we're getting rid of subsidies we may as well get rid of some more.
Jobs anyone?
Don't get me wrong here, I think Ford Toyota and Holden should be keeping them.

However, as Kim Carr noted recently, the industry, cumulatively, received subsidies amounting to less than $18 per person over the last decade. So it cost you, the long-suffering Australian taxpayer, the princely sum of $1.80 per annum to prevent the collapse of plants like Elizabeth, Fishermans Bend, Altona, Geelong and Broadmeadows. But the flat-earth policies of the free-trade think tanks, who opine that subsidies should be removed at all costs, invariably have no solutions to the systematic deindustrialisation and large-scale unemployment their prescriptions will inevitably bring. (A solid counter-argument to this perspective is advanced by Kalfa and Gollan here.)
These “free-traders” ignore the deep asymmetries wrought by industrial subsidies that persist throughout the rest of the world economy. They propagate the Ricardian fallacy that whatever cannot be produced efficiently locally should be imported.
Imports, in this case, of subsidised cars.
You. Are. Subsidised.

Think this $18-per-capita car subsidy is too much? Think again.
You — yes, you — subsidise the banks to the tune of $763 per annum, plus all the fees and charges they generously impose upon you. Not quite the chunk of change ($83 billion) the US government affords its banks in subsidies, but still.
And the mining industry doesn’t have clean hands either. They get at least $4 billion per annum. Queensland alone spends $1.4 billion in subsidies.
Let’s be clear about this: virtually every industry in Australia is subsidised, directly or indirectly, via government hand-outs.
We’ll try a little quiz first. Tick any box that applies to you:
Your child care.
Your private (and public) health insurance.
Your wheat. (The Australian Wheat Board runs a single desk that avoids a genuinely free market in wheat export sales. And does deals with the late-lamented Saddam, occasionally.)
Your private schools.
Your universities.
Your accountant.
Your private-sector big law firm, which would require oxygen if starved of government contracts. A Victorian government-commissioned report (by Boston Consulting) notes that, “up until now the provision of legal services has largely been an unsupervised feeding trough for law firms.” (It’s now a supervised feeding trough.)
Your National Broadband Network. (My telecoms engineering friends are still giggling with delight at the mere thought of the NBN and have all ordered new 7-Series BMWs.)
Your first home.
Your nursing home.
Your negative gearing.
Your ABC.
My salary.
Your salary.
Your superannuation tax breaks.
Actors and the arts in general (don’t me get started; I’ll end up sounding like Jack Hibberd).
Corporate welfare.

Don’t kid yourself if you’re in business. Tax breaks infiltrate every part of the scaly Australian subsidy serpent. Virtually every business input is tax deductible. For example, that “company” car you drive around at weekends? The “home office” with a chunk of the domestic mortgage on it as a business expense? If you’re not doing this, then you’re paying far too much tax.

Remy Davidsons words. not mine (I couldn't write a child's story)

[Kingsley]

Interesting reading velvet but GM won't guarantee Holden will still be manufacturing here beyond 2020. So why are we delaying the inevitable? Holden have been bailed out of the **** by either GM or the government continuously since 1930, and yet it still fronts up cap and hand crying poor and playing the patriot card which ****** me off no end. It continues to build cars less and less relevant to the market. Give me a reason why we need to keep supporting it when it's own parent company can't guarantee it's future.

[bobthebilda]

Originally Posted by velvet

Far from pole on the car subsidy grid
“By international standards our support [of the automotive industry] is modest, so we have to work hard to attract the new investment.” – Industry minister Senator Kim Carr, Lateline, July 22.

Great article, only problem is, when an article says :

Costs of production
In Australia, the domestic manufacturers in 2012 produced approximately 140,000–150,000 vehicles.

then it says in the table below that it produced 209,000,

then the fcai website says they produced 221,000 (and you have to minus 2,000 from that).
http://www.fcai.com.au/sales/monthly-production-volumes.

Then I am going to guess that alot of these figures have just been plucked from the air. Then you need to take into account that the american figure includes the one off payments for rescure packages (which the feds retreived alot of that money).

Unbiased - I think Kim Carr would have every Australian car worker wearing Labor emblazoned Shirts to work if he could work it into the funding package.

[fte50]

Originally Posted by smoo

Does anyone know what the AMWU vehicle fleet consists of??

Local Camry, Falcon, and Commodore.

[fte50]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

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

And this maggot is the 1st person to celebrate should it happen. He then wont have to try justifying a 50grand 2.0ltr Camry sized German Corolla versus a 35grand full size V6 Commodore or I6 Falcon.

Ahh yes, a conflict of interests for sure, and no doubt hoping his predictions are realised.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by fte50

Local Camry, Falcon, and Commodore.

Yep. I've never seen an AMWU stickered car that wasn't Australian made.

[bobthebilda]

Originally Posted by velvet

Far from pole on the car subsidy grid
“By international standards our support [of the automotive industry] is modest, so we have to work hard to attract the new investment.” – Industry minister Senator Kim Carr,

Velvet, Interesting Article posted by ABC fact check. An article from the ABC has no better standing in the world than a statement from Kim Carr (or Kevin Rudd) , but we can be thankful that after tomorrow, we only have to listen to the ABC.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-0...ontext/4932488

The verdict
The subsidy of $18 per head per year for Australia is correct but the figures in the report for other countries, including the United States and Germany, are not "per year" figures.

The subsidies provided by the United States and Germany were not recurring annual subsidies and were bailout stimulus packages issued during the global financial crisis.

Mr Rudd has taken the figures out of context.

[BHDOGS]

yup then all you gotta do is listen to big ears twattle on about rich mothers and the boats i can hear his back peddling from all his promises already