antman said:
They sell ok but miles behind the top sellers - Aussie $ means imports are cheaper. Ford & GMH would have been well along the path of pulling out before any change of government IMO. What should have or could have been done?
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Talking Politics
- Thread starter Legends of 2017
- Start date
They sell ok but miles behind the top sellers - Aussie $ means imports are cheaper. Ford & GMH would have been well along the path of pulling out before any change of government IMO. What should have or could have been done?
Tigers of Old said:
Here's some other doozies -
“I also feel that if you wish to place a cost on carbon, why don’t you simply do it having a simple tax? Why don’t you request drivers to pay for more, why don’t you request electricity customers to pay for many then in the finish of the season you are able to bring your bills towards the tax office and obtain a rebate from the carbon tax you’ve compensated.”
“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.”
“While I believe males and ladies are equal, they’re also different and i believe it’s inevitable and that i don’t believe it is a bad factor whatsoever that people also have, say, more women doing such things as therapy as well as an enormous quantity of women simply doing house work.” 2010
can't speak for Holden or Ford TIA, but it was only a few years ago that Toyota invested a lot of money in a new engine plant. They wouldn't have done that if they had known then they would be closing in 2017.This Is Anfield said:
They basically work on a 5 year cycle - a new model comes out every five years. This time 5 years ago, global Toyota let Toyota Australia produce the new model and things were looking up after the GFC.
A lot of things it sems have changed in that period
Tigers of Old said:
so for the sake of balance, i'll be expecting abbott to announce a royal commission into corruption by big business in the coming days...
#witchhunt.
Tigers of Old said:
antman said:
have the libs made any effort? at least labour tried to do something (even if most people don't support subsidies, it's better than doing nothing). IMO the right thing to do would have been to bring back tariffs, but the libs would never do that (nor labour to be fair).
Ian4 said:
Always feel it's easier for a govt to come in and splash the cash around when they've inherited a large surplus rather than a large debt.
From Paddy Manning at Crikey. Doesn't make for uplifting reading
Toyota exit without an industry policy is economic vandalism
PADDY MANNING
Crikey business editor
ABBOTT GOVERNMENT, CAR MANUFACTURING, INDUSTRY POLICY, TOYOTA, TOYOTA JOB CUTS
Toyota's decision to quit making cars in Australia from 2017 was an inevitable follow-on from Holden's announcement last December. In global terms the industry was already sub-scale, making roughly 220,000 cars annually, and there were plenty of warnings last year that if Holden quit, Toyota would too.
It won't be the last announcement of job cuts: the car industry employs some 44,000 people directly and many suppliers to Holden and Toyota will go to the wall. Richard Riley, president of the Federation of Automotive Product Manufacturers, last night warned this was "ground zero" for Australian manufacturing.
If it was the federal government's intention to end the "age of entitlement" and cut support for the car industry, it would have been nice to know that before the last election.
Instead, we simply had uncertainty about whether the Coalition would match the extra $500 million in assistance spread over five years that would have secured the future of Holden and Toyota into early next decade, with commitments to make the next generation of Commodores and Camrys here. Labor warned of the possible consequences but by then nobody was listening.
The Coalition promised to conduct a Productivity Commission inquiry into further assistance for the car industry. Fair enough. But after insisting, quite reasonably, that the government would work to its own timetable, not that of the car companies, Treasurer Joe Hockey didn't wait for the findings. Even as Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane tried faithfully to stick to the process, his cabinet colleagues were leaking to the media that Holden "didn't want to be saved". Hockey bowled into Parliament, yelling at Holden to stay or go. He got his answer the very next day: GM certainly didn't need to be here.
Since then we've had the Treasurer's handling of Holden retrospectively dressed up as a principled decision to end corporate welfare. Fine in principle -- who could argue? -- but it remains to be seen whether this philosophy is going to be applied across the board or is going to be a politically-motivated, make-it-up-as-you-go-along sloganeering as my colleague Bernard Keane has argued along with The Sydney Morning Herald's Peter Martin.
In the real world, economic theory has to be tempered with pragmatism -- as former PM John Howard recognised by rejecting calls for an end to car subsidies in 2002. When he was opposition leader Tony Abbott's relentless campaign against the carbon tax seemed to take him to every factory in the country. It is hard to square the enduring image of Abbott in high-viz, hard hat and safety glasses with the PM that is now sitting by and allowing irreplaceable Australian manufacturing capability to wither on the vine.
It is kindergarten-trite for the PM to preach that companies close and companies open. Derr-Fred. Where are the new jobs for manufacturing workers going to come from -- if not precisely, at least roughly? What's the government's plan? Especially as the investment phase of the resources boom -- with its massive skill shortages in engineering and construction -- shifts into an operating phase over the next few years, with far fewer jobs required.
"... we've had a mix of ad-hoccery, rationalist rhetoric and retrospective justification that is wholly unconvincing."
If abolishing the carbon tax is the full extent of the Coalition's industry policy we are in deep trouble. Commentators speculate that money which would otherwise have been given to the car industry could support new manufacturing capability. But how is that consistent with ending the age of entitlement? The Australian Financial Review's Chanticleer talks about the importance of science but, hang on, we no longer have a science minister and isn't the CSIRO about to shed up to 1400 jobs, losing what is described as the "next generation of innovation"? The AFR's Alan Mitchell says subsidies have been holding back start-ups, a position David Charles, chairman of the Advanced Manufacturing Co-operative Research Centre, this morning told ABC RN Breakfast was "manifest rubbish".
Last night, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull told the Q&A audience, to rousing applause, that car manufacturing was uncompetitive in Australia and we had to move up the value chain and focus on smarter, more technologically advanced industries:
"The jobs that Australians want -- the advanced, successful proficient industries that you need to have, will be created when there is the freedom to get on with the job and you do not have so much of taxpayers' resources being diverted to prop up industries. We should be focussed on creating new jobs, focussed on the future, and that's what we're committed to. That's why we say Australia is once again open for business and that doesn't just mean open for businesses that are seeking subsidies, it means open for new businesses, open for innovation."
Hear, hear. But hang on, if there's one thing the industries of the future are going to need surely it's ubiquitous fast broadband? Isn't Turnbull inching towards a National Broadband Network premised on a hodgepodge of century-old copper, 20-year-old coaxial cable and a mix of fibre to the node, basement and premises which is left to the market? Hardly an NBN at all -- or certainly not one that can eventually be sold to private investors.
Beyond IT, what might be the industries of the future? Cleaner energy perhaps? It would be a brave country that pinned its economic future to the coal industry in 2014, in the face of accelerating climate change. But hang on, isn't the government axing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation that is financing clean-tech development at a profit to the taxpayer, and aren't the climate sceptics within and outside cabinet pushing for a reduction in the 20% by 2020 renewable energy target that underpins investment in clean energy and lowers wholesale electricity prices?
What about food and agribusiness? With the world's population rising to 9 billion, mostly in our region, and rising food insecurity, it's a sure-fire winner that plays to our strength in farming. Food and beverage processing is also Australia's largest manufacturing sector and, with the dollar falling back to more normal levels, there is huge potential for value-adding. But, hang on, with the SPC Ardmona decision aren't we pulling $25 million in support to guarantee the modernisation of the last cannery in the country, even as we prop up a Cadbury tourist trap in Hobart to the tune of $16 million?
It would be all right if the government gave the impression it knew what it was doing -- flagged it in advance and backed it up with empirical research. A bit of policy rigour. Instead, we've had a mix of ad-hoccery, rationalist rhetoric and retrospective justification that is wholly unconvincing.
Shutting down a whole industry employing tens of thousands of Australians based on the fundamentalist belief -- nothing more than a prayer, really -- that something better will come along in the very near future is economic vandalism.
Send your tips to [email protected] or submit them anonymously here.
Toyota exit without an industry policy is economic vandalism
PADDY MANNING
Crikey business editor
ABBOTT GOVERNMENT, CAR MANUFACTURING, INDUSTRY POLICY, TOYOTA, TOYOTA JOB CUTS
Toyota's decision to quit making cars in Australia from 2017 was an inevitable follow-on from Holden's announcement last December. In global terms the industry was already sub-scale, making roughly 220,000 cars annually, and there were plenty of warnings last year that if Holden quit, Toyota would too.
It won't be the last announcement of job cuts: the car industry employs some 44,000 people directly and many suppliers to Holden and Toyota will go to the wall. Richard Riley, president of the Federation of Automotive Product Manufacturers, last night warned this was "ground zero" for Australian manufacturing.
If it was the federal government's intention to end the "age of entitlement" and cut support for the car industry, it would have been nice to know that before the last election.
Instead, we simply had uncertainty about whether the Coalition would match the extra $500 million in assistance spread over five years that would have secured the future of Holden and Toyota into early next decade, with commitments to make the next generation of Commodores and Camrys here. Labor warned of the possible consequences but by then nobody was listening.
The Coalition promised to conduct a Productivity Commission inquiry into further assistance for the car industry. Fair enough. But after insisting, quite reasonably, that the government would work to its own timetable, not that of the car companies, Treasurer Joe Hockey didn't wait for the findings. Even as Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane tried faithfully to stick to the process, his cabinet colleagues were leaking to the media that Holden "didn't want to be saved". Hockey bowled into Parliament, yelling at Holden to stay or go. He got his answer the very next day: GM certainly didn't need to be here.
Since then we've had the Treasurer's handling of Holden retrospectively dressed up as a principled decision to end corporate welfare. Fine in principle -- who could argue? -- but it remains to be seen whether this philosophy is going to be applied across the board or is going to be a politically-motivated, make-it-up-as-you-go-along sloganeering as my colleague Bernard Keane has argued along with The Sydney Morning Herald's Peter Martin.
In the real world, economic theory has to be tempered with pragmatism -- as former PM John Howard recognised by rejecting calls for an end to car subsidies in 2002. When he was opposition leader Tony Abbott's relentless campaign against the carbon tax seemed to take him to every factory in the country. It is hard to square the enduring image of Abbott in high-viz, hard hat and safety glasses with the PM that is now sitting by and allowing irreplaceable Australian manufacturing capability to wither on the vine.
It is kindergarten-trite for the PM to preach that companies close and companies open. Derr-Fred. Where are the new jobs for manufacturing workers going to come from -- if not precisely, at least roughly? What's the government's plan? Especially as the investment phase of the resources boom -- with its massive skill shortages in engineering and construction -- shifts into an operating phase over the next few years, with far fewer jobs required.
"... we've had a mix of ad-hoccery, rationalist rhetoric and retrospective justification that is wholly unconvincing."
If abolishing the carbon tax is the full extent of the Coalition's industry policy we are in deep trouble. Commentators speculate that money which would otherwise have been given to the car industry could support new manufacturing capability. But how is that consistent with ending the age of entitlement? The Australian Financial Review's Chanticleer talks about the importance of science but, hang on, we no longer have a science minister and isn't the CSIRO about to shed up to 1400 jobs, losing what is described as the "next generation of innovation"? The AFR's Alan Mitchell says subsidies have been holding back start-ups, a position David Charles, chairman of the Advanced Manufacturing Co-operative Research Centre, this morning told ABC RN Breakfast was "manifest rubbish".
Last night, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull told the Q&A audience, to rousing applause, that car manufacturing was uncompetitive in Australia and we had to move up the value chain and focus on smarter, more technologically advanced industries:
"The jobs that Australians want -- the advanced, successful proficient industries that you need to have, will be created when there is the freedom to get on with the job and you do not have so much of taxpayers' resources being diverted to prop up industries. We should be focussed on creating new jobs, focussed on the future, and that's what we're committed to. That's why we say Australia is once again open for business and that doesn't just mean open for businesses that are seeking subsidies, it means open for new businesses, open for innovation."
Hear, hear. But hang on, if there's one thing the industries of the future are going to need surely it's ubiquitous fast broadband? Isn't Turnbull inching towards a National Broadband Network premised on a hodgepodge of century-old copper, 20-year-old coaxial cable and a mix of fibre to the node, basement and premises which is left to the market? Hardly an NBN at all -- or certainly not one that can eventually be sold to private investors.
Beyond IT, what might be the industries of the future? Cleaner energy perhaps? It would be a brave country that pinned its economic future to the coal industry in 2014, in the face of accelerating climate change. But hang on, isn't the government axing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation that is financing clean-tech development at a profit to the taxpayer, and aren't the climate sceptics within and outside cabinet pushing for a reduction in the 20% by 2020 renewable energy target that underpins investment in clean energy and lowers wholesale electricity prices?
What about food and agribusiness? With the world's population rising to 9 billion, mostly in our region, and rising food insecurity, it's a sure-fire winner that plays to our strength in farming. Food and beverage processing is also Australia's largest manufacturing sector and, with the dollar falling back to more normal levels, there is huge potential for value-adding. But, hang on, with the SPC Ardmona decision aren't we pulling $25 million in support to guarantee the modernisation of the last cannery in the country, even as we prop up a Cadbury tourist trap in Hobart to the tune of $16 million?
It would be all right if the government gave the impression it knew what it was doing -- flagged it in advance and backed it up with empirical research. A bit of policy rigour. Instead, we've had a mix of ad-hoccery, rationalist rhetoric and retrospective justification that is wholly unconvincing.
Shutting down a whole industry employing tens of thousands of Australians based on the fundamentalist belief -- nothing more than a prayer, really -- that something better will come along in the very near future is economic vandalism.
Send your tips to [email protected] or submit them anonymously here.
yeah thats pretty grim snakey. I dont honestly know where I stand on subsidies and jobs and manufacturing. On one hand $100m a year of tax payers $ to holden and toyota seems perverse. On the other hand, imported pieces of chinese crap pressed out of fairy floss steel for cheap seems perverse also.
global economics is a bit beyond me.
global economics is a bit beyond me.
Good article, what we're seeing is also the death of regions, the damage will be felt across the board and not just in manufacturing. Abbott should also be midful of the fact that it costs money to create jobs, often running at an initial loss. To me the Coalition are taking a sledgehammer to the economy without a back-up plan. It's just plain and simple negligence. And on top of that, they are trying to destroy another industry - the renewables sector. Just wait for the bogus studies on the negative health effects of wind farms, it's just pure ideological idiocy and it's also sending the country to the cleaners.
Well done Australia for voting for such a fundamentalist numbskull. :clap
Well done Australia for voting for such a fundamentalist numbskull. :clap
Don't know why I bother wading in here, but ...
In the same week that we heard about SPC, there were three other stories that got significantly less coverage:
Firstly, NW Victoria is experiencing a boom, because citrus exports have increased by 1100% in the past year as the Chinese have discovered a taste for oranges
Secondly, we are exporting secondary education to thousands of (mainly) Asian students, which is fuelling significant growth in teacher numbers
Thirdly, organisations that have built capability in dairy production are experiencing dramatic export growth.
The question about Ford and Holden (and to a lesser extent, Toyota) is not all about subsidies, but rather the fact that Australians are just not buying big cars. And on tinned fruit, the market has contracted dramatically in recent years as it is so easy now to get fresh fruit, rather than preserved fruit sitting in a mixture of sugar and water.
Of course there are livelihoods affected, which is incredibly sad.
However, did we line up to support Brashs and Allans when people stopped buying records? Or Beta video cassette retailers when that technology failed? Or Video-Ezy when people could download movies more cheaply? Or blacksmiths...
In the same week that we heard about SPC, there were three other stories that got significantly less coverage:
Firstly, NW Victoria is experiencing a boom, because citrus exports have increased by 1100% in the past year as the Chinese have discovered a taste for oranges
Secondly, we are exporting secondary education to thousands of (mainly) Asian students, which is fuelling significant growth in teacher numbers
Thirdly, organisations that have built capability in dairy production are experiencing dramatic export growth.
The question about Ford and Holden (and to a lesser extent, Toyota) is not all about subsidies, but rather the fact that Australians are just not buying big cars. And on tinned fruit, the market has contracted dramatically in recent years as it is so easy now to get fresh fruit, rather than preserved fruit sitting in a mixture of sugar and water.
Of course there are livelihoods affected, which is incredibly sad.
However, did we line up to support Brashs and Allans when people stopped buying records? Or Beta video cassette retailers when that technology failed? Or Video-Ezy when people could download movies more cheaply? Or blacksmiths...
lukeanddad said:
I like the good news stories, and I broadly agree with the sentiment, but you're leaving out what for me is the most important point. The environment. IF air pollution is causing rapid large-scale ecological damage, THEN we need a carbon price, or air pollution price. SO, if we believe the science and progressive policy experts, coal is dinosaur technology, SO subsidising coal is bad policy, ending the carbon tax is bad policy. OR as you put it, its like lining up to support Brashes, or Video Ezy, or blacksmiths (but with much higher stakes), and axeing the Clean Energy Commission (running at a profit), is like axeing a new gen smart phones hologram-generating obiwan kanobi built-in light sabre development company that is about to take the world by storm.
To boil it down further, once global carbon trading or tax starts to kick in, which won't be too far away, local foods will be more profitable than those transported long distances using high energy.
Its not about supporting obsolete industries, its about blind ideology.
lukeanddad said:
glad you did, you had a couple of good points to make. Essentially 1. The destructive effect of the media constantly beating us over the head with bad news stories. I agree 100%
2. Industries naturally become redundant through a kind of commercial darwinism, which equals the old "you cant stop progress". I agree 50%. Half the time, you dont know what youve got till its gone, and useless peices of crap are polished up to replace cool old stuff and thats marketed as progress.
Strangely, Ive got a blacksmith up the road and hes heaps more useful than the lifestyle coach down the road.
tigersnake said:
jeez I hope your right snakeoil.
tigergollywog said:
so do I. if I'm not, it will be a steady downward slide to Bartertown for our great grandkids.
lukeanddad said:
SPC produce far more than preserved fruit in sugar water. As well as fruit in natural syrup they produce baked beans, spaghetti, various tomato products, juice etc etc. I don't know the figures in regard to the market contracting but there's no doubt the shelves are full of imported, and cheaper, options so there's obviously still quite a market for the kind of foods they produce.
[EDIT]While certainly no fan of the PM I consider myself fair and reasonable. It may well be that there is a plan to keep the country on track despite the jobs about to be lost and industries lost and it will all become clear in the fullness of time. The problem is that I can't see it. I haven't heard anything other than aspiration from the PM and his front bench. The charge that his "pamphlet" before the election was pretty devoid of detail still holds and there is still no flesh on the bones of the PM's vision for Australia.
rosy23 said:
Well done Napthine, hopefully all this attention encourages more people to buy Australian products. I did hear that sales have gone up 50% since the furore, if so then all those shoppers deserve a big pat on the back.