Amazing development: truth told about Aus auto industry

[Spinner77]

Excellent interview this morning on ABC with John Mellor, publisher of GoAuto.

Among the points he makes are:

• The impact of the global financial crisis and the high dollar deserve to be recognised. Before the GFC we were making 450,000 vehicles/year.

• Even today Toyota is exporting more cars that it makes in Melbourne than it sells in Australia.

• Subsidies to the industry in Australia are tiny: about $17 per head. In the US it's $250; in Sweden $300.

• The structure of auto industry means it is a good means for creating wealth in a manufacturing country.

• A huge problem is the Free Trade Racket (my term, not Mellor's). Japan keeps imports of vehicles to about 7 per cent of the market; Korea 5 per cent.

• We have a free-trade agreement with Thailand, but Ford has only just managed to get the Territory on sale there, thanks to the regulatory hurdles - and it costs the equivalent there of $100,000, vs. $60,000 in Aus.

Mellor, rightly in my view, gives our trade negotiators a big serve for the shocking job they have done.

Here is the audio of the interview:

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podca...30412_0814.mp3