The Truth about Manufacturing cars in Australia

[Agile]

Good, concise, studied articall from J Dowling. Some FACTS for Federal Libs to consider.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/busine...-1226646259550

[Rodge]

Couple of things I don't understand.
1. Why does the Australian Govt allow Thialand to impose a 50% ? Tariff on Australian made vehicles ? I thought there was a free trade agreement ?

2. Why arn't the Govt doing more to encourage Govt departments, Federal and state to buy Australian made vehicles ?

Sorry to mods if this strays in to the political arena but I think these are two critical issues facing the future of the Australian manufacturing industry.

[jpd80]

Just be glad that this buzzard has moved onto a much juicer carcass,
he is no friend of the Aussie Auto industry and mischief maker extreme.

The biggest thorn in his side was that Ford refused to kill Falcon when he predicted
and be replaced by Taurus, years of articles show a systematic attack on Ford.

I really wonder what purpose is served by this article scrutinizing Holden's every move,
to me it wreaks of the same nastiness afforded to Ford for close on five years now.

[Road_Warrior]

Originally Posted by Agile

Good, concise, studied articall from J Dowling. Some FACTS for Federal Libs to consider.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/busine...-1226646259550

Joshua? Is that you?

[jpd80]

Maybe Holden now regrets laying out its future plans and funding needs in full glare of a critical media.

Perhaps Ford was right to remain silent, give the buzzard nothing to work with

[stevz]

The words "good, concise and studied article" and "Joshua Dowling" in the same sentence???
You've got to be joking!!!

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by Rodge

Couple of things I don't understand.
1. Why does the Australian Govt allow Thialand to impose a 50% ? Tariff on Australian made vehicles ? I thought there was a free trade agreement ?

Because Australia signed up to treaties many years ago which foolishly don't let us use subsidies to protect our own industry in any real way.
Remember the case some years ago of an upholstery manufacturer which looked like going under, and the government simply tried to give them a tax break to keep them supplying local ar makers, and the overseas trade organisations threatened Australia with harsh penalties if we did so? With farming, in Europe and, especially, America, they subsidies and protect their food producers staggeringly heavily, but we aren't allowed to do so because of world trade restrictions we signed up to.

We can use tariffs to a certain extent...but we aren't allowed to do anything that would penalise "poor developing economies"...and oddly enough, they still class China, of all places, as a "developing economy" even though it will probably be a world leading economic power house shortly.


Australia is meaningless on the world stage...we have less people than a lot of large cities overseas, and if it wasn't for our minerals, we wouldn't even be worth taking notice of.

[Road_Warrior]

The 50% tariff the Thai government imposes on vehicle imports isnt a tariff, its an import duty/excise. Smoke and mirrors and a sneaky sneaky trick to pull right after they signed the FTA with Australia.

[Rodge]

Originally Posted by Road_Warrior

The 50% tariff the Thai government imposes on vehicle imports isnt a tariff, its an import duty/excise. Smoke and mirrors and a sneaky sneaky trick to pull right after they signed the FTA with Australia.

Seems like quite a bizarre situation. So Honda and others import Thai built vehicles with no tariffs or excise duty right ? Difficult to see how that's a level playing field ??

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Rodge

Seems like quite a bizarre situation. So Honda and others import Thai built vehicles with no tariffs or excise duty right ? Difficult to see how that's a level playing field ??

Australia cannot because the type of tax imposed is completely legal under the Free Trade Agreement
and retaliating would only end bad for us in the Asian trading community...

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Australia cannot because the type of tax imposed is completely legal under the Free Trade Agreement
and retaliating would only end bad for us in the Asian trading community...

Exactly...a true "they can happily do without us, but we can't do without them" type of situation unfortunately...

[Road_Warrior]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Exactly...a true "they can happily do without us, but we can't do without them" type of situation unfortunately...

Bollocks. Every country that trades has a right and in fact an obligation to put their national interest first. Its because of the naiive "free trade taliban" we have here concocting ****** policy that we have situations like the Thai vehicle import imbalance, amongst others. Thailand have done exactly what our policy makers should be doing - protecting the national interest.

[DJR-351]

You would need a government that can think past their own next election result before anything can be done.....

[mik]

how did it all go so wrong, before some bright bunch of sparks got us into this amusingly called fair trade agreement we were pretty much self sufficient, not forgetting the lima agreement which was designed to stifle developed nations industry much like the carbon tax.
What really is extraordinary is some of these clever / smart people with degrees and uni ersity educations and polticians are only now saying ............ duh............ something is wrong ............... manufacturing is continue ing to die off we are accumulating debt faster than a pollie collecting perks and we are getting shafted in our fair trade agreement.

[Trump]

The article is written by J Dowling, enough said...

[FPV8U]

The next government will either make or break our auto sector, I'm not confident either party has it anywhere near high enough on their priority list.

[jpd80]

While some heads may be down in the Ford camp with the impending release of VF Commodore,
I see that car as a huge gamble for Holden as evidenced by both comprehensive addition of features,
significant investment in reducing weight and aggressive reductions in recommended retail Pricing.

It is obvious to me that Holden has tuned its business case to maximize production volume at the expense of profit,
the complete opposite to Ford Australia's most recent efforts to right size to market - both can't be right.

[2011G6E]

Sell lots of something built cheaply enough and you can make a profit on it, even if priced cheaply. That's how the US auto makers did it for decades...cheaply built shoddy rubbish, but jeez, was it cheap. Some of it over there still is...do you think the massive trucks like Silverados that are sold down near twenty grand are all built to a standard that we would find acceptable in Australia? The ones we see imported here are usually higher up models, but even some of them are a bit agricultural when you look into it...

Of course, in the USA they sell half a million F150's each year, and Chev sold nearly as many Silverados. Given the price point they sell for, you don't expect amazing build quality.

Back in the strongly protectionist days of the seventies, people here were willing to happily buy stuff that wasn't the best built or best equipped, because they didn't know better. Then started the flood of better built and better standard equipped foreign stuff.

The danger is that there is a balancing act in protecting your local car industry...do it too little and they die, but do it too strongly and they get lazy because they know they're dealing with a captive audience that will be forced to take any old crap they shovel out.

[tweeked]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Exactly...a true "they can happily do without us, but we can't do without them" type of situation unfortunately...

Nah - I reckon the Thai side of the deals is worked out by enterprising members of their industry - they protect themselves while penalising outsiders within the free trade laws.

The Aussie side was probably drawn up by uni graduates working in a gov department that have never worked in an enterprise business, and probably all they know about cars is too keep out of their way walking to a train or riding a bike.

The Thai's must laugh at us.........

[tezxr8man]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Because Australia signed up to treaties many years ago which foolishly don't let us use subsidies to protect our own industry in any real way.
Remember the case some years ago of an upholstery manufacturer which looked like going under, and the government simply tried to give them a tax break to keep them supplying local ar makers, and the overseas trade organisations threatened Australia with harsh penalties if we did so? With farming, in Europe and, especially, America, they subsidies and protect their food producers staggeringly heavily, but we aren't allowed to do so because of world trade restrictions we signed up to.

We can use tariffs to a certain extent...but we aren't allowed to do anything that would penalise "poor developing economies"...and oddly enough, they still class China, of all places, as a "developing economy" even though it will probably be a world leading economic power house shortly.


Australia is meaningless on the world stage...we have less people than a lot of large cities overseas, and if it wasn't for our minerals, we wouldn't even be worth taking notice of.

That leads us to a big question then. To help look after our country how do we break these treaty's?
It's time to stop being the good guy friend of everyone and start sorting out our country first I think and stop letting other countries dictate to us what we can and can't do to look after our side of things

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by tezxr8man

That leads us to a big question then. To help look after our country how do we break these treaty's?
It's time to stop being the good guy friend of everyone and start sorting out our country first I think and stop letting other countries dictate to us what we can and can't do to look after our side of things

But that's the thing...for too long governments of all sorts have tried to make out that Australia is a big powerful country and if we do something first, the rest of the world will be so impressed that they will go along with what we do. Look at the carbon tax for example...the rest of the world is laughing at us for restricting our industries while the rest of them do nothing, when our government thought that the rest of the world would suddenly "follow our lead"...yeah...sure they will...
When it comes to our "international standing", I'm always reminded of the little kid in the playground surrounded by the big bullies, who are trying to convince him to eat a worm, because they promise that if he does it first, they'll do the same later...*snigger*...

Australia has always felt this overwhelming need to be "the first" and jump in feet first in an enormous rush to sign up for any treaty or pact that is put in front of us by the United Nations and other international groups. We naively think that the rest of the world somehow cares what this tiny country does and will do what we do.
Nope. They won't.

We've set ourselves up to be dictated to by overseas interests, and signed up to treaties that will punish us heavily for doling out too many subsidies. Once again, using farming as an example, the USA uses massive subsidies to support their farmers, even paying them not to grow certain crops that are in oversupply. Europe does the same. Try and do that in Australia to help, for example, farmers who are shooting cattle at the moment because the government twitches over a news report and bans the live export trade...it wouldn't last five minutes before some international group stepping in and fining us heavily.

The car industry is slightly different...the government is subsidising a local industry, practically all of whose product is sold internally.
If our car makers were big exporters and were subsidised, it wouldn't be allowed.

When it comes to this sort of thing, we're the worlds b i tch, and have been for a loooong time.

[Nikked]

Joshua Dowling hard at work.

[tweeked]

Originally Posted by tezxr8man

That leads us to a big question then. To help look after our country how do we break these treaty's?
It's time to stop being the good guy friend of everyone and start sorting out our country first I think and stop letting other countries dictate to us what we can and can't do to look after our side of things

We dont have to break the Trade Agreement.

Just as the Thai's impose a tarriff on vehicles over 2lt (citing emissions), we could impose a "poverty" tariff on vehicles from any country where wages are under x per hour. Pretty simple really.

But then us Aussies wouldn't have access to the cheap imported cars full of cheap plastic electronic trinkets that we buy while whinging about manufacturing jobs dissappearing...........

[DanielXR8]

Originally Posted by jpd80

While some heads may be down in the Ford camp with the impending release of VF Commodore,
I see that car as a huge gamble for Holden as evidenced by both comprehensive addition of features,
significant investment in reducing weight and aggressive reductions in recommended retail Pricing.

It is obvious to me that Holden has tuned its business case to maximize production volume at the expense of profit,
the complete opposite to Ford Australia's most recent efforts to right size to market - both can't be right.

Holden have always been more aggressive in trying to protect their market share and find new ones. The VF is a bold move, but really whats the alternative? Fords approach is more a lingering death of a thousand cuts.

I also think when it comes to Ford and Holden, Holden plan on being the last man standing and they don't plan to go anywhere without a fight. Holden swing and miss sometimes, but you have to give them credit for never giving up without a fight. VF is proof of that.

[XD 351 Ute]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

and if it wasn't for our minerals, we wouldn't even be worth taking notice of.

We are even giving these away for next to zilch...
Manufacturing in any shape or form here is a greatly endangered species.

Ed

[mik]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Sell lots of something built cheaply enough and you can make a profit on it, even if priced cheaply. That's how the US auto makers did it for decades...cheaply built shoddy rubbish, but jeez, was it cheap. Some of it over there still is...do you think the massive trucks like Silverados that are sold down near twenty grand are all built to a standard that we would find acceptable in Australia? The ones we see imported here are usually higher up models, but even some of them are a bit agricultural when you look into it...

Of course, in the USA they sell half a million F150's each year, and Chev sold nearly as many Silverados. Given the price point they sell for, you don't expect amazing build quality.

Back in the strongly protectionist days of the seventies, people here were willing to happily buy stuff that wasn't the best built or best equipped, because they didn't know better. Then started the flood of better built and better standard equipped foreign stuff.

The danger is that there is a balancing act in protecting your local car industry...do it too little and they die, but do it too strongly and they get lazy because they know they're dealing with a captive audience that will be forced to take any old crap they shovel out.

I think our locals are way past that stage, the days of us getting cars "good enough" as deemed by the parent companies of our local makers are long gone, people have been exposed to the huge import dump for years now, there will be no going backwards .

[tezxr8man]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

But that's the thing...for too long governments of all sorts have tried to make out that Australia is a big powerful country and if we do something first, the rest of the world will be so impressed that they will go along with what we do. Look at the carbon tax for example...the rest of the world is laughing at us for restricting our industries while the rest of them do nothing, when our government thought that the rest of the world would suddenly "follow our lead"...yeah...sure they will...
When it comes to our "international standing", I'm always reminded of the little kid in the playground surrounded by the big bullies, who are trying to convince him to eat a worm, because they promise that if he does it first, they'll do the same later...*snigger*...

Australia has always felt this overwhelming need to be "the first" and jump in feet first in an enormous rush to sign up for any treaty or pact that is put in front of us by the United Nations and other international groups. We naively think that the rest of the world somehow cares what this tiny country does and will do what we do.
Nope. They won't.

We've set ourselves up to be dictated to by overseas interests, and signed up to treaties that will punish us heavily for doling out too many subsidies. Once again, using farming as an example, the USA uses massive subsidies to support their farmers, even paying them not to grow certain crops that are in oversupply. Europe does the same. Try and do that in Australia to help, for example, farmers who are shooting cattle at the moment because the government twitches over a news report and bans the live export trade...it wouldn't last five minutes before some international group stepping in and fining us heavily.

The car industry is slightly different...the government is subsidising a local industry, practically all of whose product is sold internally.
If our car makers were big exporters and were subsidised, it wouldn't be allowed.

When it comes to this sort of thing, we're the worlds b i tch, and have been for a loooong time.

You are spot on buddy, I think it needs to change and it's going to be easier said than done, just need some pollies with balls to change things, it's not like we are not self sustainable sadly tho they are in it for themselves and won't do s#*t

[Crazy Dazz]

If you REALLY want to understand the Australian Automotive Industry, there is a great movie that explains it all in detail.
Check it out, it’s called “Weekend at Bernie’s.” Very metaphorical.

You see the industry is dead, stone cold, deader than a door nail. But the pollies keep dragging out the corpse, dusting it off, and pretending it’s still alive.
The problem now is that the corpse is so rotted, that limbs are falling off.
There is no point in trying to protect it, it would be like banning imports that might harm the Tasmanian Tiger.
What we have left now, is nothing but a pathetic joke. People hail the “success” of the Territory because it sells 1,500 cars a month. I WANT to see the Falcon survive, more than you can possibly imagine, but FA is now nothing more than a boutique car maker.

You wonder WHY it seems there is so much talk, but nobody actually DOING anything to save our car industry? I'm sorry, but its because there is nothing left to save.

30~40 years ago, Australia still had the opportunity to sit down and plan for the future of an indigenous car industry. One that employed 100’s of thousands of Australians, drove innovation, and exported to the world. A figurehead for Australian Manufacturing protected from the triple threat of a powerful Australian Dollar, criminal taxation, and 3rd world wages.
Instead, those pollies sat down and calmly plotted the murder of the Australian Car industry.
Remember that video from the London riots? Of the thugs pretending to help the guy, whilst they stole from his backpack? Well that is what has happened to industry in Australia over the past few decades.

So WHY have the pollies done this? Seems illogical and stupid doesn’t it?

1. Firstly, Australians only think short-term, so our Pollies only concentrate on the next 3 years, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Remember Paul Keating? The most hated man in Australia, leading the most unpopular government in the History of Democracy, and Australia re-elected him because he convinced us that Hewson’s new tax regime would cause us some temporary inconvenience. Remember John Howard and “work choices”? Sacking people because they are incompetent bludgers, what an un-Australian concept. Better the industry goes under and we all wind up on the dole.

2. The government can’t truly protect an industry, without going all out, and in part that means doing something about the ridiculous levels of taxation in this country. Even if they made all the costs level, an Australian manufacturer still cannot compete against an Asian, American, or European company paying only a fraction of the tax. Unfortunately Australia’s primary wealth (firstly agriculture and now minerals) has allowed our governments to get very fat on taxation. They make themselves popular giving us all “free” goodies that Australians lap up like retarded cows being led to the abattoir. Australians want “free” education, “free” healthcare, “free” family payments, baby bonuses, maternity leave, etc? WHERE exactly do we think the money comes from?

3. The Australian Dollar. All other things being equal, a strong Dollar is a good thing. If you and you mate go to the shop, and he pulls out $5 and buys a pie and coke, YOU don’t want to be told that your $5 is worth less than his, so you can only have a chiko roll. In reality, a strong dollar means that the world WANTS what we are selling. The AUD is like a gentleman's sausage, everybody but the whore wants it bigger. Unfortunately that is always bad news for Australian Industry. Subsidising Australian manufacturers for increases in the AUD would be excruciatingly expensive for the government, and would in effect drive the dollar higher, creating a vicious spiral.

4. Labour. Sure, we all agree that Australians should not have to compete against Asian sweatshop Labour. But what about other first world countries like the USA, Europe, and Japan? Unfortunately to TRULY protect Australian Manufacturing, you have to make Australian Labour competitive. I'm NOT going to start THAT debate, precisely because it is such an unpalatable topic. That is why no Australian Pollie in their right mind would touch it.

[Joe5619]

Originally Posted by DanielXR8

Holden have always been more aggressive in trying to protect their market share and find new ones. The VF is a bold move, but really whats the alternative? Fords approach is more a lingering death of a thousand cuts.

I also think when it comes to Ford and Holden, Holden plan on being the last man standing and they don't plan to go anywhere without a fight. Holden swing and miss sometimes, but you have to give them credit for never giving up without a fight. VF is proof of that.

Yeah right!! EcoLpi, Ecoboost & Diesel in Territory are Ford sitting on there **** doing nothing!!

[Joe5619]

At least the dollar is starting to drop. Let’s hope is continues & stays down for a long time to come!!