Holden snubs the government - Full article at SMH.com

Holden has withdrawn further from communication with the federal government.

A delegation of car industry workers and union officials will arrive in Canberra for talks with government officials on Tuesday without representatives from the Holden factory floor.

''Unfortunately, Holden indicated that it would not release any representatives to go to Canberra," said John Camillo, South Australian state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.

"They said they didn't want to play any politics and didn't want to release them."

The delegation will be made up of representatives from Toyota, Ford and car parts manufacturers.

''As far as I know they have never done that before. I gave them plenty of notice," Mr Camillo said.

The snub is the second from Holden which last week turned down a government request to meet a visiting executive from its US owner General Motors.

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane had asked to meet GM's head of operations in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Stefan Jacoby. He said the snub showed "a lack of sensitivity" towards the state of the industry.

It followed General Motors' decision last month to shift its Australian chief Mike Devereux to Shanghai by the end of the year.

Mr Devereux had sealed a deal with the previous Labor government to continue to make cars in Adelaide until 2022 and to continue to maintain a design presence at Port Melbourne. The agreement signed by prime minister Julia Gillard cost the federal government $215 million, the South Australian government $50 million and the Victorian government $10 million.

Mr Camillo said workers wanted information.

"The shop stewards are copping pressure from the workers every day asking what's happening. Every day they are reading something in the paper. They want us to do something and they keep asking us - what is the decision, what's happening?" he said.

The change of the government and the new minister's decision to refer the question of car industry support to the Productivity Commission rather than honour Labor's agreement meant Holden had already missed the deadline for gearing up to retool its production line during the Christmas break.

"If you are going to make new models you need to take advantage of downtime,'' Mr Camillo said. ''They would have worked around the clock for those nine days reconfiguring the production line and then come back at Easter. That opportunity has gone now."

If Holden withdraws from Australia after its present models expire in 2016 Toyota is likely to follow. Ford has already announced its intention to leave in 2016. The withdrawal of all three manufacturers would lead to the withdrawal of the component parts manufacturers. About 200,000 jobs are at risk - one-fifth of the 1 million-odd workers employed in manufacturing.
There are a lot of jobs that, while not employed directly with the three manufacturers are key to their operations in other parts of the industry - these jobs are all on the line. I'm not one who would usually stand for governement hand-outs but the situation we see now is proof that government policies allowing the flood of cheap imports (and the dumping of almost end of line higher end Euro models) into the country over the last 15-20 years has not worked in our own favour. That, coupled with our wage structure and high standard (read cost) of living means that the local manufacturing processes will never be compeditive against imports with a lower cost base. I cannot for the life of me understand why successive governments of both political leanings could not see this scenario playing out...

I feel that the industry can be saved from the loss of all three manufacturers (OK, we know that Ford is gone after the next Falcon) if they act now - which is why I find Holden's stance on these talks a bit odd. I guess they have their reasons if these talks are not really what the government says they are (why are the unions involved if not to muscle the companies into massive redundancy pay-outs), besides Holden already believe they have the funding in place to carry through until 2020 (though I would bet a penny to a pound the Coalition are not about to honour that one and will leave them high and dry...). Mike Devereux is already just about packed if he isn't already out of the country for good so I guess Holden is just going to stick to the plan and if they don't get what they want they'll probably just pull the pin early.

Not good...