Uhmmm…so let me rephrase that if I may:

I don’t know how many people are employed…so I’m going to take a wild guess. I don’t know how much funding the firms get, so I am going to make a hypothetical stab in the dark. I am then going to take both these numbers, based solely on me plucking something out of the air…and use them to finish my analysis with some sweet, sweet hyperbole.

Is this how one gets in the media these days? Sounds easy! Stay tuned for my next press release James!!!!

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James Tuckerman - Anthill Mag Reply:
August 28th, 2010 at 1:06 am

Haven’t you figured this out yet… that’s what blogs are for. Some call it the work of ‘copyright kleptimatics’. I call it ‘taking bold claims made in newspapers and putting these claims to enlightened readers’.

The only regret I have about this piece is that someone hasn’t (yet) chimed in with the real figures. I think many people (including moi) feel in their guts that auto-manufacturing gets more than its fair dues in government support. Unless someone can prove either case wrong?

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Sorry guys but the reality is worse. In response to a request in March from the Review Panel chaired by the Steve Bracks, the ALP Federal Government asked the Productivity Commission to model the economy–wide effects of various options for future assistance to the automotive sector.

The Commission’s modelling indicates that there would be economy–wide benefits from further REDUCTIONS in assistance to the automotive sector, particularly tariffs. It also suggests that the benefits would be larger under the current assistance reduction program than options entailing lesser reductions. In plain terms the less assistance the industy receives the better off Australia will be! The model projected potential net benefits to the community of some $0.5 billion a year under this program, with gains to consumers and other industries outweighing negative impacts on the automotive industry.

So despite clear advice to lower industry assistance what did Rudd do? He increased industry assistance. At a time of low unemployment – in fact, when other industries are facing serious skill shortages – there’s no possible reason for skewing the economy in this way. Other countries make cars better and cheaper than us.

But don’t believe me – the above is essential verbatim quotes from the Productivity Commision reports available at: http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/study/automodelling/finalreport/media_release plus analysis from Crikey available at: http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/08/winners-and-losers-in-the-great-game-of-industry-assistance/ The Blogospehere striles back. Facts at your finger-tips!!

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On paper it doesn’t seem to be, but then you look at all the technology that this industry utilises that include mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, Industrial designers, robotics and the list would go on far more that I can think about. So how much would the loss to the nation be should we scrap all this resource development and replace it with admin, warehousing and sales? We talk about education and opportunity for young people. Where will we find the industries that must spend so much on high level skills in order to be competitive. Then for those who don’t get the uni degrees, is it better to be a factory worker in high quality manufacturing environment with all the skill development that can come with it or a cleaner or bed maker in the service industry?

We can give it all to China like we are doing at the moment but where does it lead us? Our scales of vehicle manufacturing is not self imposed, it is imposed by the corporations who manufacture in Australia limiting the markets that our vehicles can be sold in. This means that instead of manufacturing world class vehicles where the numbers manufactured allow for even better production quality and further technical development we have to develop within in tight markets where small scale makes things difficult.

But then comments like this one made by the Suzuki fellow makes sense to those who have no responsibility to the country in question. His master is the board and shareholder.

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