Today's Age and presumably the Sydney Morning Herald had this say say about the impending closure of Holden's Port Melbourne plant.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/holden-may-rush-closure-of-local-plant-20090218-8bke.html
HOLDEN is poised to rush the closure of its Port Melbourne four-cylinder engine plant in a bid to help its US parent fight off bankruptcy.
The closure, originally announced for late this year and affecting 530 workers, could happen as early as next month as US-based General Motors shares the pain of its near-collapse with its overseas subsidiaries.
I find this scandalous. This is the same company that won $179 million from the Federal Government to a new four cylinder car. Forgive my apparent breakdown in logic here, but you can't actually build something, in a factory that has been closed can you?
Admittedly the article below is talking about the Adelaide Plant, but it should be worth noting that the Port Melbourne plant would have supplied the engines for the expansion of the Adelaide plant. It would make perfect sense to build the four cylinder engine in its existing Port Melbourne facility considering that's what it already does, and then deliver the engines to Adelaide where they would be then fitted to the new car, or else we're talking about duplication or services.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24833772-662,00.html
HOLDEN has announced it will use $179 million in government funding to build a new four-cylinder car at its Adelaide plant.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today announced the Federal Government will invest $149 million over three years and the State Government will provide a further $30 million to enable the production of a front-drive vehicle fuelled by diesel and petrol, AdelaideNow reports.
It seems to me that the conclusion that I draw, is similar in principle to a director of the Institute of Public Affairs, Tim Wilson. Who said:
"It is wrong to use Australia's public purse to bail out a foreign company. This is an American company profiteering off Australian taxpayers, We're underwriting a failed US business just to keep a few jobs back in Australia."
Second to this, it would seem that we're not even doing that! On ABC1's news bulletin last night they reported that GM worldwide was cutting 47,000 jobs and that 26,000 of them would be outside of the USA.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/19/2495382.htm
The Federal Government says there will be job losses at Holden in Australia, but it is confident the car company will remain viable. Yesterday Holden's parent company General Motors announced it would cut 47,000 jobs worldwide in the next year, with 26,000 of them to go outside the US.
Why in blue blazes then are we throwing $179 million at a car company who isn't going to produce cars? This is little more than a protection racket if you ask me. GM in North America has recently trumped up and asked for yet another $16bn odd from the US Government and it appears as though the same tactics are being employed here.
Holden you are a "Bagman". You are effectively becoming an agent to rip the taxes off of Australians. The Ancient Roman term for this in Latin was "tribulum", or in modern parlance a "tribute" but the principle is still the same. In modern Italian we might call this the "pizzo", though instead of the Mafia we have something far bigger.
To Holden, I hope you die quickly. I for one do not like paying for NOTHING.
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