Senator Kim Carr's Rescue Mission

8 Jan 12

Can Senator Kim Carr's meeting with US auto executives next week save the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore?

When the imported Mazda 3 tops the Commodore in the sales race, the future for large car production, which Australia's automotive industry specialises in, would seem in jeopardy. For sometime Australia's automotive executives have called upon more government support for the industry to secure thousands of manufacturing jobs.

Reportedly the president of Ford Australia Bob Graziano has played down the significance of meetings to be held this week between US automotive executives and Senator Kim Carr who is seemingly on a rescue mission to secure the future local manufacture of the Holden Commodore and the Ford Falcon/Territory.

Whilst sales of the new model Ford Territory have held up well, sales of the Falcon were the worst in the history of the vehicle last year. Likewise Holden has been very vocal about the decline in sales of the Commodore. Toyota's future would seem more secure because of the export markets to the middle east it has sustained over many years, albeit the strong Australia dollar is taking its toll on margins and volumes.

So what of Senator Kim Carr's rescue mission? Ford's Bob Graziano has told the press that Australia's car manufacturers are always in regular contact about support and future commitments and has played down the significance of Kim Carr's meeting with GM and Ford exectuives in the US next week, implying the meetings as merely routine.

Given recent comments by Australia's automotive executives about the need for more government assistance in order to commit to long-term investments for future generation new models, it is expected that Kim Carr may be travelling to the US with cheque book in hand in an attempt to secure the future of the local industry, depsite the fact that sales of large cars such as the Commodore and Falcon are falling.

Critics would argue that the Government should not have to support the automotive industry, however the automotive industry is a large employer group, at both a first and second tier level. It also attracts millions in overseas investment into the country. Importantly, it is the Government support that continues to foster Australian engineering prowess and skills in the automotive industry, Holden's Mike Devereux correctly pointed out recently, "If Australia does want to be a knowledge economy and a diverse economy, and it wants to be more than a farm, mine or hotel, then we need to invest in our capability to design, engineer and build."

Australia remains only one of 15 countries in the world that can take a car from it's initial design phase, right through to manufacture.