Foyle you do realise don't that Bluescope isn't the only steel producer in Australia?

David Leigh raises some valid points. Rather than protecting an inferior product, investment in our car industry should focus on developing a world-class product.

Not that there's anything wrong with the humble Commodore, per se. It's just that Holden charge premium prices for non-premium vehicles. I think the likes of the Commodore are also tainted by association with shiny, plastic imports like the Cruze. I know all manufacturers have their black sheep, but an industry struggling to survive cannot afford to let those black sheep tarnish the name of a company as a whole.

Focus on engineering for quality, safety, endurance, economy and environmental friendliness, rather than focusing on engineering for gizmos and gadgets. I would imagine that the labour costs are the same (or similar) if a car is well-engineered, well-designed and in line with what Australians want. We can either continue producing middle-of-the-road cars and cut prices, or we can make our cars worth what we pay for them. Then, perhaps, people will consider buying Commodores (or whatever the future version may be) rather than A6s, Passats, etc.

Oh god, who let the fairies out again.

The 2 most popular cars in Oz are the Toyota Hilux, & the Mazda 3. Where do all these people get the idea that we should build electric cars, or LPG cars or fuel cell cars that no one anywhere wants.

Both gas & electric are readily available here & don't sell.

The problem is not that no one wanted Falcons or Commodes, but that they have become too expensive for what they are. Blame our cost structures for that. That & the large shift not to funny cars, or even cheaper, but to large 4WDs, where many women feel safer, & doubles as a useful tow/fun vehicle on weekends.

With our now ridicules labor costs expect the same discussion regarding the mining industry in about 10 years time, as more than a few start to run down.

Then of course it will be more serious. The problem will be much larger, & we won't have another source of income to subsidise the dying one.

Cobber the hound
Yes, I realise there are two, one producing flat product the other what are known as long products (girders, rails, reinforcing rounds and flat bars).
The product ranges do not overlap.
I know because for five years I was in charge of the steel department making the flat products, and visited and studied steel plants in the USA, Japan, Russia, the UK and France for starters.

Hasbeen, the only reason we don't make a Toyota hilux or a Mazda 3 here, is because we have totally unimaginative could-have-beens like you, with classical medieval bricks and mortar mindsets, in charge of most manufacture.
You say we have gas cars? Yes LPG; and we have electric cars. Yes sure. But electric variants, where much more than half the component costs, are inherent in the half ton or so of very expensive lithium batteries.
Nowhere and contrary to your gormless assertions, is there a gas powered electric car; where the heavy and extremely expensive battery bank is replaced by a light weight ceramic fuel cell, which as you just might know, produces mostly water vapor, as the exhaust product. Moreover, these variants, can be plugged in to power the house overnight!
As usual, you're just so good at bagging other poeples ideas, probably because you don't have anything worthy of consideration of your own?
A highlux and a Mazda 3, really? Is that the very best you can do?
People, professional baggers and bad-mouthers, just like you, I believe, are responsible for our very best and most lucrative ideas being off-shored, along with the billions they could have earned for us!
Nor are there any vehicles plying our highways powered by a ceramic fuel cells as you seem to, in your abysmal ignorance, assert?
The only prototypes have been based on more expensive than gold, platinum, not polymers, as in the Aussie innovation.
We make great cars, and our commodores and fords feature regularly in front of many more expensive imported versions, in V8 super cars!
All we need is very low cost energy, and a tax system that puts real downward pressure on the AUD; and a gag for people, just like you, all to ready it seems, to badmouth, and critique stuff, they know, bugger all about!?
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty, if you know it all, & want to "change the world", for god sake do it, rather than talk about. You could join the long line of bankrupt dreamers & conmen who have been there before. Try Obama, he's been throwing mountains of taxpayer money at anything green, he might help you get started.

Yes you can move your manufacturing effort, but you have to be smart/lucky enough to pick the trend.

15 years ago Mazda was almost broke. The bean counters had them building cut priced also-ran cars, that didn't sell. Then the engineers took over & built good cars. Nothing "out there" as you would have, but stylish reliable on the road cars, that do the job economically. Unlike GM Holden, Nissan, Honda & a couple of other majors who have spent tens of millions trying to make alternative cars that work, Mazda built a better ute.

Even with massive subsidies, none of them work. There are many better ways of using hydrocarbons to power transport, but the internal combustion, with 130 years of development & refinement is going to take a lot of beating. I doubt it will be replaced by anything short of on board nuclear generation of electricity or perhaps steam.

Trying to develop a fuel cell damn near sent Honda broke. They are only now back to a viable car maker.

Car makers were forced into Hybrid & electric cars, kicking & screaming, by the ratbag politics of a green California. They want to be damn careful that they don't follow that crazy state into bankruptc