Let's go further. Why not cast about in China or India and see if there is a group willing to do a cheaper job of running our country. We could get rid of the over-priced politicians we have and out source their duties to those who can do it at huge savings. The new group MUST be fond of overseas travel.

Sage,
A very interesting case for AWA's for politicians, I don't even mind EBA's for them who should we have to set the KPI's? you and I perhaps, boy what a mixture there.

Nicholas Gruen says that things in the car industry are not good
Real wages keep rising.
Well that is easily fixed, all executives and econimists take a $100,000 cut and the car industry can be saved.
No worries.

There is nothing wrong with our car industry.
The problem with the Australian motor industry is the interference by state polititans,not the cars which are world beaters.
Dragonian speed limits make it impossible to properly test and do reaserch in Australia.
Germany has unrestrictive speed limits on some of their Autobahns .
This encourages vehicle builders to base themselves in Germany.
Victoria under the Kennet government had the opportunity to be become the centre of vehicle reserch in the world,shortly after they won the right to stage the Grand Prix in Melbourne.
All that was needed was for Kennet to remove speed limits on the Hume Highway from Craigieburn to Wodonga.
Due to the interference of the Police and other benefishies from speeding fines,including the State Government this did not eventuate.
The UAE will soon be a centre for vehicle reaserch.
Norway has no motor industry and thus has supidly low speed limits and ancient roads
Keep watching Top Gear on SBS for future updates on the motor industry.

It seems that BROCK doesn't know anything about car testing.
What you need is a hilly circuit for acceleration up hill, braking down hill and lots of bends of varying degrees from hairpin to high speed.

What is the use of a long straight when to test a car means to test it beyond the limit of control on the road. The Australian speed limit is 100kph so that means to enter a hairpin at 100kph to see what the car will do.

Nick, a major policy failing is that for short-sighted political reasons governments have long sought to maintain 4-5 car manufacturers in a market which can't sustain more than two. If governments had bit the bullet years ago and left it to the (undistorted) market, we'd probably have two profitable makers now, and better and cheaper Australian-built cars.