Let's get this into perspective.

1. We had four (4) motor vehicle plants producing for a population of 20 million with 80 per cent of the market represented by imports. So one plant for just one million of population. RIDICULOUS! What diseconomies of scale!

2. We had the Howard government giving $50 million to the Fishmerman's Bend plant to produce what - a V8 engine? ABSURD.

3.We have a tariff of 10 per cent. So each and every car in Australia has its price increased by 10 per cent, say three thousand dollars, for us to support the local industry. In other words with the local industry supplying just one-fifth of the market, that is fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) of our money being collected for each Australian-made car! Isnt this ABSURD?

4. We produce very very ordinary cars in direct competition with imports.

Are we for real?

Isnt it time we stopped propping up a moribund activity (as New Zealand did decades ago)? Or if we dont, then at least encourage the production of more sophisticated cars by say increasing the excise on gasoline. Isnt there an gain to us of a higher excise than a $15,000 per car tax to support a dying industry?

Am I missing something?

The arse is about to fall out of the internal combustion engine driven car market. There's no way that the Australian market can or should sustain local production of putative automotive dinosaurs, so the sooner we're out of it the better, I reckon.

Pity about the jobs, but they were unsustainable anyway. Expect more labour movement as oil becomes increasingly scarce in the near future.

I bought a mountain bike about a year ago, and I've ridden it half a dozen times :(

For those of you who don't think hydrogen is a possible fuel. Like oil, it takes a lot of energy to obtain. Australia has a huge area of unuseable land and too much sun keeping it dry. Solar farming can be used to boil water to make steam to drive turbines or create electrictiy directly from solar panels. Electricity can be used to electrolyse water to split it into hydrogen and oxygen. You can try it using a 6-volt battery in your kitchen, just to prove a point. Has anyone done the maths for setting up such a hydrogen economy? I doubt it. Then do the maths, or read someone who has, and report back before you knock ideas because of bigotry and ignorance.

Nuclear power plants can also create electricity, as can wind turbines, as can the "Salter Duck' from waves, as can tidal energy such as has been used in France since the mid-1950s.

Genetic engineering can now greate DNA. We can either modify present bacteria/blue-green algae genetically or soon even make them, so that maybe they can crack water faster than they do now to bubble off hydrogen. A crack-pot idea? Yes, just as was Herr Dr Diesel's first attempt to make an internal combustion engine run on coal-dust, or Leonardo Da Vinci's idea about building a helicopter (and a bicycle for that matter).

HenryVIII, its a bit rich to demand others work up some numbers of your pet theory, i don't think you've looked very far into at all. The embedded energy of solar PV panels is very high, and wheres your water coming from? As you pointed out, 'unused land' is usually so partly cos its dry. Check out
http://www.peakoil.org.au/news/index.php?energy_profit.htm
for sobering analysis of limitations of PV.

What i came back for, "Unemployment figures bolster case for further increase in immigratoin intake - Senator Andrew Bartlett" in media today.. oh Andrew!! What cornucopian pipedream is he living in? The sustainable population of Oz might be less than a million, i don't think anyone except economists has estimated it could be more than 5mil, here we are at 20+mil and Andrew wants more? Can you have a quiet word with him, Lyn?

While the article makes some valid points, the call for yet more government money the help the auto industry misses one important fact. It is precisely the willingness of successive Australian governments to prop up the car industry though measures such as tariffs, subsidies and favourable tax laws that have protected it from the need to change an ultimately led to its current predicament.

As Lyn points out, the FBT rules encourage drivers of “company cars” to drive as many kilometres possible. They also favour relatively large, expensive and fuel-inefficient cars such as falcons and commodores, most of which are sold as fleet or lease cars. This of course also filters into the stock available for the 2nd hand market.

In addition to this, Australian car producers have been “protected” behind relatively high tariff walls until quite recently, and still enjoy twice the tariff of other manufactures. This has put imported cars, which include most of the relatively small and fuel-efficient cars on the market, at a relative disadvantage. At least this is better than the old quota system that made the importation of any small vehicle non-economic.

Governments should remove all protection and subsidies for Australian car manufacturing and make companies try to make a living selling cars people actually want. In combination with realistic fuel prices that reflect the cost of burning fuel – especially once we get an emissions trading scheme – we’ll quickly see the market become more responsive and more responsible

It will be an interesting test of the new Labor government if they feel they can get away with keeping the tariff at 10 per cent, effectively raising $15,000 for each and every car that is made in Australia. Interestingly though it was the Labor governments of Whitlam, Hawke and Keating who brought the tariff down seeing it for what it is - a tax. It was the ineptitude of the subsequent federal and state governments that continue to defer the inevitable.

With the local car manufacturers effectively serving just 4 million of population, it is ridiculous to support four companies with this 'tax' when even one would struggle. Today we are facing a cascade collapse. Australia could be producing a proudly Australian car from ONE plant. Australia could with that car be exporting its image instead of producing tired technology, ordinary cars and at a HUGE revenue raising tax of around 50 per cent for EACH car produced in Australia.