I don't know how well we will cope with the job losses, but I'm sure it will have a serious and lasting effect.

I agree with Referundemdrivensocienty.
I think sometimes capitalism only takes us so far before consumerism actually does us harm.
Why do we have so many different models of cars, tv's, mobile phones and everything else, all being updated and upgraded every single year just for the sake of consumerism.
Why can't we just make one model, make it good, and make it last, how much would that save?
People are paying over $10,000 just for an old Gemini these days, we should've just kept building them without bothering with all the new development costs.
Could've sold them at half the price of today's cars.
So I agree, there's a lot of pointless inefficiency and waste in the name of consumerism.

And it sucks we pay twice as much as the US for our own cars.

Butch, there is one word that is at the genesis of our dismantling of every manufacturing industry we have built ..........tariff .......when both sides of parliament adopted the Lima Agreement in the mid 70’s, all was lost. The agreement spells out the deconstruction of manufacturing in favour of second and third world nations.

The UN called it global redistribution of assets,it was meant to raise the living standards of the second and third world nations, but it simply turned the poor subsistence farmer into the poor subsistence factory worker. Now the banks and their rich associates own it all. Protectionism is the only way to solve all our debt and employment problems. But that will not happen as all politicians serve those who implimented the global monetary system.

You are all going to have to move on.

Because the new kid on the block for a right royal spanking by the chatterati is subs, French ones.

The meeja will be able to play that one from all angles and of course everything is already wrong.

The meeja needs to spin controversy for cheap 'news', manufactured daily by tabloid reporters and by the ABC's overpaid 'Gotcha' Grrls, whose tediously long and slanted introductions are far more important than any answer the interviewee might give.

The Aus market has always been far too small to manufacture cars, and the only reason that the car industry originally survived is because there were massive import tariffs imposed on importing cars >50% which had the effect of imposing a tax on car purchases.

When Aus became part of the WTO system, import duties were steadily reduced until car manufacturing couldn't survive without huge subsidies, and local car sales slowly slipped.

For example, from 2007 to 2013, 3/4 of jobs in the car manufacturing industry were lost, and 2/4 of the car companies announced their closure. The final closure of the last 2 was inevitable.

While some jobs have been lost, Australians now get cheaper and better cars.

Have Australian's forgotten Australian's can make quality goods just as any other people or country can?
Export could make Australian designed and owned and operated car manufacturing viable and profitable.

Is this all just about jobs for SA?

Are Australian's forgetting their math education in knowing 12 submarines costing $50 billion will cost $4.5 billion each?
How can $4.5 billion be spent on what to build one submarine?
Then of course there will likely be the under-budget cost.

Submarines will produce nothing for export except coffins to bring out DEFENCE servicemen and women home from INVASION of other countries.

If South Australia wants employment using steel then mill and coat steel to build aqueduct to transport water from wet season regions to farmers throughout Australia.
SA could would likely even get a modern new steel mill to make quality steel for aqueduct that could even be exported worldwide.

It is water and rural industry that will produce export product and business and employment in this food producing nation Australia.
Or have we forgotten that also?

To ensure that after WW2 there was employment for returning servicemen and no return to the depression conditions that had been relieved by the government deficit spending in the war effort, the Chifley Government decided that a manufacturing industry producing consumer goods (and some capital goods) was essential. Thus the motor industry, the white-goods industry, and even the rail rolling stock industry had to be created. That annoyed foreign companies left out in the cold and the so called free trade agreements came into being to reverse those earlier government decisions.

The steel industry expanded because a market for sheet steel was created. Once those industries are curtailed there will be no Australian market for domestically produced steel products. Once the steel industry collapses through lack of market demand there will be no way back

The ISDS clauses in the TPP Agreement are designed to prevent governments making decisions that might in future benefit the citizens of a country to the disadvantage of foreign companies. Australia's Our Current Account will further deteriorate and we will become Paul Keating's 'banana republic' and the white trash of Asia.

If you do not understand the role, in a mixed economy, of a currency issuing sovereign government you need to read at least J.D.Alt's article titled 'Mobilization and Money' at neweconomicperspectives and Prof. Mazzucato's book, The Entrepreneurial Estate'.