Just a follow on from my previous threads.

Raelene Castle has posted a massive loss in 2019 mainly due to the huge payout and legal costs to dump Folau. That she also cocked up the broadcast rights has left RA in a parlous position to face 2020.

She has been forced to take a huge pay cut, but many think she should be sacked.

"Rugby Australia has announced a preliminary $9.4 million loss for 2019.

The struggling code on Monday confirmed its legal settlement with Israel Folau was one of the main reasons the governing body suffered a financial black eye last year, putting the game in a fragile position heading into the uncertainty of 2020."

Similarly JCU was whacked with a $1.2m payout to Peter Ridd and is up for $100 000s of legal costs.

It would appear that virtue signalling isn't so cheap.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Ah this is where you have been hiding. Wondering if you are one of the 'disengage with China' crowd given you so fulsomely applauded the shutting down of our car industry thereby dramatically increasing our reliance on Chinese manufacturing.

As to Rugby Australia they are in the same kind of strife as all the other codes many of whom are still being paid most of their wage even though there is no revenue coming in. Folau would have been a highly paid dead weight on the books right now if he hadn't gone.

It is worth remembering before the virus hit Rugby Australia did sign a multimillion dollar deal securing continuing sponsorship from Qantas, the very company which had threatened to walk.

Well, that's good; serve RA right after what they did to Folau. Why on earth an Australia rugby organisation wanted to employ a NZ female in the first place is beyond reasoning.

This suggests that Raelene Castle got bullied by a whiny homosexual named Alan Joyce, and that she was inept at her job.

no tears from me. To think rugby use to be an inclusive game until the bigots were put in charge.

Good.

Dan

In fact on reflection;

Goody Goddy Good Good...

Dan.

I bet many still won't wake up !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgm9E_cmvWA&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2PvXUxizNdaBKuYCFk0fIiBAam75Y_SA9Wb8li85kB-1JYvB-RwGMwKIc

What rock are you living under SR, & who tips the garbage in after you?

There have been a number of attempts to sell Chinese vehicles here, all rather dismal failures. If you come up for air some time you might notice very few vehicles on our roads have been any where near China, being built or otherwise.

SR,

What does China have to do with the Aus car industry?

As for the car industry closure, that roughly 75% of the jobs and market in the car industry had disappeared incl 2 of the 4 manufacturers pulling out under the Krudd/Juliar regime is conveniently forgotten by the left whingers.

That the subsidies in 2014 already exceeded the entire wage bill of the manufacturers and they still wanted more clearly showed that this industry was already dead. That this industry closed and the unemployment level went down, showed that it was not critical to the Aus economy. So yes I agreed with the decision.

Secondly, I have never advocated for disengagement with China.

Thirdly the $9m loss was before Covid 19, and considering that the payout to Folau covered his salary for 4 years and they still had nearly $1m in legal costs, RA is still far worse off. WRT Folau, considering that the Rugby codes are looking at slashing payments to 20% Folau is laughing all the way to the bank.

As for the Quantas sponsorship, with no games, that is also up in smoke.

Wake up & start moving. Why not start a local car industry again ? A no nonsense 4x4 Diesel, no fancy interior, no electronics, just designed & built for Australian conditions !
It would be cheaper & far less hassle than those highly electronic imported cars that leave you stranded because of a $50 component & costs you thousands to get your car transported to a service facility !

Dear Shadow Minister,

The Aussie dollar had track above the USD for nearly three years due to the mining boom making Australian manufacturing, particularly motor vehicles, temporarily noncompetitive. Some fools thought that this would go on forever so pulled the rug out in many different ways.

One of them was to strip tariff protection from parts manufacturers in a onesided trade deal with China.

Here is the list of items that were zeroed out.

http://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/chafta-annex-i-tariff-schedule-of-australia.pdf

Do a search for “vehicle”. 176 mentions of it within the document.

SR,

Assuming that you have no issue with what I have said WRT RA, I will address you last post:

1 - Even before the 2008 GFC and the Aus $ surge, the local car industry was far from viable and needed substantial tariff protection and subsidies to survive. All of the costs passed onto tax payers in taxes and substantially more expensive cars and trucks.

2 - Nearly all the damage occurred under the Labor government such that in 2014 the car industry was dead on its feet so the blame is almost entirely labor's.

3 - Enabling buying cheaper parts from China would have enabled car production to be cheaper and more competitive, so why on earth not?

You obviously don't know much about manufacturing or the car industry SR. Remember The Button plan, all Labor & the start of the rot.

Then add cheap RORO shipping, & the rise of the small hatch & big utes & 4x4 wagons, & the market became too fractured for us to compete with a shrinking market for full size cars.

It takes as many components to produce a small hatch, just a bit less tin alloy & cloth as a real car, so damn near as costly to build, but must be sold for half the price. This is why Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford & Holden all stuck with full size cars, & paid the price.

Then add paying process workers huge wages, much more than they can earn the company, & they had to go down the tube, just like wind mills & solar panels, if the poor fool tax payer stops subsidising them.

A real pity actually, those last Holdens were the equal of anything produced anywhere, just couldn't command the premium fools pay for German cars.

Every country in the world that builds cars subsidises it's car industry, just like we continue to subsidise the fossil fuel industry by around $29billion per year. Despite trying to hang the blame on past Labor governments it was Hockey and Abbott who intentionally shut down and drove manufacturing out of the country.

Locally manufactured car sales fell primarily because consumers simply wanted something else and as cheaply as possible.

It makes no economic (or environmental) sense to go back to building internal combustion powered vehicles. The trend globally is heavily and irreversibly slanted toward electric vehicles. It would be like starting to make VHS videocassette players again.

The taxes on electric vehicles are made deliberately high to keep sales low simply because electric cars don't pay fuel tax and cost the government revenue.

We have a perfect opportunity to start building electric cars (we already manufacture and export charging stations) but the government is too cowardly to stand up to their corporate financial sponsors. Maybe they would consider making coal-powered cars to keep their IPA handlers happy?

Enabling buying cheaper parts from China
Shadow Minister,
Here you go again, why ? Make them here for crying out loud ! Just get rid of the insane compliance costs & salaries. They're of no benefit to anyone except some hangers-on !

I see RA is under pressure to give Raelene Castle the flick for her gross incompetence.

Rache,

While most countries give tax breaks, no one has given vast dobs of cash anywhere near the same quantity as the car manufacturers in Aus got proportional to their size.

Building electric cars in Aus would be a moronic mistake, Chargers are relatively low tech which is quite the opposite of cars. There is no market, and the high cost of Aus labor would kill any attempt at export.

Dear Shadow Minister,

You keep trotting out this bit of rubbish; "the high cost of Aus labor would kill any attempt at export"

The Germans have a very strong export market and they pay their workers 50% more than the Americans and certainly more than what Australians were getting.

The reason is their European approach to industrial relations where workers representatives sit on the boards rather than our union hating American version we have allowed to flourish here.

Sweden has a flourishing car and truck industry. When SAAB started to falter it pivoted to manufacturing fighter components.

They are moving toward electric car manufacture in the near future.

There are plenty of European countries with significant motor vehicle industries. You were just flying another of your furphies. Time to stop.

Shadow Minister,

China can supply all the Wuhan virus free workers at a very low price to take over all the jobs in Australia from your high cost Australian workers.

interesting what will survive after this pandemic. Everyone has their hand out. Sporting codes, charities, woke organisations, unwoke organisations, child care centres, unemployed, pensioners, renters, landlords, employees, employers! Hmmm. Who is going to pay the masses of Government workers?

Back in 2013 the amount of government funding per vehicle produced was -

Australia $1,966USD
Gemany $1,303USD
USA $2,908USD

France. the EU generally and Canada also heavily subsidise or grant loans.

The Bush and Obama administrations allocated $US80 billion to direct assistance under the Automotive Industry Financing Program.

By international standards, annual assistance to the Australian automotive industry was relatively modest in raw dollar and per capita terms.

The answer also depends somewhat on how you define “support”. Direct subsidies usually comprise cash injections. But there are also indirect subsidies which can include tax incentives such as research and development tax deductions and export subsidies such as tax deductions or any other direct financial contribution to an exporting industry.

Tariff protection also provides a form of subsidy, as tariffs tax imports, meaning other products are less price competitive. Similarly, luxury car taxes can give locally-produced vehicles a competitive edge.

Speaking of which, I believe the Luxury Car Tax is still in place for no reason other than squeezing consumers for tax dollars.

rache,
Don't you think this is not really the way to go towards making industry sustainable ?
By how much could these amounts be reduced if the insane CEO & managers' salaries were brought to the same level as their actual value of their contribution ?

SR and Rache,

What a pile of bollocks. You forgot to mention the huge tariffs on imports to protect the sale of local cars which automatically costs each consumer 30% of the value. Also your figures are wrong.

In spite of this the sale of locally build cars fell by 70% under labor.

It is not just the cost of labour, it is the size of the market. Aus is 25m people and the EU is 550m. There is economy of scale which is why it was never viable to start a car industry here.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australias-car-industry-out-of-gas-after-billions-in-subsidies-that-were-always-going-to-lead-to-a-dead-end-2013-12

former ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel says

"The car industry is estimated to have received a total of $12 billion in direct subsidies and protections over the past 20 years, including $1.8 billion to Holden in the 11 years to 2012.

Treasury has committed to spending $1 billion on assistance to car manufacturers as part of the existing Automotive Transformation Scheme, with a further $1 billion on the table between 2015 and 2020....
“We obviously have had detailed conversations with the previous government and the government,” he said. “General Motors has nothing but gratitude and praise for the very strong partnership we’ve had with successive governments over the decades.

“We have looked at every possible option … but no matter which way we apply the numbers, our long-term business case to make and assemble cars in Australia is no longer viable,” he said.

“As painful as it is to say it, building cars in this country is just not sustainable.”

The car industry is gone, never to return. Not worth talking about. There are things that we used to do that we can do again. There are new things that we can do. Making motor vehicles, conventional or electric - never.

The car industry is gone, never to return.
ttbn,
With the present mentality, yes ! But hopefully, the COVID-19 turmoil will jerk many into a more pragmatic & responsible attitude & with that the general mentality of blaming Govt for everything but themselves crowd may come to see the benefits of being less selfish !
Kids staying put at home now will adopt a healthier mentality than their grandparents who brought this situation to the boil !

Even $20 billion over 11 years isn't quite like the $30billion we fork out to the fossil fuel industry every year and the consumer has to pay more for diesel because some industries are allowed to pay less.

Many bitch and moan about the loss of manufacturing and it's outsourcing to places like China but it's the same consumer who demands everything at the cheapest possible price and the the only solution they come up with must be paying our workers (but not themselves) the equivalent of a bowl of rice a day as per our competitors.

Considering our relatively small population, what other local industries are deemed "non-sustainable"?

In the absence of forward thinking maybe all we're good for now is to dig up rocks for people to burn in a declining industry that employs less people nationally than KFC or just wait for something to happen overseas and react. There will soon be a lot of people looking for jobs that no longer exist and are unlikely to return in a changed global economy.

What will never change for some is the undying notion that everything bad that's happened is somehow the result of the ALP or Greens.

Rache- There will soon be a lot of people looking for jobs that no longer exist and are unlikely to return in a changed global economy.

What will never change for some is the undying notion that everything bad that's happened is somehow the result of the ALP or Greens.

Answer- Communists are Globalists too. Locke Liberalism of both so called left (ALP and Greens) and right persuasions are also Globalist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Reference_Table

Gasoline + Oxygen –> Derived from Gasoline 13.3 MJ/kg

battery, Lithium ion[18][19] 0.46-0.72 MJ/kg

One issue with battery driven cars is the batterys low energy density compared with Gasoline. I was pleased to see some research being done to capture CO2 and using renewable energy converting it back into gasoline mainly hydrocarbon molecules consisting of 7 to 9 carbon atoms from memory. So potentially we could mine the atmosphere for CO2 and capture the exhaust from our cars.

If the energy density is low it makes the vehicle less energy efficient even though the immediate by-products may be less polluting. The vehicle has to carry around the heavy low efficiency energy device.

There are a couple of ways of increasing the energy storage efficiency 1. you could store the energy in a stationary position and transmit the energy to the vehicle in some way- trains use overhead wires to achieve this (but trains are also very heavy and they can only go where there are tracks).
2. you use an energy storage method of high energy density. The ultimate high energy storage method is anti-matter but this is currently science fiction. Nuclear Fission batteries exist as do TEG's they aren't rechargeable, usually have a very long service life.

Elon Musk is a big fan of lithium batteries and I respect his expertise but I think he could be wrong in this case.

I understand the necessity to reduce pollution.

I think the best way to reduce the effect of any human impact on the world is to reduce the humans. Most western nations have a low birth rate and modest populations. Nations/ Regions such as Africa, India, China have unsustainable populations. What purpose does so many humans serve. We don't need so many humans in the world

The reason for large energy use and large populations seems to stem from competition between the nations over ideological positions and ethnic dominance.

There is nothing wrong with principles this is what gives life meaning and also principles are required for life. Principles are not free- sometimes you must fight for them to the death.

If every nation made a commitment to manage their populations things could be better.

There are those that prefer chaos and destruction to order and creation because they benefit from it.

Rache,

I don't know where you pull these figures from, but the tax breaks offered to fossil fuel producers (tax breaks for farmers and large industrial consumers) are tiny fraction of income tax received and are similar to those given to many other industries.

That the motor industry in Aus was never sustainable without vast protection was known from the start, and has cost consumers and taxpayers $bns from the very beginning, and from the point where trade agreements meant that tariffs had to drop this ALP vanity project was doomed.

That SR tried to lay the blame at the feet of the liberals is why I had call out his lies and demonstrate that the vast majority of blame lies with Labor.

Dear Shadow Minister,

You wrote; "That SR tried to lay the blame at the feet of the liberals is why I had call out his lies and demonstrate that the vast majority of blame lies with Labor."

Is this really what you are reduced to?

It was the Libs who were instrumental in withdrawing the bulk of support for the car industry no matter how venial you want to be in attempting to shift the blame. That the Libs pulled the rug out is not a lie and don't try and rewrite the history on this.

You are worse than Trump attempting to blame Obama for his own response to the Coronavirus.

SteeleRedux,

Have you noticed how Shadow Minister will go out of his way not to put any blame for our current demise on China? I'm starting to think he might turn out to be the love child of Gladys Liu and Xi Jinping. I bet before long he starts blaming Arts graduates for starting the Wuhan virus pandemic.

Wow, great to see the old sparring partners reappearing one by one ! This OLO thing is more addictive than drugs !

SR,

Under labor 2 of the 4 car manufacturers announced that they were pulling out. The other 2 had already retrenched about 70% of their work force and had lost about 70% of their part of the local market.

By 2014 the car industry was essentially dead, and the liberals refused to increase the subsidy further as the taxpayer was already paying more than 100% of the payroll.

Another pile of crap left by labor for the coalition to clean up.