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.”