[sapper740]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tony Smith
[B]As faithful, Constant Readers of the forum will all know, in WW2 Ford Australia was a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford of Canada, which itself was independant of Ford US. The "Blame" for this latest decision is being attributed to the US head office.

Here's an interesting article I found on the 'net regarding the Geelong plant:



Josh Gordon
July 19, 2007
Page 1 of 2 | Single page
IT'S been a bumpy ride for Australian car makers.
The genesis of the closure of Ford's Geelong plant can be traced back more than 20 years, when Bob Hawke's industry minister John Button took up the sledge hammer to continue Labor's work of tearing down industry protection.
Contemplating the work he began decades ago after hearing of Ford's plans to close its Geelong engine plant, Mr Button yesterday maintained the process had been enormously beneficial to the car industry and consumers, despite the pain.
"It had to happen," Mr Button told The Age. "Of course it was a beneficial process, otherwise we would just have a lazy protected industry."
In the late 1970s, Australia's automotive sector was enjoying some of the highest tariff walls in the world, virtually immune from global competition.
Anyone wanting a foreign-made vehicle had to get past Australian customs — and pay a tax, or tariff, equivalent to 60 per cent of the price.
As if car makers needed any more protection, the tariff wall was buttressed by an import quota restricting foreign-made cars to a maximum of 20 per cent of sales, and a local content scheme promoting the use of domestic components in the manufacturing process.
By the mid-1980s, just 10 per cent of Australia's car fleet was being imported, with five companies producing 13 models at eight plants. Times were good.
But by then accepted wisdom of protecting local industries at the expense of denying consumers cheaper imported products had changed.
From 1985 governments began to dismantle the protectionist wall surrounding the car industry.
Today, Australia car makers are some of the most exposed in the world: the tariff on imported passenger vehicles is now 10 per cent, to fall to 5 per cent by 2010.
At the same time, local car makers are battling the loss of competitiveness triggered by the soaring Australia's soaring dollar, and fierce global competition from cut-price foreign producers.
Australian car manufacturers have watched their share of the domestic market shrivel from about 30 per cent at the end of 2002 to roughly 20 per cent, translating to about 90,000 fewer vehicles a year.
While dismantling protectionism was painful — particularly for Victoria, which relies heavily on manufacturing — economists say it was beneficial.
Had protectionism not been dismantled, HSBC chief economist John Edwards, a former senior economic adviser to Paul Keating, said Australia's car industry and manufacturing sector in general "would now be in the most appalling position". But he warned Australia still had problems.
Those six-cylinder, four-door sedans have been displaced by smaller models," Dr Edwards said. "The larger models have essentially been fleet sales, to governments and the like, rarely bought new by households. The industry has had its head in the sand, the Government has had its head in the sand and this is problem we need to face up to."
Peter Brain, executive director of the National Institute of Economics and Industry Research, said governments could be doing more to prop up the car industry, warning a vibrant manufacturing sector would be crucial to insulate the economy when the commodity boom wound down.
Even the architect of Australia's car industry reforms was cautious about the need for further tariff reductions. Mr Button said he believed the Federal Government should think very carefully about further tariff cuts given that the high dollar had already eroded the competitiveness of locally produced cars.
Industrial economist Martin Feil also questioned the wisdom of dismantling tariffs for the car industry. "Around the world governments are … promoting smaller, more environmentally friendly vehicles," he said. "(The car makers) haven't made the decisions to produce cars that increasingly nobody wants, governments have."