I see on the news Toyota have closed manufacturing leaving over 2000 people out of work, only Holden to go now. I know a lot of people will say the high cost of wages is to blame but if you work 40 plus hours a week at $20 ph it's still not easy to live on whats left after tax. With the loss of local car building Toyota no longer needs to manufacture here, the Australian government will be pushed by foreign manufacturerers to lower or remove any charges imposed on imported cars but I still wonder how long before prices start to rise after we have a total dependants and no option but to buy whatever they want to sell us. Australian design rules mean changes have to be made to some cars to be soldd here but with no competition manufacturers may just decide it's not worth modifying some new vehicles just for a small market so they just won't send them here, there will not be testing for our harsh conditions and crap roads so will that mean less reliability. They have achieved what they have been working towards in destroying the competition here with cheap cars possibly with the help of subsidies from their own government to push prices down and I bet they haven't finished yet. 

Good to know.

Hi Ferret,

Pretty much spot on Ferret. Sydney has no oil refinery FFS. 5-6 weeks of fuel for all of NSW if a war breaks out. NSW has no aluminium smelter, only two base-load power stations, no working country rail infrastructure, no vehicle manufacturing, one clogged up airport, no copper smelter, no oil refinery, etc.

There are a lot of reasons not just one but all levels need to take their share of the blame, I hate when people blame the employee only for the high cost of Australian made goods and while it is not completely wrong it is only a small part. Our growing culture of entitlements over the years has raised the cost of doing business, years ago  unions formed to bargain on behalf of workers for safe workplaces and fair wages but then abused that by demanding more and more and shutting down anyone who didn't comply. Recent reports would indicate this still goes on in some industries although the reports are mostly coming from our current anti union government there is some truth to this.

I did a little stint at AMI Toyota in Port Melbourne in the early 70s where we built Toyotas but also assembled Rambler Hornets. Not sure what happened to the Ramblers ! 

Just drove a 2017 Holden SV6 for a few days while on holidays. Bloody nice car and economy out of its six was circa 10/100, mainly in the city. I reckon a new’ish second hand one circa $30,000 (plenty around) would be good value if ya did mainly Highway km’s, especially if you can snag one with Holden’s seven year warranty. Great car, though I get why they were phased out when you look at the top 10 cars sold in Oz chart: Ford Ranger just cracked number 1 spot.

I was just bored and reading up on things to keep an eye on, and that led to lots of articles on harley company then to where they source parts, by coincidence I saw the news on toyota closing. Similarities between our failed car industries and harley being the rising use of imported parts ( some reports as high as 65% ) resulting in things like bearing failures and wiring problems being reported. I know if you start reading forums about issues with harleys you will start thinking we are all just waiting for our bikes to explode but when you think percentages the reality is not that bad but it is still there.

It was inevitable when Australian governments starting legislating to move manufacturing offshore and i will tell you how stupid its getting.