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AusPoliGAF |OT| Boats? What Boats?
- Thread starter Bernbaum
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Elaugaufein
Member
Arguing against someone who isn't Arksy in this thread feels weird but California is actually doing pretty well economically at the moment , they are reducing their debt and forward projections look pretty good.
The fact that you equate the decline of Manufacturing with "Oppressive" Workers Conditions and not the stripping of protectionist economic policies over the past few decades is worthy of mockery and nothing else.
The place is hamstrung, and always will be hamstrung, by that crazy no new taxes proposition. Just because tax receipts are going through a high at the moment doesn't change that, and I read an article which stated that Jerry Brown knows as much.
Bulbagarden
Member
They might be trying to paint this as a swing to them, but if anything this is a big loss for them. With there being no Palmer candidate this time around, they should've easily picked up the 3.36% of Palmer votes. Instead, those votes were split between them, Katter's lot, and Windsor, with the rest probably going to the Stable Population Party and Family First. That's not a good sign for them in the long run.
On the other side of the fence, Labor's lost 1.38% is entirely swallowed up by us in the Pirate Party. We scored 1.55% of the vote in our first HoR outing, placing 4th behind the LNP, Labor and the Greens.
JesseEwiak
Member
Yup, destroying unions and passing corporate friendly policies has worked out wonderfully for us over in America.
Holy shit, that's pretty fucking awesome.
Bulbagarden
Member
Given our non-existent advertising budget and the media typically ignoring us for most of the campaign, we put in a really great showing. At pretty much every booth where we were able to station a volunteer, we went above 2% of the vote, regardless of if that booth went to the ALP or LNP overall. If we'd had even a dozen more boots on the ground, I think it's quite likely we might have hit the 4% campaign funding threshold.
Pirate Party Australia is founded on the basic tenets of:
- Freedom of culture and speech,
- The inalienable right to liberty and privacy,
- The protection of the freedoms provided by the evolving global information society,
- The transparency of institutions, and
- The restoration of the freedoms and balance lost through the encroachment of harmful and overbearing intellectual monopolies.
The party first contested elections as a registered party for the Australian Federal Election last year, where we ran for the Senate in NSW, VIC, QLD and TAS.
You can read more about the party's policies here.
I love the way you've articulated and justified your positions. Great stuff.
Bulbagarden
Member
I used to be the QLD State Co-ordinator (I stepped down from the role after starting my PhD), and I was the 2nd candidate on our QLD Senate ticket during the federal election (which I mentioned all the way back at the beginning of the thread here 
).
We've noticed the irony ourselves. Hence the official abbreviation being PPA.
).We've noticed the irony ourselves. Hence the official abbreviation being PPA.
A
A More Normal Bird
Unconfirmed Member
I think you should look into the abandonment of full employment and the history of concepts like the NAIRU. I can't think of a single example of the private sector being able to provide jobs for everyone willing to work and it shouldn't be forced to. There will always be gaps between what the market wants and what the society requires/can provide.
I disagree with your reasons given for the decline of the manufacturing industry, as others have said the removal of protectionism was a pretty big thing. Manufacturing is continually shifting to the next cheapest state and will continue to do so unless governments start thinking long term, i.e. what happens when living standards and costs start to go up in the world's manufacturing hubs and we've let our domestic infrastructure and knowledge base fade away?
Both parties have contributed to the decline, sometimes for the wrong reasons, sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes by failing to support a transition that the other mob kicked off.
The reason I don't buy the fact that it's primarily due to trade liberalisation is because it is not a uniquely Australian phenomenon, but the decline in manufacturing of the scale we've experienced, is. From 25% of our economy in the 1960s to <10% today. Most of the west have liberalised their trade without seeing the destruction of their manufacturing sectors. The best example is England which has gone through massive trade liberalisation due to being part of the single market...(Well not STRICTLY TRUE because it's a customs union, but there's a complete free trade area WITHIN the single market)....still manages to be one of the worlds biggest manufacturing hubs.
If you want an example outside of the EU because it presents a few problems, how about Canada? Which remains one of the biggest manufacturing hubs of the world.
The United Kingdom actually had huge chunks of their industry die. In the 1960s, it was something insane like 1/3 of their output. Now, I can bet you that its nothing close to that amount.
Rolls Royce died, which was famously saved by the government via nationalisation. De Havilland died because it couldn't compete with Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Basically all of their major shipbuilders died via external competition and a government that did not see a future in shipbuilding. The list goes on...in fact its only recently that Portsmouth stopped building ships after a 500 year long history. To say that the United Kingdom didn't go through huge declines in manufacturing is a huge lie.
What they have done, however, is shift what remains of British industry towards the high tech and chemicals sector. We haven't even bothered trying to do that for whatever reason...well we kind of tried developing industries to construct green technologies but that fell through the floor for obvious reasons.
Rolls Royce died, which was famously saved by the government via nationalisation. De Havilland died because it couldn't compete with Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Basically all of their major shipbuilders died via external competition and a government that did not see a future in shipbuilding. The list goes on...in fact its only recently that Portsmouth stopped building ships after a 500 year long history. To say that the United Kingdom didn't go through huge declines in manufacturing is a huge lie.
What they have done, however, is shift what remains of British industry towards the high tech and chemicals sector. We haven't even bothered trying to do that for whatever reason...well we kind of tried developing industries to construct green technologies but that fell through the floor for obvious reasons.
Hold up, never said that manufacturing in the west hasn't been on a decline, it has...and Britain definitely did go through a very rough patch, but it never sunk to the depths that it has here.
A country doesn't need manufacturing by necessity. There are some incredibly prosperous countries that barely manufacture anything, such as Hong Kong, Singapore and The Faroe Islands. The difference is, they overspecialise in a particular industry and have become incredibly prosperous as a result. Hong Kong and Singapore for their financial services and the Feroese Islands...90% of what they produce comes from fishing, and they import basically everything. (Mainly due to necessity because they can't actually cultivate their land)
We've done none of the sort. Granted our banks are great but people aren't flocking to Australia to set up hedge funds for whatever reason. We have a lot of raw materials but that is so demand sensitive I think we're due for some really rough times ahead if demand slows down.
I really hope A More Normal Bird can come smack me over the face with an inflatable glove (or whatever) and tell me that it's all going to be ok but I'm REALLY not enthusiastic about our future economic prospects.
Edit: For the sake of full disclosure I just found out the Faroese Islands get substantial aid from Denmark, especially when shit goes belly up....because -actually- having a single industry can be problematic.
Yes but that didn't really seem to be what you were talking about. You were strictly talking about the manufacturing sector and highlighted how certain nations didn't suffer from huge declines Australia has.
Most nations have and still do. As I previously mentioned, United Kingdom is OK according to some people because the value of output is strong as a few companies have transitioned to high tech manufacturing. If we're talking about how many British manufacturing companies have outsourced their manufacturing* (hence lowering local employment) or died in the years, the number is insanely high. Its not an example many people would use as a positive.
The difference is that the governments during Britain's major industrial hollowing during the 1960s-1980s, for better or worse, attempted to guide the nation into a new economic direction. Every time there's any attempt of that in Australia (i.e. carbon tax, mining tax, NBN for recent examples), people don't accept it for whatever reason.
*For someone with some interest in audio, the British loudspeaker industry is basically dead if we're using "Made in the UK" as a metric of whether or not something is dead or not. I cannot think of any British loudspeaker companies that still build and manufacture at least 50% of their speakers in the United Kingdom. Every single one of them are either dead, owned by the Chinese, or build 99% of their hardware in China because they are much cheaper and probably better at it too. I imagine this isn't too different with countries who once had industry of value that were never fostered.
Most nations have and still do. As I previously mentioned, United Kingdom is OK according to some people because the value of output is strong as a few companies have transitioned to high tech manufacturing. If we're talking about how many British manufacturing companies have outsourced their manufacturing* (hence lowering local employment) or died in the years, the number is insanely high. Its not an example many people would use as a positive.
The difference is that the governments during Britain's major industrial hollowing during the 1960s-1980s, for better or worse, attempted to guide the nation into a new economic direction. Every time there's any attempt of that in Australia (i.e. carbon tax, mining tax, NBN for recent examples), people don't accept it for whatever reason.
*For someone with some interest in audio, the British loudspeaker industry is basically dead if we're using "Made in the UK" as a metric of whether or not something is dead or not. I cannot think of any British loudspeaker companies that still build and manufacture at least 50% of their speakers in the United Kingdom. Every single one of them are either dead, owned by the Chinese, or build 99% of their hardware in China because they are much cheaper and probably better at it too. I imagine this isn't too different with countries who once had industry of value that were never fostered.
For what it's worth my Dynaudio Elite's were built in Denmark, although I'm fairly sure the way it works (in the loudspeaker business) is that the higher end models get made in the home country while the lower end models are outsourced. It's the same with receivers. My Anthem MX900 has a made in Canada badge on it but I know for a fact the MX300 is made in China.
Also for what it's worth I'm fairly sure B&W, EB Acoustics and Talk are still manufactured in the UK.
We do incredibly well for loudspeakers here in Australia and more specifically South Australia, we have VAF, Krix and Adelaide Speakers who all make some very high quality stuff.
With a few companies that's still the case, though they're increasingly shifting production overseas to fit current economic and market place (read: affordable, high quality lifestyle products) climates. In the past, some of B&W CM series (I guess mid-range for loudspeakers?) were made in England but that's dried up and they've shifted all of their production overseas. Honestly speaking, most people are only concerned about getting the product for cheap so there isn't really any reason to keep manufacturing jobs local. Only their crazy TOTL speakers like the Diamonds are still made in the United Kingdom but I guess people who fork out over 20,000AUD on a pair of loudspeakers probably care about where the product is actually made and what parts are used.
This slippery slope of outsourcing more and more products has been happening with KEF, Wharfedale (IAG owned now), Mission (IAG owned now too), Quad, and Monitor Audio for a while now. I even believe Linn has joined in the fun and now makes some of their hardware in China, despite the insane prices they charge for them. To compete in the market place, they've got to outsource more and more products to cheaper manufacturing hubs. When Polk Audio or Usher can sell you some pretty sweet loudspeakers that look the money for $1,500, you better be able to justify why your product costs $1,000 more, do a better job, or cut costs. Furthermore, people interested in the financial well-being of a company obviously want to increase their profit margin. I imagine this is where B&W sits, since their relatively recent lower end products have never really impressed me for the price they ask and they've jumped balls deep into lifestyle products now.
But yeah, Australian Hi-Fi is pretty great. Made here and they actually sound pretty damn good for the price you pay. I have a pair of Krix Equinox bookshelves and they're absolutely fantastic. I hope these guys can survive because for the prices they ask, they give you better quality products than most of the overpriced imported stuff (thanks to our distributors).
This slippery slope of outsourcing more and more products has been happening with KEF, Wharfedale (IAG owned now), Mission (IAG owned now too), Quad, and Monitor Audio for a while now. I even believe Linn has joined in the fun and now makes some of their hardware in China, despite the insane prices they charge for them. To compete in the market place, they've got to outsource more and more products to cheaper manufacturing hubs. When Polk Audio or Usher can sell you some pretty sweet loudspeakers that look the money for $1,500, you better be able to justify why your product costs $1,000 more, do a better job, or cut costs. Furthermore, people interested in the financial well-being of a company obviously want to increase their profit margin. I imagine this is where B&W sits, since their relatively recent lower end products have never really impressed me for the price they ask and they've jumped balls deep into lifestyle products now.
But yeah, Australian Hi-Fi is pretty great. Made here and they actually sound pretty damn good for the price you pay. I have a pair of Krix Equinox bookshelves and they're absolutely fantastic. I hope these guys can survive because for the prices they ask, they give you better quality products than most of the overpriced imported stuff (thanks to our distributors).
Really good article about how if you work in the IT sector politicians won't help your struggling company.
I distinctly remember, the day I got the confirmation the software development company I and 400 other people worked for was going to close up, driving home and hearing on the radio how terrible it was some fruit cannery company with 100 people was going out of business. All the politicians were scrambling over each other to 'do something' to help save those jobs, but no such help was coming for us.
That was the day I decided that politicians of any persuasion could just go fuck themselves. Just give me my high speed internet and leave me alone.
I distinctly remember, the day I got the confirmation the software development company I and 400 other people worked for was going to close up, driving home and hearing on the radio how terrible it was some fruit cannery company with 100 people was going out of business. All the politicians were scrambling over each other to 'do something' to help save those jobs, but no such help was coming for us.
That was the day I decided that politicians of any persuasion could just go fuck themselves. Just give me my high speed internet and leave me alone.
bobnowhere
Member
I can't remember whether it was the day Ford or Holden announced their closure, but on that same day a contract cleaning company in Sydney closed their doors with immediate effect throwing more than 1000 low wage low skill workers out without any benefits like auto workers. That was just an after note that day.
Your job is only important if a politician can make hay with it.
JesseEwiak
Member
Hey, remember how earlier, somebody was talking about how wonderful direct democracy is, especially in Switzerland, and how it's fantastic when the people don't have to listen to elitists with their statistics and knowledge and all that other socialist crap?
Well, about that - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=766124
Well, about that - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=766124
Direct Democracy could work really well in a society where the populace is equipped with critical thinking skills via education, oh and they have a strong ethical and moral base at their core.
That said - I'm not sure whether that story proves that Direct Democracy in itself is a inherently bad idea? especially when compared to the general state of democracy right now.
I don't see what's so bad about this.....the Swiss people told the government "We want immigration to be curbed considering we've had such a huge influx of about 75k people a year for the last few years into our tiny country and our infrastructure can't keep up...but we're going to leave it to you to figure out how and by how much, we just want less."
Far from being an example of how terrible it is, to me it's an example of how incredible it is. I wish we as the Australian people could force the government to do certain things about our immigration policy. Imagine a referendum on stopping the secrecy surrounding the current government's operation? A referendum on off-shore processing? The Malaysian People swap solution? We could pick and chose our policies based on the best policy instead of having to change the government en masse to do so.
We could for example have a Liberal Government and force them to adopt some of Labor's policies like the People Swap and the NBN. Or we could have kept Labor and forced them to abandon the Carbon Tax or whatever other permutation you wish to eventuate. That's the thing, it'd be up to us instead of the party rooms opposing policies 'just because it's the other lot's and fuck them'.
Well to be fair to the Swiss they still have a parliament, they still make laws the normal way through representation..It's just that the people have a chance to overrule their leaders should they go against their wishes to an extent it motivates them to action.
In no other capitalist country in the world can you actually get close to implementing a law where the most you can earn is a ratio of the lowest paid, in no other country can you break the power of CEOs and devolve company power to the shareholders as they did last year in a very successful referendum. Another interesting feature is that the campaign to keep power vested with executives spent 8 million in the campaign as opposed to 200k and still lost. Just showing what a mature and responsible society they are.
Far from being an example of how terrible it is, to me it's an example of how incredible it is. I wish we as the Australian people could force the government to do certain things about our immigration policy. Imagine a referendum on stopping the secrecy surrounding the current government's operation? A referendum on off-shore processing? The Malaysian People swap solution? We could pick and chose our policies based on the best policy instead of having to change the government en masse to do so.
We could for example have a Liberal Government and force them to adopt some of Labor's policies like the People Swap and the NBN. Or we could have kept Labor and forced them to abandon the Carbon Tax or whatever other permutation you wish to eventuate. That's the thing, it'd be up to us instead of the party rooms opposing policies 'just because it's the other lot's and fuck them'.
Well to be fair to the Swiss they still have a parliament, they still make laws the normal way through representation..It's just that the people have a chance to overrule their leaders should they go against their wishes to an extent it motivates them to action.
In no other capitalist country in the world can you actually get close to implementing a law where the most you can earn is a ratio of the lowest paid, in no other country can you break the power of CEOs and devolve company power to the shareholders as they did last year in a very successful referendum. Another interesting feature is that the campaign to keep power vested with executives spent 8 million in the campaign as opposed to 200k and still lost. Just showing what a mature and responsible society they are.
JesseEwiak
Member
Because your average Swiss, Australian, American, or Chinese person has no idea how much immigration to be limited or even, shock, that limiting immigration would be a good thing for the country in the long run.
"Yeah, it's incredible. Direct democracy. Imagine if they had it back during the 60's in the Jim Crow South. Some state might've given black people all their civil rights. Other might've let them vote, but only in local races. Even other states would've reintroduced slavery. But that's OK. Because the people would've voted and that's the most important thing."
Cool, you mean every person was required to vote and pass a test to show they fully understood ramifications of said referendum? Oh wait, no they didn't. Dang. Guess it wasn't really a true pure vote on the policy then.
Unless you're a Muslim wanting to build a miranet. Then for some reason, all the maturity and responsibility vanishes. Hmm, wonder why?
Yes, they left it up to their government to determine the rate. They just want it reduced. I don't really give a shit if it's good or bad according to your own agenda. That's what they want, that's what they get.
Pure conjecture.
No because the Swiss are not an elitist society. They don't have a standing committee of self-interested people making sure people will vote their way before they allow them to vote.
JesseEwiak
Member
Actual history. George Wallace had the same political positions on everything except segregation in two gubenatorial races. He lost the one where he didn't heavily stand beside segregation. He easily won once he changed his tune.
There's reason why it took the National Guard to let seven black kids into an all white high school and it sure wasn't the elitists in power.
Direct democracy isn't some cure all. In some cases, not letting the people get what they want is a fantastic thing that protects the rights of minorities and the down trodden.
"Those elitists at the medical board want me to know how to actually do a surgical procedure before licensing me. Boo to that!"
I know more want the average person deciding public policy that I want the average person fixing my broken leg, making sure the power plant is running correctly, or analyzing national security documents. If that makes me an elitist, so be it.
Rudds not that popular in griffith. Most people have wanted him gone for a while. He's really done little for the local area. He was always more interested in what being a poli could get him.
I know he lost the popular vote last time, and got in on preferences.
And again with Buttler.
And i'm not sure he would have got in the time before, if it weren't for preferences either.
It used to be a labor dominated seat / area, but its changing.
Man this thread would be so dull and uninteresting without Arksy. Never leave us man.
I dunno, some of those dates for women's suffrage in Switzerland are pretty damning.
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A More Normal Bird
Unconfirmed Member
Well, the Toyota announcement today gave the following as reasons: the exchange rate, the openness and fragmented nature of the car market and the conditions of existing and impending free trade agreements. Cost of manufacturing was also in there, so I guess you'd agree with the Coalition figures coming out and saying that it was IR policy that led to this decision?
I should clarify that I'm not going to try and break down which policies (or lack thereof) caused what % of decrease in Australia's manufacturing sector. My main problem with your previous post was that it took an unfounded ideological hypothesis (that the private sector would create full employment if it wasn't constrained, something that I don't think has ever happened anywhere) and then extended that into reasoning for a real world occurrence (the decline of Australian manufacturing). Even if you believe that Australia's manufacturing sector has shrunk vastly more than that of other nations did, you can't not mention the massive worldwide trend it was a part of.
As for your examples, I can't comment on England because I'm not in a position to. For Canada, I don't have figures on hand, but IIRC manufacturing went from being ~30% of GDP to <15% today. Maybe not as sharp a decline as Australia, but not exactly a different league. It's also benefited from being a socialist paradise on the USA's doorstep, allowing companies to outsource production there without having to pay for their workers' healthcare or the like whilst maintaining proximity. I'd have to agree with the general proposition put forward by Tommy DJ and others that the problem here isn't so much what the Government has done, but what it hasn't, though the idea may be anathema to you.
My two cents on the future? Well,as you said there's always the abundance of natural resources. Unfortunately uranium seems to be even more toxic politically than it is environmentally and with everything else the attitude seems to be that Australia should see as little benefit from the sale of our resources as possible. More seriously though, Australia is a large and exceptionally developed economy/society, with fingers in a lot of pies. As long as we don't do something stupid like enter a monetary union, totally destroy the environment or persist with austerity I'm relatively optimistic, but then again two cents isn't even legal tender so I wouldn't place much stock in it.
no browns allowed
Austerity is what's happening. The end of entitlement is another way of saying austerity. The storm that is the GFC is still with us. All these subsidy cuts are the equivalent of winding down the engines on the ship. It's leaving us increasingly exposed to the turmoil of the world economy. Private industry is too decentralised to counter the waves. It's like expecting everyone in unison to shift sides of the boat to offset the waves. We could fluke it, but damn it's risky and we're just as likely to exacerbate the problem. Abbott has also said repeatedly this is going to be a harsh budget.
In a few years once the economic waters are calm again, then we can start putting the pressure back on private enterprise with subsidy cuts. It's basic Keynesian economics, something the Libs used to be for.
Dastardly Jerks
Banned
When I worked for Toyota 6 months ago, they had a 5 year plan which resulted in them staying in Australia.
I wonder what changed between now and then...
I wonder what changed between now and then...
Shorten said something similar about Holden in parliament. Only the time frame was even shorter, like a couple of days.
On the question as to whether we should be subsidising the car industries to stay here when they're grossly unprofitable is something I kind of have mixed feelings on myself...meaning I could probably be swayed one way or another.
Like on the one hand, it's such a shock to have what will probably be 100,000 people out of work within a short period of time. Some of those will probably start businesses, come up with cool new products and innovate but Australia has never been known for its industriousness. Something I believe is a half a consequence of culture and half a consequence of our highly constrained economy. We could argue about the reasons all night and day but the fact of the matter is, if we're not an industrious economy those people will probably not be better off and it will take a longer time for our economy to regain the same level of productivity.
But on the other, let's be real, no one is really buying those big cars, they're not that great (The Camry in particular is utter tripe). Chances are closure was inevitable. They're leaving because they're unprofitable and it's kind of unfair to be giving our tax money so that people with bad businesses can stay afloat. The majority of subsidy money goes to the companies, not it's workers who the money is aimed at supporting.
There's also the fact that having a national car industry is incredibly important for security reasons because such factories can quickly become re-purposed to produce munitions, parts for tanks, or whatever else in a time of crisis.
I could go on for a good half an hour about the reasons I'm torn one way or another on these developments..but I won't.
Like on the one hand, it's such a shock to have what will probably be 100,000 people out of work within a short period of time. Some of those will probably start businesses, come up with cool new products and innovate but Australia has never been known for its industriousness. Something I believe is a half a consequence of culture and half a consequence of our highly constrained economy. We could argue about the reasons all night and day but the fact of the matter is, if we're not an industrious economy those people will probably not be better off and it will take a longer time for our economy to regain the same level of productivity.
But on the other, let's be real, no one is really buying those big cars, they're not that great (The Camry in particular is utter tripe). Chances are closure was inevitable. They're leaving because they're unprofitable and it's kind of unfair to be giving our tax money so that people with bad businesses can stay afloat. The majority of subsidy money goes to the companies, not it's workers who the money is aimed at supporting.
There's also the fact that having a national car industry is incredibly important for security reasons because such factories can quickly become re-purposed to produce munitions, parts for tanks, or whatever else in a time of crisis.
I could go on for a good half an hour about the reasons I'm torn one way or another on these developments..but I won't.
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A More Normal Bird
Unconfirmed Member
No disagreement here, which is why I said persist. My initial expectation after the troll job that was their election costings was that they'd wait a year or two before bringing out the sharpened implements but I'm now being rapidly disabused of that notion. Three years of "government must live within its means" will be very damaging, but it won't be utterly irreversible. However if we get two or more terms of Abbott/Hockey, followed by a Labor government too afraid to mention the word deficit, things might get grim.
There are huge problems in just letting 3 manufacturing plants shut down. Not just in the sense that 100k people will now be out of work. These people wont be paying as much tax for a while. Many of them will be on centrelink. Many of them will require counseling. The local economy around the factories will take a huge hit. Crime in these areas will spike. The cost of dealing with crime in these areas will increase.
The long term price of these factory closures will be significantly greater than the short term cost of keeping them here would have been.
The main reason Holden and Toyota are closing up shop is because we pay our the workers at these factories too much. It increases the price of the cars they make and make them uncompetitive. Especially so here when the government decided to lower tariffs on imported cars. Why buy Australian when a European import is cheaper and does the job just as well?
Really both sides of government should have seen this coming, and prepared for it. 20 years ago they should have done something about the high wages of auto manufacturing workers to keep us competitive on a domestic and international scale...or 5 years ago they should have implemented a transition plan for automotive industry employees.
bobnowhere
Member
I have to agree with a lot of this. We should have, need, a car industry but we were blessed with 3-4 pretty terrible examples of it. This isn't something that has happened overnight, but over the last 30+ years.
We made cars people in Australia barely wanted and no one outside of it had any interest in. Ford was completely terrible and made no real effort to export, probably had a lot to do with detroit though. Holden tried at least to sell police cars to the US and force Commodores upon the middle east with limited success. Toyota started to think outside of the box with it's hybrid range but again produced the same cars other cheaper factories made and tried to export them.
As much as I despise Abbott, it isn't his fault, it's not Labor's fault. The fault lies with the companies who have, let's face it, used the Australian Government as a cash cow while they developed newer cheaper manufacturing plants overseas.
If there is any fault with government, it lies in the lack of vision under the Howard Government. Every man and their dog saw the change in direction to smaller more fuel efficient cars, just look at the sales charts. Howard and Costello could have forced more conditions upon the cash handouts, develop smaller and more importantly unique cars for export and put money into alternate fuels but instead they allowed the companies to keep going up the river.
But anyway, let's face it, there was not Australian automotive industry, The American and Japanese industries just had factories here. They made all the decisions.
The growing unemployment rate combined with rising debt will kill them. You're right though, it's going to be very difficult to explain how spending will fix the problem of unemployment and that debt isn't important on it's own.
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