From the SMH:
Thousands of Holden workers are expecting to find out their fate on Tuesday morning, many weeks after their US head office in Detroit decided to cut them adrift.
Holden managing director Mike Devereux appears before the Productivity Commission on Tuesday and many within the car industry believe he will use the occasion to tell them that time has run out for the motoring giant.
If Holden pulls out, Toyota Australia, which employs 4200 people directly, is likely to follow suit because component suppliers for both companies would become unviable.
It comes as a government figure revealed there was no support for extra assistance for the car manufacturing sector within the federal government with just one minister out of 19, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, arguing the case to keep the quintessentially Australian carmaker afloat.
A Holden company source said that local management had received a stay of execution while the attitude of the newly elected Coalition government had become clearer. That time has now passed and an announcement of the company’s intention to depart could come as early as Tuesday.
During the GFC, the US bailed out Chrysler. It did so to avert what would have been a potential depression as the rest of its economy reeled. I agree with Leith that letting car manufacturing go now, as we head into the greatest business investment slump in one hundred years, is unwise.
