Australian Manufacturing Industry - The Loss of Holden

I start by thanking the member for Grey for moving this motion, but I note that this is a motion that comes at the end of the very sad demise of Holden in Australia. Like millions of Australians, I learnt to drive in a Holden. My family weren't car-obsessed people, but the Commodore station wagon that I learnt to drive in, got my Ps in, did the job. I managed to scratch that car on a number of occasions, and I'll apologise once again to my mum and dad for the damage I did to the car while driving. But I did eventually learn those lessons, just as we in this place should learn the lesson from what has happened with Holden and what has happened with our manufacturing industry here in Australia, as we recover from the crisis we face currently.

As World War II escalated, Australia's supply chain came to a halt. Prime Minister Chifley knew that an Australian manufactured car was a necessity not just for economic recovery and sustainability but for our national confidence. Ben Chifley launched the production of the Australian made FX 48-215 in 1948. It didn't have quite the same branding genius as that behind 'JobKeeper' or 'HomeBuilder'! Nonetheless, it did the job. Holden Australia made 120,402 of these cars in just six years—a huge contribution to our postwar economic recovery and, equally, to our national manufacturing capability over the coming decades.

While we think of Holdens in more recent years as being manufactured in Victoria and South Australia, the truth is that for many decades these cars were assembled across Australia. Indeed, in 1926, the Holden assembly factory was opened in Mosman Park, in the then electorate of Fremantle. Much of the history of this Australian manufacturing site is captured by the Holden Retirees Club; I want to thank them for preserving this part of our national history. During World War II, its work was reallocated from building Australian cars to building planes and boats for the war effort; and, in its last three years of operation in the 1970’s, it was awarded best of the Holden assembly plants anywhere in Australia. The Canberra Times reported the closure as 'no surprise'. However, it did say that it had come 'suddenly and at the worst possible time for Western Australia', which had the highest unemployment in the country then. The site shut in 1972 and is now the home of Iona primary school, in the electorate of Curtin.

This year, for the first time in decades, many members have not come to parliament in an Australian made car. In every year that John Howard was Prime Minister, he travelled in a Holden Commodore. It was Prime Minister John Howard who said, in 2006, when he launched the expanded Holden facility in Elizabeth:

… we shouldn't lose sight of how important it is for us to maintain a manufacturing capacity and the successive policies of my government have been dedicated to that end.

Prime Minister Howard continued:

… this is no more so of course than we find in the motor manufacturing industry.

Just seven years later, that lesson had been well and truly lost when, on 9 December 2013, Treasurer Joe Hockey dared Holden to leave Australia. Sadly, that has come true. After 160 years, a company that existed before Federation ended on this government's watch. As the member for Grey's motion notes, some 9,000 jobs were lost through dealerships, 800 more jobs were lost in the shutting of the Holden operation and 950 jobs were lost when the plant at Elizabeth did close in 2017.

Sadly, there are some similarities ideologically between the demise of Holden and the snapback approach that we see to child care this week, between ripping away support from our car industry then and ripping away JobKeeper from the childcare industry now: industries with skilled workers essential to our economy and long-term careers, and sectors that have flow-on benefits to our economy. It is unbelievable that we continue to make similar mistakes in different sectors and different industries time and time again. And then we had the Prime Minister yesterday say to his party room that he would 'have to go out of his comfort zone to support manufacturing'.

I don't know what it is that is so uncomfortable about supporting Australian manufacturing that it would lead the Prime Minister of the day to say it is 'out of our comfort zone'. It says it all.

I'll finish by saying that, while the West Perth City Motors Holden site in my electorate no longer sells Holden vehicles, it is now home to Dismantle, a fabulous community social enterprise that helps young people fix bikes and continue their education.