Bailing out the Biggins

joe6pack Uncategorized


ford

Ford Australia announced that they are going to shut up shop in 2016.

There has been much anguish in the media and from blogs about how bad this is.

Everything and everyone has been blamed from the Carbon tax ,tariffs Government etc.

Ford are closing shop because they have failed (IN AUS at least) to keep up with the changing car market.

Not Many people these days want a big gas guzzling V8 or even a V6 that are more expensive, less fuel efficient and less well built than what you get from overseas markets and sold next door in dealerships and sometimes by the same dealerships.

I am mainly talking about cars that come from Asia now.

The stigma that Asian cars are somehow inferior is well and truly in the past. They are well-built, efficient, comfortable, and mainly much cheaper.

In effect, with the Asian cars you get very good value for your dollar. Stick with an Aussie build and you are paying for the name and get an inferior product.

We must face up to the fact that we do live in a global world now. People know it and spend their money wisely on what they get for their dollar – not some patriotic rubbish about buying Australian.

Buy Australian by all means if the product is as good and the same or close to quality but I am not going to buy a dearer, inferior product just because it is Australian .

So Ford announces in a very roundabout way that they are going to close manufacturing in Australia in 2016.

Approximately 1600 people will lose their jobs.

Sad, but at least they have had warning – and if past experiences are anything to go by, those workers will be offered incentives (i.e. cash) to stay with the company until it does close. Otherwise, everyone will be looking for another job and Ford may close earlier than expected due to lack of staff .

At least they have gotten a fair amount of warning that they are going to be out of work,

What about the people that turn up to their factory and find the gates locked by administrators? Or the bloke out driving long distance who gets a phone call 2000 ks from home saying you can go as far as what fuel you have left then find your own way home as the fuel cards will no longer work?

Where is the public angst ,media outrage and the political promises for these poor people?

Where is the cash for “retraining”? The counsellors to help them through? The extra payments so the PM or whoever is in power looks like they care?

The big companies when they go bust get all the media. But no one seems to care about the little companies.

This a failing of both major parties – Labor and the Coalition – and the announcement by the PM that the government is going to throw millions at 1600 workers that at least have 3 years before they are out of work is vote buying at its most obvious.

Doesn’t matter if it is Labor or the Libs – it is still wrong.

Both Ford and General Motors (the American owners of Holden) have sussed out that Australia is no longer a viable, profitable market for them.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

In my little way I used to buy exclusively American equipment, but have now purchased a European vehicle and am kicking myself that I didn’t buy one sooner.

Ingrained prejudices in industries are hard to break, but government bailing out old useless industries should stop.

1,140 thoughts on “Bailing out the Biggins”

  1. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Indonesian President came out once and for all and just said, “We will not take back boats. End of story.”

  2. Of course!..I get it…The opp’n want Rudd back because they know Gillard can and has beaten Abbott in even a weighted election..so they have to get Rudd back…now get this…: because Murdoch has some dirt on Rudd that he knows would bring him down….They have nothing more to throw at the PM., but they have plenty to throw at Rudd!……you remember the strip joint in NY.?…I’ll bet they have much more.

  3. Can someone help me? Who was that poor female Labor pollie slaughtered by the media as an example of what Joel was saying was in his pointer sheet?

  4. Evening all. For those of you who would like a laugh before bedtime, I bring you Trollus Failus, courtesy of some clown over the road:

    I’m as left-wing as they come. I’ll be putting Greens first, but preferencing Liberals above Labor.

    I want to see Labor destroyed, so it can be re-born as a genuine progressive party, instead of being an introspective, backstabbing, faction-driven morass.

    Gillard was put in place by Conroy, Shorten and Farrell, and her leadership has been characterised by that illegitimacy. The big-picture of the Hawke/Keating years was absent. Even Rudd’s limited vision seems like a golden age of policy development in comparison. Her performance as PM was poll-driven and workmanlike. Gillard rarely seemed to have the confidence to lead, because she always knew she had been put in place by the factional bosses, and was their plaything.

    Had a genuine, progressive leader been in charge, I’d be out there handing out voting cards come election day. However, I can’t support factionalism, and I can’t stand the way Gillard has driven Labor into the ground, destroying everything it stands for, just to help her puppet masters cling on to power a little longer.

    The comedy just writes itself with the Liberals and their hubris. 😆

  5. Another bit of legislation passes 71-70. Dutton’s amendments were voted down

    PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE AMENDMENT (LIFETIME HEALTH COVER LOADING AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2012

  9. shadylady51,

    Uhlmann’s attempts at “historical fiction” really are pathetic with the music and shonky edits. This is supposed to be political reporting??!!

    High Camp Today Tonight for the supposed AB demographic.

  10. “As I say, Uhlmann misrepresented Caucus morale with those camera shots.”

    This bloke is so compromised and so is Adams. Not the P.M., who should lose her job, but these most biased ABC employees who wish to be players, at taxpayer expense.

  11. Another bit of legislation passes 71-70. Dutton’s amendments were voted down

    Dutton’s alive?

    Did someone put a hand mirror in front of his face to check for fogging?

  13. THEY ARE LOSING!…They want Rudd so they can destroy him!
    They will have one hell of a fight on their hands with the PM., who makes a fool of the LOTO every time he comes up against her…and NOW she is toughter!
    No!…Murdoch has no confidence in his “man” Abbott…HE is paying the piper, HE is calling the shots!…HE wants a loser on the dias so he can spring a scandal on the ALP.

    THAT is their game!…The LNP. is on a loser!

  14. THAT could explain why all shadow ministers are gagged!….This was their one big play…to get Gillard replaced by Rudd. That would kill Labor from the inside, the women’s vote, the gender thing and any legitimacy!
    Murdoch wants Rudd in the driver’s seat. He has no confidence in Tabbott! He only trusts his own judgement.

  15. It’s obvious what the latest tactic from the Noposition is. A real, dinky di ‘Institutional Go Slow’. Amendments to every last bit of legislation. Disallowance Motions. Attempts to Suspend Standing Orders. MPIs. Divisions. Quorum calling. Phantom No Confidence Motions. You-bloody-name it. Every trick in the Standing Orders book. Just to frustrate the government and make them look as dysfunctional as they say they are. However, do you think the Press Gallery, whose bleedin’ job it is supposed to be to hold both sides of politics to account can be bothered doing their job?

    No wuckin fay!

    There job has simply become, hanging on to their job.

    Jellybacks the lot of them and overindulged petals. Mere caricatures of journalists.

    Even The Guardian Australia has fallen for the 2 Card Monte trick from Julie Bishop in it’s first week on the cab rank.

    Julie Bishop said this….she didn’t say it(by Press Release from her office)…
    she did so to, from The Guardian(here, let’s reprint more of the bloody interview and take up valuable space and time we should be spending analysing the Coalition lack of coherent policy with quibbling)…..oh no I didn’t mean that, I meant something else…….but,but,but Ms Bishop, you said this!……….but, but, but The Guardian Australia that doesn’t mean that, it means this….but Ms Bishop it sounded like the other thing……well, The Guardian, us high falutin’ diplomats actually say one thing and mean another! Didn’t you realise that?

    Sheesh!

    The Federal Coalition. Masters of the Runaround.

  16. The Guardian story at least buried the furphy thaqt the Coalition had done some kind of secret deal with Indonesia.

    They went out of their way to plead they were only the Opposition, and hence couldn’t do any deals – secret or otherwise – at all.

    Schmucks.

  17. It’s obvious what the latest tactic from the Noposition is. A real, dinky di ‘Institutional Go Slow’.

    They’re the putative govt after all. Just waiting to step into the breach. Isn’t that how the narrative goes?

    Stupid, useless, gormless media!

  19. I know this is going to come across as a bit of a conspiracy theory, but I remembered the other day (yes one of my disconnected musings, sorry) but the Australia network is now part of the ABC network. The Australia network’s value is highly sought after by Mr Murdoch.

    If the LNP get in here is what I think will happen. Mark Scott will carve each of the entities up. Certain Ltd News employees will be awarded cushy head of new entity jobs. They will dismember all the bits that have no commercial value and the rest will be subsumed (by govt sale by tender) into fox’s wally world network for a modest sum.

    Costello’s Confected Crises Audit for Dodgy politicians will deem the fraudband version too expensive to actually build and will be flogged off to Rupert for a song. Rupert having the rights to the pits & ducts now has control of the network. He will build his own version of NBN controlling everything commercial on it. Cutting third parties in for a hefty cut of the revenue earned.

    Think I am nuts?

  22. I, more than most, probably don’t understand what is going on. However, consider this;

    NDIS = helping disabled kids, and their parents.

    School kids bonus, delivered when it’s needed = easing both finacial pressure on parents, but, importantly, also allieviates peer pressure on children.

    Higher pay for childcare workers = quality, caring, capable people looking after your kids while you work.

    BER = First rate school enviroment. Safe buildings, safe playgrounds.

    Gonski reforms = Nationwide curriculum. If the children are moved interstate, they aren’t penalised by a curriculum they don’t understand.

    Computers in schools = tech savvy kids. Confident and prepared to think outside the box, using a purpose built broadband network.

    Murray Darling = the system that helped build the country. Living history that can be felt for generations.

    Solid relationships with Asian and Pacific neighbours = This is the future. These friendships will be forged , by both our and their exchange students, now.

    School Dental, plain packaging, less polluted air, superannuation. All of these things are geared to one group of Australians.

    The children.

    Forget about taxes, carbon or otherwise. Forget about disgruntled second raters. Forget about corrupt media practises, barely literate journalists, empty talking heads, with nice Do’s, at breakfast.
    They are of no importance. White noise.

    To me, this election will be about the future of the nations children. It wont be decided by vested interests. It’ll be decided by parents. Not punters, parents.

    Put your kids before the Libs?

  23. I’ve just taken the time to read through Tony Abbott’s Speech to the Faithful at the NSW State Party Conference from last weekend. Talk about a Holy Roller!

    Just so full of the most egregious misrepresentation of the truth of the things that have been done by the Labor government, and confronted by them and dealt with, that you could ever find.

  26. And I’d also lay bets on one of those cushy jobs being awarded to one Chris Kenny. That guy is on a promise. I think I have finally figured out what the promise is.

  28. confessions,

    The asbestos-riddled NBN plays beautifully into that.

    Turnbull’s continuing to push that barrow tonight on Lateline, isn’t he?

    You know, I listened to The World Today when I was out in the car at lunchtime. They had on a Professor of Occupational Health, who had spent 40 years specialising in Asbestosis and Mesothelioma.

    He said the chance of an asbestos fibre escaping from the cement it was encased in down in the pits, once torn up and placed above ground, was negligable. It’s his life’s work and reputation he is putting on the line there with that assessment, and he said the people in the houses, on whose lawns the asbestos concrete was placed after it was taken out of the pits, had absolutely nothing to fear from it.

    So, it’s a beat-up by the Murdoch media and the Opposition, in order to kill some effective Labor Members in Lindsay and Ballarat, essentially.

  29. spacekidette,
    The words, ‘impartial’ and ‘journalist’, are meaningless when it comes to Chris Kenny.

    Anyone who has been Alexander Downer’s Chief of Staff must be compromised.

  30. Ian,

    I agree. It really is forward thinking. Run the oppositions ‘vision’ it is repeal this, repeal that, destroy this, destroy that and the best of their vision for Australia is to sit on their hands and do nothing.

    Unless of course you are one of their key ‘sponsors’.

  32. c@t,

    I just think that, given the PM and her teams record of out thinking the opposition this is being set up. The LNP are already into a scandal driven ” beat up everything ” campaign. They haven’t paid any attention to the kids of the nation. Labor has..consistently…for over 3 years.

    Why enter into a tax shitfight? Why enter into a mining shitfight? The odds are weighed against the Government.

    As I see it, the best way to turn things around is to pick your own ground to fight on. One where you know the terrain. What’s solid, what’s not. Very much as NormanK and Bushfire have been saying.

    Challenge Murdoch, through Abbott and the LNP, to devalue the worth of the nations children…..if he’s game.

  33. The Liberals had to run with asbestos. They’re clean out of ideas, and they’re willing to grab onto anything they can. We saw their efforts last week to beat up an asylum seeker issue – the Egyptian guy – into a national security crisis. They’ve failed utterly at that one. They gradually got themselves cornered into just blathering about the number of boats that have turned up, and they know that one’s a loser for them. The more they talk about it the worse it gets, until you have Mesma misrepresenting an entire other country.

    They must be thanking their lucky stars somebody found some asbestos in a pit. Now they can carry on as if the ALP put it there just to kill people (I assume that’s what they’re getting at with all those pink batts references). They’re slowly getting driven back on that one too, as their various assertions get shot down one by one. They’ve gone back to saying the ALP should have gone more slowly with the project now. I have no idea how that’s going to prevent the asbestos from being where it is, but I’m sure they know best. It should have been sorted out yesterday when Turnbull brought it up in QT. He got the answers he was looking for, but they weren’t the answers he wanted; too many facts in there. At any rate, the story ends there because the ALP brought it up with Telstra on a number of occasions and got their assurances and I think Shorten tabled all that yesterday. So it’s Telstra’s responsibility, totally clear cut, and they’re even taking responsibility for it.

    It wasn’t the end of the matter because the Coalition decided to just keeping talking about it as if no answers were provided. There’s your media breakdown. The story ends but the narrator keeps on talking. Story of this entire term.

    As I said, they have to talk about this because they’ve been cornered on topics to discuss. I have written a blog post about this, by the way. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with it, but I’ll offer it up if anyone can tell me how to go about it. It’s about a week and a half old, so I hope it’s not out of date.

  35. Everything required for the first day of data collection tomorrow is done – even unto my lunch.

    So I shall wish you all a good night, and look forward to a brief visit tomorrow evening.

    Take care, all.

  36. I agree about the LNP efforts of the last fortnight and more as being unusually chaotic/incoherent by their standards, but the problem as I see it is whether people who aren’t political junkies are going to get the chance to observe this lack of coherence. The media coverage just fixates on polls instead so every story is framed around ‘Gillard is doomed’, conveniently skipping the rest of the story.

  39. C@tmomma
    Just saw your comment about Slipper and Katter voting with the opposition and I have to disagree.

    Earlier tonight I said yhat I’d noticed they had both been voting with the opposition last week and this week. Since saying that there have been a few more votes and they have continued to support the opposition.
    It has nothing to do with their tender concern for fishing businesses and everything to do with their own self-interest. Both are trying to shore up conservative votes in their electorates. They will be able to put out campaign propaganda saying ‘I voted with the opposition x% of the time and with Labor only y%.

    Katter being there for so many votes is most unusual, he usually stays away when there are divisions. And Slipper – what can I say? after the way he’s been treated he’s still supporting the bastards and whatever shonky delaying tactics they are using this week.

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