BEN FORDHAM:
Good morning to you, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Ben.
BEN FORDHAM:
On the night you became Prime Minister Mr Abbott, you said Australia is open for business. Yesterday, Holden said we’re bailing out – what do you say?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s a very sad day Ben, and it is particularly sad obviously for the workers, for their families and for the communities that are impacted – very, very sad. The difficulty I suppose is that not enough people here in Australia have in recent times been buying the Holdens that we make here, they have been buying plenty of GM product but they haven’t been buying enough commodores and that is the tragedy for GMH here in Australia.
BEN FORDHAM:
Prime Minister, were you warned last week that this news was coming?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think we have been expecting something like this for some time. Obviously Mitsubishi pulled out of Australia a few years back, Ford announced a year or so back that they were closing down in 2016, Holden have been sending signals for some time that there were difficulties, and look, this is tragic, it really is. This is the last thing anyone wants. I have said, other Prime Ministers have been saying up hill and down dale that we want to be a country that makes things and we want to keep the motor industry in this country but as the head of Holden said yesterday, they have been hit by a perfect storm; a high dollar, high costs and small markets.
BEN FORDHAM:
You can’t guarantee that Toyota isn’t headed in the same direction? Can you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ben, I’ll be talking to Toyota. I spoke to Mr Yasuda of Toyota last night, as I spoke to Mike Devereux this morning. Obviously the Government will be talking to Toyota. We want Toyota to continue. They are in a slightly different position to Holden; much more of their local production has been for export. Toyota locally have been much more integrated into the global operations of the company, it seems, than with Holden.
BEN FORDHAM:
Mr Abbott, were you really trying to keep Holden in Australia, because your critics say that you were doing the opposite, you were in fact trying to push them out, based on all of the money that taxpayers have thrown at Holden over the years? Your Treasurer, Joe Hockey, stood up in Question Time two days ago and was practically goading the Holden bosses to say ‘put up or shut up, are you or are you out?’. Was that the right approach? Were you genuinely trying to get them to stay on?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ben, the last thing that we ought to do is play politics here. We don’t want to play the blame game. On the other hand, we don’t want to pedal false hope either.
What we need to be focussing now is a strategic plan that builds on our country’s strengths. We have great strengths in many areas, including manufacturing, but it’s got to be manufacturing for the kind of profitable markets that we can make the most of, and that’s what the Government’s going to be focussed on in the days and weeks ahead.
BEN FORDHAM:
Most importantly on a morning like this, Prime Minister, the Holden workers who were delivered that news in the factory behind me yesterday in Adelaide and also in Port Melbourne, what’s going to happen to those workers? What can you do for them?
PRIME MINISTER:
This is shattering news for them obviously, particularly for those who have been at the plant for a long, long time. I know that Holden will look after those workers. They certainly won’t be sent out onto the street in three years’ time with nothing. That is not how Holden will treat people.
What the Government needs to ensure is that they are transitioning from one job to another, and that’s what we’re going to be working on in the days and weeks ahead.
BEN FORDHAM:
We wish you well with it Prime Minister Tony Abbott, thank you very much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you so much.
[ends]