Holden will perish under a Liberal govt, BMW boss claims

The future looks bleak for auto manufacturing operations in Australia, claims BMW Group Australia Managing Director Phil Horton.

If the Liberal Party wins the upcoming election, it will be the death of Holden in Australia, Horton says. “With a Coalition government, the writing is on the wall for Holden,” Horton told Fairfax Media.

According to Horton, a Coalition government will spell the end for Holden as no more subsidies will be supplied to keep the manufacturer afloat in Australia.

Ford has already announced it will cease local manufacturing operations in 2016.

“It makes no logical sense for Ford and Holden to have a manufacturing operation in a country like Australia,” Horton said.

“There are some massive economic factors that you just can’t get away from: we are a very, very long way from anywhere else and, right at the moment, even though the dollar has weakened, it’s still a very expensive place on a worldwide basis to do anything.

“It’s a very expensive place to take things out of the ground and it’s a very expensive place for a worldwide car company to make cars. You also have the extra dimension of people like Hyundai making very good cars.”

It’s not all bad for local car manufacturing according to Horton, however. He says Toyota may find a way to survive. “Manufacturing’s what Toyota does, so they’re across that issue,” Horton said. “And they’ve got much more standardisation of parts so they could make it work somehow.”