I’m disappointed but not surprised by today’s announcement that the Commonwealth, Victorian and SA Governments will dole out an additional $275 million to Holden. It continues our ridiculous effort to buy ourselves a car industry – at a cost of many billions of dollars – even though our domestic market is too small to support the scale of operations that is necessary to produce cars that are internationally competitive.

According to the Australian (Holden wins taxpayer funded aid deal) GM would have pulled out of Australia by 2016 without the assistance. Well we should let them and cut our losses. Instead, our Governments are like a pathetic lover trying to keep hold of a now uninterested partner by showering them with gifts.

Previous posts of mine on car industry assistance include:

Recommended reading on the car industry

Time to cut our losses on industry assistance