11 December 2013

No more white Commodores

11 December 2013 | johnboy

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The Deputy Prime Minister has just informed the House that Holden will be closing Australian operations by 2017.

For the many, many Canberrans who have enjoyed the antics of white Commodore drivers over the years it is a black day.

What will take its place?

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Holden Caulfield12:01 am 13 Dec 13

poetix said :

So what will be racing at Bathurst in ten years?

‘Won’t someone think of the mountain?’

V8SC is a farce. GT3 cars are where it’s at: http://bathurst12hour.com.au/

poetix10:38 pm 12 Dec 13

So what will be racing at Bathurst in ten years?

‘Won’t someone think of the mountain?’

Antagonist10:02 pm 12 Dec 13

minkshaman said :

You’ve never actually been on newstart have you? It’s not called “no-start” for nothing.

$501 a fortnight is next to worthless, good luck reskilling with that.
Rather than cutting the entirely inadequate dole payment, how about stopping the massive rort of the new start job agencies.
Or better yet, cut them entirely and give some sort of learning credits or something. Or provide a way for them to get free training in something that will get work.

On the current newstart payment, you barely afford food and rent, let alone CIT payments.

Bulldust! My Carer Payment is very close to that amount. And on top of my full-time carer responsibilities, I still manage to pay rent, buy food, clothe myself, run and register a car, support my children AND balance a full-time university study load. And guess what? The sky is not falling. Fancy that!

As Joe Hockey keeps asking: Where was the outrage when Mitsubishi and Ford pulled the plug ??? The gravy train is over for Holden. Go cry me a river, Blubberboy.

Spiral8:12 pm 12 Dec 13

Most dipstick white crapadore drivers have second hand ones so they will probably continue to dominate for years until most have been destroyed during police chases.

When it comes to moron aggressive drivers the Subaru WRX seems to be increasingly popular especially as there are heaps of second hand ones now.

The Subaru Forester has taken over from the Volvo as the car of choice for people who can’t find the accelerator and like to travel way below the speed limit while remaining oblivious to the traffic chaos they cause.

The small VWs also seem to be carving out a niche as the car of choice for bad drivers, apparently preferred by those who don’t want the hoon tag of the wrx but still have failed to master even the basics of driving skills.

minkshaman7:32 pm 12 Dec 13

CraigT said :

It’s perfectly simple: instead of giving out handouts to Holden which are then used to subsidise dividend payouts for foreign “investors”, it’s the *government* that needs to be doing the investment.

We don’t need to call it “nationalisation”, because that probably won’t play very well to the right-wing looney-tunes that control every aspect of our mass media.
We can call it “research” and “job-creation schemes”.
We simply use government money to build a 21st-century car manufacturing plant. We then lease it to Holden for a nominal fee.

The building of said carplant will protect (or, more accurately, develop) Australian skills in high-tech, and the fact it was paid for by govenrment will ensure Holden’s margins allow them to continue selling Australian-built cars.

And if they ever cry poor again, instead of handouts, we offer to buy them out and run it as a government business.

In the meantime, the dole needs to be severely trimmed from its ridiculously generous current levels, and similarly the massively-rorted disability benefits needs a complete overhaul, presumably thus shedding 80% of its rorting bludger fake-disabled in the process as happened in the UK.
This should depress wages, making us more competitive.

If we’re feeling sensible, we will then also legislate to tie executive and Director pay levels to worker pay levels. The “if we can’t get decent pay, we’ll just go overseas” crowd can be invited to $#@% off and mis-manage some foreign corporations while cheap executives and directors come onboard to make these local companies even more competitive.

If I ran this country, I’d have it sorted in about 5 years. We’d get good autobahns, but we’d probably have to do away with the media and certainly have to ban all morons from voting. Have a Latin-speaking test to qualify for voting should see us right.

You’ve never actually been on newstart have you? It’s not called “no-start” for nothing.

$501 a fortnight is next to worthless, good luck reskilling with that.
Rather than cutting the entirely inadequate dole payment, how about stopping the massive rort of the new start job agencies.
Or better yet, cut them entirely and give some sort of learning credits or something. Or provide a way for them to get free training in something that will get work.

On the current newstart payment, you barely afford food and rent, let alone CIT payments.

Reprobate3:12 pm 12 Dec 13

You can’t kill a VN Commodore with a stick.

Agreed, though a stick is a bad tool to try and kill any car. Most VN drivers, however, are perfect car-killing tools.

Nail1:52 pm 12 Dec 13

Queen_of_the_Bun said :

Antagonist said :

“What will take its place?”

Hilux driving soccer mums?

I think the black Audi has already replaced the white Commodore as the major menace on the roads.

That’s funny, I don’t remember reading any police reports where the alleged offender was driving a black Audi. Seeing as this is where the white commodore joke was born I would have thought black Audi’s might have started to cop a mention if they have, as you say, replaced the white commodore as the major menace on our roads.

HiddenDragon12:07 pm 12 Dec 13

johnboy said :

Well, in all seriousness.

The country has sleep walked into a knife fight on currency depreciation. Germany is torturing southern europe to depress the euro and the brit, japanese and americans are printing money to devalue their currencies.

A high dollar in a high wage economy is death to manufactured exports but it appears we prefer cheap holidays in Bali and why wouldn’t we?

The strategic reasons to have a car industry are largely gone.

Unless we also prop up (and perhaps we should) the robotics and silicon industries, to make the whole tool chain, just bashing cars together with rubber mallets and bolting the colour coded components together does not a self-sufficient nation make.

Sleep-walking into the currency knife-fight is just the latest instance of economic naivete on the part of our leaders and their advisors – the proceeds from the mining boom have kept a gloss on it, but that gloss is wearing increasingly thin and it’s difficult to see anything other than tougher times, with constrained living standards for most.

MERC60010:10 am 12 Dec 13

Queen_of_the_Bun said :

Antagonist said :

“What will take its place?”

Hilux driving soccer mums?

I think the black Audi has already replaced the white Commodore as the major menace on the roads.

I reckon your right about Audi. Was looking for a replacement car and Audi was suggested.
Then noticed how many on the road. Bigmobs of them. Anyway got another Ford ..

Deref8:26 am 12 Dec 13

CraigT said :

It’s perfectly simple: instead of giving out handouts to Holden which are then used to subsidise dividend payouts for foreign “investors”, it’s the *government* that needs to be doing the investment.

We don’t need to call it “nationalisation”, because that probably won’t play very well to the right-wing looney-tunes that control every aspect of our mass media.

+1. And fuggem – nationalise it and call a spade a spade.

Now we wait for the “government-owned car makers/airlines could never be successful” posts.

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