Should the Australian Government support local car manufacturers?

[sleekism]

A lot of threads seemed to have touched on the subject but it would be interesting to see what peoples general opinion is.

Traditionally I believe local car makers were guaranteed 80% of the market and there was high tariffs on imports but this has given away to a laisse fairez policy where tariffs are virtually non existant and imports make up 80% of cars sold.

A lot of people seem to be of the opinion that the local makers should be left to fend for themselves and that the Government should not waste money on them but I believe these are ignorant comments. I mean how many billions are spent propping up inefficient agriculture?

I mean Farmers get lots of tax breaks, special government grants and the use of Government land for little or no charge as well as a million other subsidies that the taxpayer funds.

I mean if there was a REAL free market then how many farmers would be around?

In a lot of cases it would be cheaper to buy food from overseas and seeing the impact that a lot of bad practices has had on soil quality, the environment and water resources we would be better off not subsidising agriculture.

It's not just agriculture either the Government goes to a lot of trouble looking after the mining industry and I have heard that the Government actually subsidises Coal by a substantial amount so as to make it globally competitive so in fact no money is made from it's export and some old mines have cost a substantial more to clean up from the Government then was ever made from it.

Other nations are intensely protective of their local industry with an example being the US where they have received cash bailouts and Japan which made it extremely difficult for imports to compete.

The local car industry has a useful part of Australia for a long time and it's a testament to it's ability that we still have the Falcon and Commodore despite high petrol prices, low tariffs, a strong Australian dollar, weak Japanese yen and a buying public who are too up themselves to buy Australian made and seem to think that anything made in Australia will give them leprosy and anything that is perceived to be a Japanese or European brand even though it was probably made in Lithuania or South Africa was hand picked by God himself.

My 2 cents :