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PREMIER Jay Weatherill has asked GM Holden to leave SA a multi-million dollar “community fund” when it closes its Elizabeth plant in 2017. The Pulse has the details.

PREMIER Jay Weatherill has asked General Motors Holden to leave South Australia a multi-million dollar parting gift when it closes its Elizabeth manufacturing plant in 2017.

Mr Weatherill has used a meeting with GM officials in Detroit to implore the carmaker to give the state a $5 million “community fund” as an “act of goodwill”. It came as Mr Weatherill confirmed the State Government was not considering buying the plant itself and turning it into an industrial hub like it did with the former Mitsubishi site at Tonsley. Mr Weatherill met with GM bosses at the company’s headquarters at about midnight, SA time. He said his request for a community fund was not immediately granted. “It wasn’t agreed to on the spot but it would be negotiated,” he said. “A contribution of that sort would be not unreasonable to ask for.” Details on the proposed fund, such as who it would target and how it would be distributed, were yet to be determined. “It would be something that we would to discuss with the local community,” Mr Weatherill said. He said Holden’s plans for the site may not be known until the plant shut late next year but proposals from logistics, transport and car manufacturing companies were being considered. “It’s a big site so there’s no reason it couldn’t be used for multiple uses,” he said. “We don’t want it just used as a storage facility. “We want it to have a strong, job-creating, economic future.” Mr Weatherill also put a proposal to GM to create a world-class driverless car technology hub at the Philip Highway site and said discussions on the idea would continue. The hub would be modeled on Mcity - a unique facility in Michigan which uses a fake city to test driverless car technology. Mr Weatherill said he gained assurances from the carmaker that it would continue to provide its workers with training and career advice, which they could access during work hours, in the lead up to the local plant’s closure. He also discussed redundancy package arrangements. Following the meeting, Mr Weatherill told The Advertiser he did not believe the government would replicate its Tonsley development at the Elizabeth plant. “There’s no proposal around that at the moment,” he said. The Premier was in Detroit as part of a nine-day trade mission to the US, during which he also visited Pittsburgh to look at driverless cars. The closure of Holden’s Elizabeth plant is expected to result in 13,000 job losses across the company and its supply chain. The government released its Northern Economic Plan to cushion the blow of the move in January. The plan aimed to create 15,000 jobs over 10 years. Read our live blog below for all the details.

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