Terry McCrann: Holden tears coming years too late

The time to mourn Holden was back in 2017 when the last real one rolled off the production line. That was when we lost the great Aussie car to the great industrial mausoleum in the sky, writes Terry McCrann.

Holden isn’t leaving Australia; Australia had long since left Holden.

The media and political hysteria over the announcement that General Motors would ditch the Holden brand was one of the weirdest I’ve ever seen; and over the years I’ve seen some beauties.

In 2020 all Holden is now is a badge. Would it have kept the Prime Minister happy if Holden had committed to keep making the badge — which buyers could then stick on anything they wanted?

Fridges, bedheads, whatever; even cars if they still wanted, whether cars bought from GM or any other maker? Such a Holden rebadged on, say, a Mazda, would be exactly as authentic as the supposedly “dinkum” rebadged Holdens.

In 2020 all Holden is now is a badge. Picture: Getty Images

The time to have got excited, the time to mourn, was back in 2017 when the last real Aussie Holden rolled off the production line. Or, even more the case, a few years before that when GM announced it would shutter all local manufacturing.

That was when we lost the great Aussie car; along with around the same time its cousin, the Ford Falcon, and the various clones Toyota had also been making.

That was when carmaking in Australia followed TV and fridge, shoe and shirt making and all the rest up into the great industrial mausoleum in the sky.

All GM was now doing was announcing that it would no longer bring in cars designed and made somewhere else — critically, that hardly anyone in Australia wanted to buy — and stick a Holden badge on them.

Last year GM sold barely 40,000 ‘Holdens’ in Australia and, trust me, they certainly weren’t selling ‘Holdens’ anywhere else. Picture: AAP

Last year GM sold barely 40,000 “Holdens” in Australia and, trust me, they certainly weren’t selling “Holdens” anywhere else.

But most of those were rebadged SUVs; the number of actual “Holden cars” sold — you know, like in the jingle with meat pies and kangaroos — was just 6000. In a one million or so market.

What exactly does the PM or anyone else think could have been achieved by continuing to bring in, say, Opels — now, not even designed by GM as they are now designed and made by someone else since GM sold Opel — and rebadge them as Holden?

The frenzy over the “loss of Holden” was taken to a new level of hysterical stupidity by the demand that we should now, therefore, also abolish the luxury car tax.

This was the “virtue signalling, seem-to-do-something” tax introduced as one of the various “flailing around” measures that would supposedly support local car manufacturing.

In 2017 we lost the Holden along with its cousin, the Ford Falcon, and the various clones Toyota had also been making.

So that if you wanted to buy a BMW or a Mercedes and were already prepared to pay, say, $20,000 more than if you bought a Holden (or a Falcon or a Toyota), you would switch to buying the car you didn’t want if you instead had to pay $30,000 more for the Mercedes or the BMW.

That’s exactly the Canberra ivory tower sort of “thinking” which ends up with a car industry in a long — and expensive to taxpayers — death spiral which we have seen over the past 20 years.

But in any event, what’s abolition of the luxury car tax in 2020 got to with the announcement by GM that it intends to stop selling Holden badges?

Again, the “logical” time to abolish the tax designed to support local carmaking was when that local carmaking disappeared — back in 2017.

Or indeed, even earlier, when the carmaking closure announcements were made.

I put logical in quotation marks because there isn’t any particular logic in abolition now or then anyway.

The tax is just another tax. Like higher personal tax rates, you pay a higher tax on more expensive cars.

The media and political hysteria over the announcement General Motors would ditch the Holden brand was one of the weirdest I’ve ever seen. Picture: Patrick Woods

In actual dollar terms it’s meaningless — just $600 million a year in a $500 billion-plus budget.

But does anyone seriously suggest that the government will make handing out tax relief to people who can afford to buy $100,000-plus cars a priority?

Especially in these times when wages growth for low and middle-income earners is non existent; and the economic — and budget — future is looking most uncertain?

Or do the assorted idiots calling for abolition think the PM and Treasurer could wrap it up with bushfire relief?

You know: we are going to help you rebuild your bush hut and make it cheaper for you to put a BMW under the new carport.

All this hysteria over the utterly irrelevant is a pretty good indication of what’s wrong with debate and discussion in 2020.

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All the serious stuff is either wrapped up in virtue signalling or simply ignored. Like making fatuous promises to be carbon-zero by 2050.

Closing all the coal-fired stations and refusing to open nuclear ones? Not a problem, We’ll just put up thousands more useless wind turbines and solar panels.

And when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine?

Well, we’ll assume the electricity version of a can-opener.

Economists’ joke. Yes. I know. They are.

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Originally published as Terry McCrann: Holden tears coming years too late