Holden announces October 20 will be closure day for its Elizabeth plant

HOLDEN has announced it will end 69 years of car manufacturing in Australia in October, leaving Toyota as the brand to turn out the lights on the industry.

HOLDEN has confirmed the final shutdown date of its Elizabeth car assembly line in South Australia — and the end of the road for the locally-made Commodore.

Friday 20 October 2017 will end 69 years of car making for General Motors Holden in Australia — and the remaining 1000 factory jobs.

The date is one year and one week after Ford shut its Broadmeadows assembly line.

It also avoids a conflict with the Bathurst 1000; Ford was criticised for being out of touch with its fans for shutting its factories at the same time as the iconic motor race.

Holden informed its factory workforce of the exact shutdown date at the end of shift today.

Breaking the bad news today: Holden’s executive director of manufacturing Richard Phillips.

“While this confirmation isn’t a surprise for anyone and we’ve been working toward this for nearly four years, we can now confirm the actual date for our people and our suppliers,” Holden’s executive director of manufacturing Richard Phillips said in a media statement.

While Holden’s first car was built in Port Melbourne, it didn’t start manufacturing in Elizabeth until 1963, as Holden had other factories in Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

In the end, only Elizabeth survived.

“This October may bring to a close more than 60 years of vehicle manufacturing by Holden at Elizabeth but I know it will be business as usual for our manufacturing workforce until then,” said Mr Phillips.

Holden says of the nearly 700 people who have left Elizabeth since 2015, 69 per cent have found new jobs within 12 months, 5 per cent are in training, 3 per cent have retired and 3 per cent are doing volunteering work.

Holden history: A union official addresses a meeting attended by more than 2500 General Motors Holden workers at the Elizabeth plant in July 1973.

Affected Holden employees have access up to $3000 in approved training and $500 for financial advice as part of Holden’s $15 million contribution to the federal government’s support package for automotive manufacturing employees.

Holden redundancy payouts are understood to be as generous as the Ford packages; the average worker walked away with more than $150,000, the equivalent of more than two years’ pay.

Holden has slowly been winding down production over the past 12 months; in October last year it stopped building the Cruze small car alongside the Commodore.

One of the final Holden Cruze cars made at the Elizabeth plant, which was donated to the Leukaemia Foundation. Picture: Calum Robertson

News Corp Australia understands Holden will continue to build the Commodore sedan, wagon, ute and luxury Caprice all the way to the final day, rather than in a phased process, as Ford had done.

Meanwhile, Holden’s announcement means Toyota is likely to be the last to turn out the lights on the Australian car manufacturing industry, closing its doors some time in the last three months of the year.

The final shutdown date for the Toyota Camry factory in Altona is yet to be confirmed but a company spokesperson said employees would be notified in the first three months of 2017.

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Originally published as Holden announces October 20 will be closure day for its Elizabeth plant