[BITList] Old Ford man - Must read !!!!

[FA]

One can but agree with these sentiments would only add that all the time 
we let accountants run the country rather than engineers like before its 
only going to get worse
frank

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*Old Ford man - Must read !!!!*

Today's rant...

*I've got an old mate who spent his working life with the Ford Motor 
Company, mainly as a computer programmer, and after the recent 
announcement of Ford closure in Australia, I asked what his feelings were.*

Sorry ? Yes - I feel I have been let down, but I am more sorry for 
Australia. The problem is not just Ford, it is the whole of Australian 
primary and secondary industry.

When I joined the industry in 1960 Australia had the following 
Automotive Manufacturers:-

Ford Australia - (Plants in Geelong, Ballarat, Broadmeadows, Sydney, and 
Brisbane).

Australian Motor Industries. - (Standard Motor Company and Mercedes 
Benz, Rambler, and Fiat tractors, - plants in Melbourne and Sydney)

British Motor Corporation - (Austin, Morris - Plants in Melbourne and 
Sydney)

Chrysler Australia- (Plants in Keswick, Mile End and Finsbury, 
Continental and General Distributors -(Peugot - plant in Heidelberg 
Melbourne) - bought out by Misubishi

Fiat - (tractor assembly at the Pressed Metal Corporation plant in Sydney)

General Motors Holden - ( Plants in Port Melbourne, Dandenong, Adelaide, 
and Sydney)

International Harvester- ( Plant in Geelong)

Leyland Motors - (Albion and Scammel , Plants in Melbourne and Sydney)

Renault (Australia) - (assembled by Clyde Industries, Victoria)

Rootes ( Australia) - (Plants at Port Melbourne and Dandenong)

Rover ( Australia) - ( Pressed Metal Corporation Sydney - most of the 
land rover was made and assembled in Oz)

Volkswagen (Australia) - (Plant in Clayton Victoria)

Willys Motors (Australia) - (Plant in Rocklea Brisbane)

White Trucks (Brisbane)

There was also another company assembling one of the early Japanese 
imports at Kangaroo Point.

Then of course there was our own Repco, a major automotive parts 
manufacturer and engine re-builderat that stage, and a company which was 
then more than capable of building the first all Australian car.

These were not fly-by-nighters, some of them were in existence as early 
as 1914 - one hundred years ago !!

>From that foundation the only one left is GMH, whose very existence as a 
manufacturing facility is hanging by a thread.

I have no idea what has happened to all the major parts and machine 
suppliers, Duly and Hansford, Bendix, Borg Warner, Pilkingtons Glass, 
Zenford, Small, A.C.I, McPhersons, and countless others, all appear to 
be dead.

Do you believe that all fourteen of those fifteen major companies were 
incapable? Shortly to be fifteen out of fifteen???????

We now have a relative newcomer, Toyota, with a plant in Altona, which 
will, in all possibility, be last man standing .

You think the Automotive industry is the only casualty? In the last few 
months Australia has also shut down the Shell refineries in Sydney and 
Geelong. Don't even worry about the long-dead fasteners, carpet, 
textile, shoe, clothing etc. Industries - they are as numerous as prayer 
notes in the Wailing Wall.

It's time to ask the hard question, - is something wrong with Australia?

When I left Ford, in round figures it employed 5,000 at the Geelong 
site, 6,000 at the Broadmeadows site, 700 in the Sydney plant, and 300 
in the Brisbane plant - 12,000 people. That is only the start. Then 
there are all the outside contractors directly dependent on the Company, 
we used to estimate this conservatively as about another 33% - 4,000. A 
straight 16,000 total. Then there is on top of that all the people who 
serviced those 16,000 - I have no idea how you calculate that, and it is 
a bit nebulous anyway as the 16,000 are still there, just at a lower 
level of economic importance.

Itis blatantly obvious that our political system just does not work - I 
have been voicing this for the last thirty odd years. I have no idea 
what it should be changed to, the basis is sound, but the implementation 
leaves a lot to be desired. The political intelligence of the bulk of 
the Australian voting public is heading to absolute zero, and our 
politicians depend directly on that.

We continue to elect governments time after time on the basis of 
platforms of promises to be broken. Promises bordering on lies and 
deceit. We elect governments that have financial abilities that would 
make Bart Simpson appear genius material. Just take a quick look at 
Singapore - about 10% of our population, no natural resources, just 
about no industry, and yet they have a large network of underground 
trains running every three minutes everywhere - just on a scale basis 
alone we should have about ten such systems here in Oz - well at least 
one in all the capital cities - that leaves the cost of four of them to 
throw in a decent road system between the capitals. As soon as someone 
hears that they pop up with "yes ! but look at their social welfare 
system !" my answer - exactly - look at it, almost non-existent from the 
government, the family is the social security system. I have seen our 
system, which is great in principle, abused right left and centre by 
those it is meant to protect, what should be a safety net is fast 
becoming an albatross around our necks. Come hell or high water that 
system has to be returned to the safety net it was intended to be. I 
don't know about now, but in Germany it was exactly a safety net and 
nothing else - if you were out of work you received a percentage of your 
wage for a period of time ( three months? I forget exactly), and then it 
took a dive to an "emergency payment" which bought food and not much else.

All the government sponsored gifts for new houses, births, carbon tax 
offsets, GFC handouts etc. are not gifts - they are the currency with 
which our politicians appear best familiar, in plain English, bribes - 
bribes for the next election. Time to cut that nonsense - it should 
never have started.

What is happening in Australia is the failure to recognise the concept 
of adding value. Build something - make something - repair something - 
create something - move something - sell something useful - all add 
value and this is the only thing that creates a healthy economic 
structure. Add to that the essential services and you are still in 
business. Replace that lot with fancy accountants, counsellors, 
psychologists, dole bludgers, excessive bureaucrats, excessive 
government, teachers who only put in a fraction of the hours of real 
workers, and a myriad other similar other sinecure type jobs and you 
land right in the proverbial can, just like Oz.

Have you ever thought what happens in the next war? You think there 
won't be one? There have been humans fighting humans ever since one 
stuck his stone axe in somebody else's skull. You think that is going to 
miraculously stop? Go talk to the fairies. What do you think wins wars? 
Certainly not bureaucrats, counsellors and psychologists - not even 
servicemen alone. It is pure manufacturing muscle - whoever can build 
the most missiles, aircraft, bombs, guns etc. and have servicemen to 
deliver the intended result to the enemy. That is what wins wars. What 
are we going to build them with now? Do we now let our servicemen down 
as well?

Have a look back at what Ford Oz built for the last major war. Ford 
turned out thousands of those huge army transporters, hundreds of those 
huge landing barges, tracked bren-gun carriers, Ford blitzes, Bofors 
guns, and no doubt other things that I have either forgotten or never 
heard of. The Chrysler plant in Adelaide contributed a similar effort, 
largely in the aircraft sector. Who is going to repeat those efforts? 
Our recent engineering workforce had the ability to tool up a plant like 
Fords and make virtually anything at the drop of a hat. We made all 
sorts of odd things that nobody knows about - bits for the aircraft 
industry, tooling for carbon fibre parts for the French airbus, tooling 
for those huge Boeing tail spars, blocks for Scalzo engines, right down 
to microscopic gears for eye surgery instruments. We completed huge 
tooling contracts for our 'opposition' in the automotive industry. How 
wrong we were - the real opposition were those WE put in charge of our 
own country.

Then there are the unseen things - such as the flow of information and 
skills from the private sector to the Australian Government excuse for 
an armaments factory. Probably all but dead by now, but when I was 
active I attended many meetings at the armaments factory, Monash 
University, and other venues where engineers from private industry 
passed on manufacturing engineering related information. Much of it 
gleanedfrom first hand international experience, and much of it our own 
experience.

So that is just a small shot at how our politicians have betrayed us and 
set Oz up for a right royal shafting. A real enemy could not have done 
the job better.

You bet your sweet a*se I'm sorry.

*P. S. I don't care who you pass this on to - I will probably get an 
earful from someone who hasn't had his/her feet on the ground for 99% of 
his/her next to useless existence, but I can handle that.*


	






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