Show me the Money

[Wally]

I'm having a bit of trouble with the maths and wisdom of the funding being given to the auto industry.

Take the ecoboost investments for instance:- the total spend is supposedly $230m, of that $42 million is from its Green Car Innovation Fund. That program is a 1 for 3 grant, which means the Feds will kick in 25% of the expenditure. It suggests to me that the true spend is $168m and therefore Ford's investment is $126m, or is there a $62m ineligibilty?

The other quandry I have is if the Automotive Competitiveness and Investment Scheme shelled out $3.8b between 2001 and 2007, where did it go? I know Ford got $52m for development of the FG, and Holden along with Toyota and Mitsubishi got some cake too, but $3.8b shelled out only for Holden to accumulate $350m and Ford $250m losses 2005-2008?

The current planned expenditure to the car industry by the Feds is $3.2b more than already commited, presumably by the previous govt. A total of $6.2b assistance is budgetted in the period 2008 - 2021:

Automotive Transformation Scheme (ATS), 2011 - 2020 = $3.4b
Green Car Innovation Fund, 2009 -2019 = $1.3b
Automotive Competitiveness and Investment Scheme 2009 - 2011 = $79.6m
Mergers and consolidation within the components sector 2009 = $116.3m
Suppliers integration into national and global supply chain 2009-2010 = $20m
Enhanced market access scheme 2009 -2010 = $6.3m
LPG vehicle scheme = $10.5m
Balance = $1.2673b

The key planks for the assistance are $5.6b in automotive exports 2007-2008, $16b industry investment (to access all eligible funding) , around $10b p.a. service sector inputs, jobs, protectionism, yadda, yadda, yadda. And we are supposed to be proud of ourselves because Australia is one of only 15 countries who can build a car from scratch.

On top of this there are state govt handouts like $6.7 million Victorian Automotive Manufacturing Action Plan and $30m from the SA Govt for the Cruze.

We know Holden can, but haven't accessed the $200m line of credit, Ford have the $42m green fund gift, Ford Finance have $550m line of credit, Holden have $149m green fund gift for the Cruze, but where is the rest?