(Transcript from World News Radio)
The days of the Australian car-making industry are numbered, following the announcement by Toyota that it will be stopping production in 2017.
More than two-thousand Toyota workers are set to lose their jobs, and there will be severe job losses in associated industries.
Toyota's decision to pull out of car-making in Australia follows similar decisions by Ford and Holden.
Zara Zaher has the details.
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Toyota, which has operated in Australia for 50 years, made the announcement at its manufacturing plant in Port Melbourne, where it currently employs almost four-thousand workers.
CEO Max Yasuda says a range of factors have contributed to the decision.
"The market and economic factors contributing to the decision include; the strong Australian dollar that export un- viable, high cost of manufacturing and low economies of scale for our vehicle production and our local supply base, together with one of the most open and fragmented automotive markets in the world and increased competitiveness due to current and future free-trade agreements. It is not viable to continue manufacturing in Australia."
Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane says Toyota's decision will change the face of the country's manufacturing industry forever.
And he says it will hasten changes that were already underway.
"For those people who are involved in Australian industry, I want to assure them that there is a future for Australian industry, but it will be a different future. It will be a future that we've been tracking towards for some time now. But this announcement by Toyota will accelerate that change."
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten describes it as an economic catastrophe with a terrible human cost.
He says it means the Australian car industry will have died under the Abbott government.
Mr Shorten says he's been briefed by Toyota on the reasons for the decision, and it's not the fault of the workers.
"Toyota said their workers, they hold in the highest respect. Their conditions were not the reason why Toyota has closed. Let's not doubly punish Toyota workers - and I put the Abbott government on notice - having done nothing to save the car industry, don't you dare go and blame these car workers. They are high quality, highly productive workers who produce a great product. And what has happened here is that a combination of the high Australian dollar, the size of our market, and also the collapse of Holden, and therefore the component base, and a lack of interest from the Abbott government,"
Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Dave Oliver, has described the car industry as the "bedrock" of the manufacturing sector in Australia.
He told Sky News the Toyota decision will impact on many thousands of jobs in the auto sector, and the Abbott government should have done more to try to stop it.
"Despite the fact that Tony Abbott was travelling around the country on the lead up to the election with a fluro jacket, with a hard-hat, promising that he'll be campaigning around jobs... and all we've seen recently coming from his government is the loss of jobs, and in addition to that, them trying to shift the blame from themselves onto workers. We've known for quite some time what needs to be done and that is - the government needs to step up to the plate and provide support to attract investment in this country. That's what nations around the world do who we are competing against. And that's what they need to do."
Executive Director Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce David Purchase told the ABC there are a range of pressures on car manufacturers.
He says Toyota's decision is not surprising.
"I don't think it's a matter or question of blaming anybody. I think what we're seeing is a very tough competition in a world market and what we have to recognise that the cost of producing cars in Australia is a lot more than it is in other overseas countries and what we're seeing is these countries moving production to cheaper manufacturing destinations overseas."
Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, says the challenge now is to ensure that more jobs are created.
"Nothing that we say or do can limit the devastation that so many people will feel at this point. The important thing is to remember that while some businesses close other businesses open. While some jobs end other jobs start. And the challenge of government at all levels is to try to ensure that there are more businesses starting than there are finishing. That there are more jobs being created than there are ending."
Ford, Australia's oldest car maker, announced last May it would stop making cars locally by the end of 2016.
Holden said in December it would close down local manufacturing by the end of 2017.
All three car makers have received substantial government support since the mid-1980s, when tariffs began to be wound down.
