Friday, February 3, 2012

Holden and Fishermens Bend

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was in Port Melbourne yesterday - at Boeing in Fishermens Bend. The visit was poignant in more ways than one. She was trying to project confidence about jobs in light of recent announcements of job losses at both Holden and Toyota. Here is Prime Minister Ben Chifley in 1948 at GMH in Port Melbourne launching the first mass produced Australian car when the huge growth of the automotive industry lay ahead. Both the aircraft and the automotive industries are so strongly identified with Fishermens Bend and Port Melbourne. With amalgamation in 1994 these areas were given to the City of Melbourne and perhaps we lost some of our identification with them. Toyota, whose head office is in Bertie St, has said there will be no job losses at their head office in Port Melbourne. I hope their outstanding community programmes are not vulnerable.

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