Triple M

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview - Roo and Ditts for Breakfast on Triple M Adelaide
3 February 2016

SUBJECTS: On the potential proposal for Guido Dumarey to buy and operate the Holden plant at Elizabeth.

Chris Dittmar: Roo we’ve been reading and hearing all about the closure of Holden for the last couple of years now, now there is actually a little glimmer of hope.

Mark Ricciuto: Well there is a glimmer of hope, I was watching the TV last night I saw South Australia’s Liberal MP Christopher Pyne on TV talking about a chance of a Belgium entrepreneur wanting to take over the operations at Holden and keep them alive.

Chris Dittmar: What, a white knight?

Mark Ricciuto: Well he’s done it before in other parts of the world, Ditts, and thinks have changed since Malcolm Turnbull’s come in and there is a glimmer of hope.

Chris Dittmar: Alright Christopher Pyne joins us, Christopher good morning, thanks for your time, how realistic is this?

Christopher Pyne: Well good morning Roo and Ditts, it’s good to be with you. Look we don’t want to overegg the omelet and raise the expectations of the workers in Northern Adelaide beyond what is reasonable…

Chris Dittmar: Yeah.

Christopher Pyne: …but I must say of all the people who have been to see me as Industry Minister in the last few months and as the Senior South Australian Cabinet Minister before that, Mr Dumarey is the first who hasn’t asked for wads of taxpayer’s money to make it work.

Chris Dittmar: That’s a good start.

Christopher Pyne: It is a good start. Now he thinks that he can make the Holden plant work, he did it before in Strasbourg in Europe. He thinks he can do it with the arrangements that are currently in place so that’s the Automotive Transformation Scheme that he’d be able to access. He just needs to get General Motors to come on board. Now if I was General Motors, I’d do that for a couple of reasons- one it’s make me really popular in Australia.

Mark Ricciuto: Hugely popular.

Christopher Pyne: And I’d therefore want to keep buying their cars. And on the other hand if they stymied this attempt, it would make me very unpopular and secondly it cost them a lot of money to remediate the site at Holden. Now if Mr Dumarey takes that over, you would think it would cost- it would save them tens of millions of dollars. So he’s entering in the initial discussion. The Commonwealth Government, through me, is mediating with General Motors to try and make it happen, I’m hopeful, but I think we’ve got a lot of water to go under the bridge. I met with him yesterday again and while I think we’re making progress- Malcolm met with him on Monday- we’ve still got a lot of water to go under the bridge.

Mark Ricciuto: Do you have any idea about his plans? Is it about selling lots and lots of cars overseas or can the Australian market sustain them?

Christopher Pyne: Well he’s got a business case which seems to be built on the idea that the platform at Holden at Elizabeth builds a certain kind of vehicle that he thinks he can build a not-compete with General Motors in their traditional markets. He thinks he can put his vehicle into the market they don’t operate in and also sell in Australia and with those exports and the domestic market and bringing together the component manufacturers in kind of a hub of car manufacturing in Australia that will stack up. Now he did it at Strasbourg in France and General Motors were similarly skeptical but eventually they came on board and he saved the jobs of about 1400 people. So I’ll do anything for South Australia and I’ll do anything to try and keep those people in work in the automotive sector. I mean obviously we’ve got the Automotive Diversification Program and the Next Generation Manufacturing Investment Program but if we can keep a car manufacturer in Adelaide I’ll do what I can to make it happen.

Chris Dittmar: Well let’s get him into the Penthouse at the Intercontinental let’s give him some oysters, some King George whiting, a bottle of grange.

Christopher Pyne: Take him to Adelaide Oval.

Mark Ricciuto: Get him a Crows scarf.

Christopher Pyne: Yeah definitely.

Chris Dittmar: Now you’re being stupid.

Christopher Pyne: Only the Crows.

Chris Dittmar: Nah good luck with that, I mean that is- if he’s done this around the world, we obviously need to be courting him and talking to him.

Mark Ricciuto: Going to have to move quick though, Ditts, Christopher what’s going to be the next step, when are we going to hear more information about this?

Christopher Pyne: Well he says it will be- he wants an answer from General Motors by mid year or it’s not going to work. So we are moving quickly on it, we’ve been meeting since December, he only approached me in December and every time he’s asked for a meeting, I’ve made myself available, I’ll do whatever I can; I’ve rung the CEO of General Motors here in Australia, I’ve written to the General Motors CEO in Detroit and to the- one of the other senior executives who cover the Asia Pacific. Certainly it won’t fail because of the Commonwealth Government not putting its best effort into helping them.

Mark Ricciuto: Well I tell you you’ve got to back a bloke who’s willing to put $150 million of his own money on the line, as well Ditts, so sounds like we’ve got a bit of a chance

Chris Dittmar: Yeah Christopher Pyne thanks so much for joining us.

Christopher Pyne: Pleasure.

[ends]