Interesting to see how this will play out. Tony's track record on manufacturing does not look good even if you concede the car manufacturers had already made a decision to leave.
Regardless of how you feel about ASC and the presence of unions there it's yet another body blow for manufacturing in this country - and they're a big employer. The
Advertiser was putting the total losses across the ASC and suppliers in the thousands yesterday, and then more bad news for Adelaide today with the announcement that Owens/Illinois (ACI) are putting off 60 people at West Croydon; it's absolutely shocking that there are so many jobs being lost across the country seemingly every day.
Especially in Adelaide with the loss (and pending loss) of so many large employers in the last few years - it's already very high unemployment around Port Adelaide. You can't blame Tony entirely for this though, it's been successive governments policy since Hawke/Keating to progressively drive manufacturing from our shores through abolition of tariffs and industry assistance.
Defence contracts like ASC are the very last bastion of government assistance to keep the national economy going - look at the United States where communities actively lobby for defence contractors to be established and maintained in their area. The fact that this contract is about to go off-shore shows just how bad things are.
And you can't help but feel that Tony Abbott has an arrogant indifference to the suffering of workers who lose their jobs. The flow-on effects through the rest of the economy are bound to affect all of us eventually...