GM Holden derides "conspiracy theories"

Holden boss Kristian Aquilina has attempted to discredit as “conspiracy theories” allegations the decision to close the brand was made long before it was announced.

But his position has been questioned by committee members and outright rejected by other witnesses including a NSW Holden dealer.

Appearing today before a Senate inquiry into the axing of Holden by General Motors, Aquilina said he was only informed of the closure early on the morning of Friday, February 14.

The official closure announcement was made on Monday, February 17.

Aquilina revealed he began working on options for the future of Holden including its closure only in December 2019.

When asked to provide set dates for the decision-making process by NSW Labor committee member Deborah O’Neill, Aquilina took the opportunity to try and debunk the widely-made suggestion Holden’s fate was sealed long before the announcement.

“In this whole process I have seen a number and heard a number of conspiracy theories leading up to GM’s decision,” he began.

At this point Senator O’Neill interjected: “Oh Mr Aquilina let’s not do the fake news thing, just give me the dates if you can, that would be helpful.”

Later, Aquilina returned to the theme.

“To all those people who might mischievously suggest Holden or General Motors had a cunning plan to exit this country; in 2018 we had just struck new dealer agreements, introduced a new finance company into the market, we kicked off these engineering projects, we introduced new programs that were first for Holden, we introduced new products that we committed significant right-hand drive investment to.

“To think that we would do all that … whilst having a plan to wind up our operation just defies any logic whatsoever and is just a red herring.”

But soon after Aquilina gave evidence, NSW Holden dealer Mark Palmer was asked his view and contradicted him.

Palmer said he had been contacting Holden since 2018 offering to update his dealership signage at his expense without getting it approved by Holden.

“I am pretty sure they knew what was going on well and truly before it [the closure] happened,” he said.

“Someone is requesting new signage, stating their other brands look fresher than the Holden brand, and could I do that at my expense and I couldn’t even get a reply!

“What would you think of them?”

One specific theory Aquilina tried to debunk was that the decision to sell the plant where the Colorado ute was made in Thailand indicated the Holden closure was a longer term decision than publicly indicated.

“I just want to put to bed this whole conspiracy that it’s been a long-held view from General Motors to unwind our operations right across south-east Asia and Australia and so forth.

“If for whatever reason the supply was stopped out of our Thailand plant we had options to source the vehicle from other plants where we produce the Colorado,” he said.