Holden's Devereux addresses National Press Club

Holden MD and sitting FCAI president Mike Devereux (pictured) has delivered a thought-provoking speech to the National Press Club today, backing automotive manufacturing in Australia.

Entitled 'Make it in Australia: why car manufacturing matters', the speech rigorously examines how the Australian industry shapes up against the auto industry in other markets and how the government here is on the right track in supporting the locals — with a side order of chiding for the cessation of the Green Car Innovation Fund.

In the course of his speech, Devereux called for Australia and Australians to get behind a 'knowledge economy' and recognise the importance of a homegrown manufacturing industry, not only in the present, but ready for future contingencies.

Devereux began with an analogy from the IT world, citing the difficulty online book retailer Amazon experienced, finding a US-based company that could manufacture the innovative Kindle reader.

Over the duration of the half-hour speech, Devereux clarified numerous points that seem to be misunderstood by the population at large. He refutes that the auto industry in Australia is 'a dinosaur' when Toyota is building a hybrid and both Ford and Holden have developed engines that will run on alternative fuels. And Devereux also denies that the local industry is protected any more than the industry in well-established and sophisticated markets such as Germany. Local models and local manufacturing have directly or indirectly contributed to export earnings from parts supplied to foreign companies. A protected industry couldn't achieve that sort of end.

The industry, employing 59,000 Australians directly and further untold numbers in support industries, is also in a position to branch out of automotive, with examples provided including  Hella's lighting systems for mines and Diver's plasma TV screen brackets. While Australia maintains an automotive industry, Devereux said, it has world-class institutions the likes of Monash University and the RMIT to support education and training for the industry. And the 'products' of those institutions frequently go on to be 'exported' to the rest of the world in 'live' trade.

Indeed, one such Aussie export cited by Devereux was Andrew Liveris, a Darwin resident and graduate from the University of Queensland who is now the CEO of Dow Chemical Company in Michigan and co-chairs the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership set up by US President Obama.

Liveris has written a book 'Make it in America', which features the Amazon/Kindle anecdote mentioned by Devereux, who acknowledges the irony that "a story from a book called ‘Make it in America’, penned by an Australian, is now being re-told by a British-born Canadian from a global American company arguing the case to ‘Make it in Australia’."

A transcript of Devereux's speech follows in full.

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