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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/10/holden-no-decision-has-been-made-to-close-factory-doors
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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| Holden: no decision has been made to close factory doors | Holden: no decision has been made to close factory doors |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| GM Holden’s managing director, Mike Devereux, has told an inquiry that no decision has been made to shut its Australian car-making operations. | GM Holden’s managing director, Mike Devereux, has told an inquiry that no decision has been made to shut its Australian car-making operations. |
| Devereux was asked directly, by the head of a Productivity Commission inquiry in Melbourne into the car industry, whether any decision had been made. | |
| He said: "No decision has been made." | He said: "No decision has been made." |
| Devereux also declined to make an opening statement to the inquiry, but noted that there's been a "lot of speculation" about the future of the Australian automotive industry. | |
| But he argued that the industry was an important part of the national economy and he would continue to press the case for it to continue. | |
| Inquiry chairman Mike Woods cut to the chase, asking if any decision had been made to shut Holden. Under further questioning, Devereux refused to comment on a timeline for Holden's parent company, General Motors, to make a decision. He said the company had put a business case to the federal industry minister, Ian Macfarlane, and the South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill, on 2 October which set out Holden's future plans. | |
| But he said much of the information was commercial in confidence and he would not reveal it in public hearings. Holden gets an average of $153m a year in taxpayer assistance and Devereux declined to say what further assistance Holden was seeking. | |
| "There's no doubt in my mind that the government has the information to answer your question," he said, adding, "The budgetary cost of losing this industry would dwarf the cost of keeping it." | |
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