By CASEY NEILL
“I FELT sick. That’s the only way to describe it.”
Jill Wilcox said Toyota’s decision last week to stop making cars in Australia by 2017 was terrible for her Dandenong South company, Wilcox Metal Finishing, and others in Melbourne’s south-east.
“We were all hoping that it wouldn’t happen,” she said.
“We’re hoping to keep on going because we do have other customers.
“But we’re going to lose our volume. The car industry is big volume.
“It’s a disaster for the country.”
Wilcox Metal Finishing has been in business for more than 50 years, is a third-generation family company and employs 23 people.
It puts rust-proofing on metal car components. About 80 per cent of its business is automotive.
“We used to run three shifts, 24 hours a day a few years ago,” Ms Wilcox said.
“That’s how much it’s declined with things going off-shore.
“We’re losing all these skills and factories.”
Ms Wilcox said the company would now seek more work, including interstate, over the next three years.
She said the car industry in Australia had been in decline for the past few years “because so much work is going off-shore anyway”.
“If people had stepped in sooner, it could have been avoided,” she said.
“I’m not saying one government or the other.
“I know they’ve had to prop up the industry but every nation in the world props up their car industry.
“I would have liked to see more money go to Toyota as opposed to Holden and Ford.
“Toyota had 70-odd per cent of their production in Australia.
“I think if they rewarded manufacturers who were actually making things here, rather than bringing in parts and assembling them here, it would have made a big difference.”
