Heightened global competition and the strong Australian dollar make it even more important that governments continue to support the local automotive industry to retain core capabilities and a skilled workforce.
Responding to an announcement of the loss of 350 manufacturing jobs at Toyota Australia's Altona assembly plant, Manufacturing Minister Senator Kim Carr said this was an unfortunate consequence of the high dollar and global uncertainty.
"I know that Toyota looked at every option to avoid redundancy of skilled workers, but the harsh reality of the continuing strong Australian dollar means that Toyota's export markets are under severe pressure and they are struggling to sell enough cars to keep the Altona line at full capacity," Senator Carr said.
"I understand how personally distressing this situation is for each of those 350 workers and the Government will do everything it can to help them.
"The Government has a comprehensive range of support measures for displaced workers, including the Labour Adjustment element of the Automotive Industry Structural Adjustment Program, which will be used to assist workers to retrain if necessary and to find alternative employment."
Toyota traditionally exports about 70 per cent of its Australian production, mostly to the Middle East, with the remaining 30 per cent sold locally. The strong dollar also led to fierce local competition in 2011, with Toyota's domestic sales of locally built Camrys, Hybrid Camrys and Aurions down over 20 per cent on the 2010 figure.
"Ultimately, companies have to take tough decisions based on commercial realities to ensure that their business model remains sustainable, and that is what Toyota has done today," Senator Carr said.
"The enormously competitive situation for automotive globally highlights more than ever the need to support our local automotive industry, to retain core capabilities and to provide skilled jobs so that the industry can rebound when economic conditions improve.
"The mining boom won't last for ever and we need to make sure that we have a core of key manufacturing industries with export potential - including automotive - to turn to when that happens," Senator Carr said.
These developments highlight the folly of the Liberal Party's approach to end assistance to the industry from 2016.
"This is an industry that employs 46,000 skilled Australian workers directly and over 200,000 indirectly. It is an industry that is the cornerstone of research and development activity in Australia and an industry that is one of our top export earners.
"The Gillard Labor Government will continue to support this industry because it is essential to us remaining a sophisticated manufacturing nation, rather than simply a nation that digs things up."
A printable version of the 
media release [PDF 30KB] is available.