Why does the Government subsidies Car Manufacturers

[dogfish]

I was thinking the other day why does the Government subsidies the car manufacturer directly?
Why not subsidies the person/Individual purchasing a new Australian manufactured car instead of the vehicle manufacturer itself.
Would this not encourage more people to buy Australian made vehicles and we as purchasers get better bang for buck especially if you got say for arguements sake a 15/20% subsidie off of the new price instead of buying the optioned up Falcon you might want to spend the same amount of money as you originally intended and buy an XR6 or something instead.
I am talking about locally made vehicles only.
I also believe this would work better for all concerned including the Ford V's Holden battle with technology and performance being the biggest winner of all.

[bobthebilda]

I think they might run into some issues with the World trade organisation (and maybe even some free trade agreements), if they were to subsidise locally made products directly.

[outback_ute]

There is a tariff on imported cars, currently 5%, which is basically the same thing.

[jpd80]

And then there is the annual Aussie revenue of $3.3 billion for Ford, $4.4 billion for Holden and
nearly $8 billion for Toyota. Now, if roughly half of that revenue comes from local manufacturing,
it shows how much knock on effect the government's money has on creating manufacturing and
supplier jobs, all of those employees earn wages, pay taxes and spend their money in the community.
Unfortunately, a few here fail to grasp the big picture....

[ray38l]

Originally Posted by bobthebilda

I think they might run into some issues with the World trade organisation (and maybe even some free trade agreements), if they were to subsidise locally made products directly.

meh who cares about the world trade organization or free trade agreement.
All the free trade agreement did was put it in writing that Australia gets screwed.