A Lady ahead of Her Time, page-33

We are talking the Thatcher years - if it wasn't for the Falklands war she would have been a cya later. The car industry - well I'll just say she ended up having to give a whopping bail out to the industry because her policies sucked orelse it would have been dead in the 1980s. And it is only recovering because 17 years ago the industry was pretty bad there as well.

Here is a quote for you from - http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/11/20/auto.industry.uk/index.html?iref=nextin:
Thatcher wanted out of government involvement in the industry, or at least a middle way with a partial selloff. But no deal was struck. With ministers growing increasingly nervous about the unemployment prospects if the company went under, a re-structuring plan was finally agreed. As she admitted: "The political realities had to be faced. BL had to be supported ... and, most painfully, we provided £900 million."

Oh, the car indutsry in UKis more subsidised than Oz so there you go copyright link/finance/newsbysector...-car-industry-presses-Government-for-aid.html

As for Australia it was the govt (LNP) deciding no more handouts to car industry and high energy costs that ultimately led to its demise. Our handouts were not as large as other countries btw but I won't argue the pros and cons of subsidising an industry here but to specifically blame the union is wrong given all the cost cutting didn't have an impact when govt support was removed and energy costs increased (in part through Green policies but the otehr part is Australia trusted its electricity generation systems in teh hands of the private sector who price gouged there oligopoly market power - https://theconversation.com/factche...dise-their-car-industry-more-than-we-do-16308