The Australian government makes about $300 million a year from the luxury car import tax.
The government would have made millions more in tax on GST, payroll tax, and income tax from those involved in the car industry and suppliers. So in a sense the industry subsidy was paid for by the car industry.
Australia was only one of 19 countries in the world that had the skills and ability to design a car from concept to production.
Those skills and know how are lost now for ever.
Nearly every car manufacturer in the world get some form of subsidy from government to build cars domestically.
The problem was that the owners of the car manufacturing in Australia produced cars only for the domestic market and not for export.
