Other reasons protectionism didn't work in Australia were Free Trade Agreements where we import cars from eg: Thailand with no duty, but exports to Thailand att

Other reasons protectionism didn't work in Australia were Free Trade Agreements where we import cars from eg: Thailand with no duty, but exports to Thailand attract around 70%. Then there was the insistence on manufacturing cheap family cars rather than luxury models, ensuring the production lines would never be profitable. The car industry in Australia looked more like a public capital extraction mechanism than a (heavily subsidised) car building business.