Australia's automobile industry

Mr Nasser [formerly of Ford in the USA] lamented that Australians were not “emotionally connected” to the car industry. “I’m disappointed in some of the rhetoric that I hear, where it’s clear that the general feeling in Australia is that they’re not patriotic around their automotive industry. In most countries around the world they are emotional about their automotive industry,” he said.

Ex-Ford boss predicts end of Australian car industry

I’m confused here. What Australian automotive industry? We don’t have one. There are three large foreign companies being paid by the government to make cars here, but we don’t actually own any of that. The amount of money given to GM, Ford and Toyota by the government could have been used instead to create our own (perhaps electric) car industry. Telsa needs some decent competition.