Minister Stands by ‘Future Made in Australia’ Plan Amid Call for Car Manufacturing Revival

Pat Conroy says it was the Liberals who ultimately shut down the car industry in Australia.

Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on Aug. 5, 2025. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Labor MP Pat Conroy has responded to claims around Australian vehicle manufacturing made by Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, who has expressed concern about the lack of car manufacturing in Australia

In September, Hastie launched a video where he discussed the fate of Australia’s vehicular manufacturing industry amid a perceived lack of action from both sides of politics, alongside a push for “soulless” Chinese-made electric vehicles.

“We’re being told that we can forget our past forever, that we can no longer build physical things of value in this country, and both the Liberals and Labor have let us down in the past by letting the car industry disappear from our shores,” Hastie said, posing against an older Australian-made car model.

While Hastie acknowledged the downfall of the industry had been dependent upon successive governments, Conroy took that argument one step further to level blame at former Prime Minister Tony Abbott for sealing its fate.

“I don’t know about you Andrew, but I remember when your best mate Tony Abbott destroyed Australia’s car industry, smashing our industrial base and selling out Aussie workers,” Conroy said in a video posted to X.

“So you can keep standing next to someone else’s car and campaigning for someone else’s job, we’re going to get on with delivering our Future Made in Australia plan—a plan that backs local manufacturing, a plan that backs local workers.

“And that’s good news for Australia.”

Australian flags fly above a Holden dealership sign in Thebarton in Adelaide, Australia, on July 30, 2013. Morne de Klerk/Getty Images

By the time Abbott had been elected in 2013, Australia’s automobile industry was already buckling under the pressure of the global financial crisis, having received hefty government support under the Rudd and Gillard governments.

In 2016, Abbott made the decision that the Australian car industry had been unviable, and he refused to hand car makers additional subsidies in what he called “the age of entitlement” for “business welfare.”

Hastie accused the Labor government of wanting to cut Australians off from their heritage forever by filling the streets with “silent soulless cars made in China, packed with tech that we didn’t design and we don’t control.”

He said Australians had an “innate, God-given drive to design complex things like cars.”

The shadow home affairs spokesman said Australia could start to restore manufacturing by embracing coal and gas over renewables.

“They‘ll sell that stuff to countries that burn it and they’ll deny it to the Australian people,” Hastie said.

“It’s time that we made a decision, what sort of country do we want to be? Do we want to be a country that is deindustrialised and is just effectively a nation of helpless consumers? Or do we want to unlock our energy potential?”