The transition confronting workers, businesses and communities that have historically relied on Victoria’s automotive industry is highly significant. The decision by Australia’s three remaining carmakers—Ford Australia, General Motors Holden (GMH) and Toyota Australia—to wind down local car manufacturing operations will have a major impact on closure-affected regions, especially in Melbourne and Geelong.

While Victoria has experienced the challenge of large-scale closures and redundancies many times in the past, the current transition is arguably more significant due to the scale of the projected job losses, the demise of an entire industry—not just a single company—and the concentration of this process in time and geography. Specifically, the process of winding down is taking place within roughly a three-year timeframe from the announcements that each carmaker would eventually cease car manufacturing in 2013/14 to the closures themselves in 2016/17. Its impact will also be primarily felt in Melbourne’s south-eastern, northern and western suburbs, as well as the Geelong region.

This report highlights the discursive use of ‘diversification’ in policy and political dialogue and the extent to which manufacturing investment, occupations, skills and jobs are still central to economic prosperity in Victoria. This report concludes that it is central and will continue to be so after car manufacturing ends in 2017. Consequently, it asks whether the appropriate policies are in place to match the occupational and skill profile of retrenched automotive workers with the demands of employers and, more broadly, whether enough is being done by all levels of government to facilitate active engagement and interest in manufacturing skills and careers for the next generation of workers in Victoria.