What do you think?
The Death of Holden: The bestselling account of the decline of Australian manufacturing
Holden is one of the few brands that has an emotional grip on Australia (Qantas being another). The closure of the Holden factory in Adelaide is not just the end of a business - it's the end of an era, of a story, and of a great Australian dream.When Holden signalled that it would close its Adelaide factory, it struck at the very heart of Australian identity. Holden is our car made on our shores. It's the choice of patriotic rev heads and suburban drivers alike. How could a car that was so beloved - and so popular - be so unprofitable to make?The story of the collapse of Holden is about the people who make and drive the cars; it's about sustaining industry in Australia; it's about communities of workers and what happens when the work dries up. And if it's not quite about the death of an icon - because Holdens will remain on Australian roads for a long time to come - then it's about what happens when an icon falls to knees in front of a whole nation.'Brilliant and powerful' Nick Xenophon
- GenresNonfictionAustralia
352 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 30, 2016
About the author
Royce Kurmelovs
10 books16 followersRoyce Kurmelovs is an Australian freelance journalist and author. His books include The Death of Holden (2016), Rogue Nation (2017), Boom and Bust (2018) and Just Money (2020). His latest book, Slick, is due for release in 2014.
"One of Australia’s most important socio-political voices..." - Kill Your Darlings magazine
"...Prolific. Not to mention cutting." - The Advertiser
"...goes beyond trade-craft and runs to the core of Kurmelovs’s moral code: economic abstraction without considering the human implications is what produces a system that thrives on exploitation and hardship." - Australian Book Review
"One of Australia’s most important socio-political voices..." - Kill Your Darlings magazine
"...Prolific. Not to mention cutting." - The Advertiser
"...goes beyond trade-craft and runs to the core of Kurmelovs’s moral code: economic abstraction without considering the human implications is what produces a system that thrives on exploitation and hardship." - Australian Book Review
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 29, 2016
Fantastic reporting that digs beneath the "jobs and growth" rhetoric. Puts names and faces to the crisis Australia is barrelling towards. The skills wastage. The lost opportunities.
One line sums it up:
"Australia seems to be pinning its hopes now on a service industry augmented by a tech industry it doesn't have and is too impatient to grow."
What does this attitude mean for our workforce and their families? Have we prepared for this, or have we buried our heads in the sand for too long?
A vital read.
One line sums it up:
"Australia seems to be pinning its hopes now on a service industry augmented by a tech industry it doesn't have and is too impatient to grow."
What does this attitude mean for our workforce and their families? Have we prepared for this, or have we buried our heads in the sand for too long?
A vital read.
January 20, 2017
This book provides an excellent overview of the social implications of the closure of the vehicle industry in Australia. Journalist Royce Kurmelevos interviews many of the front line workers working for Holden plants in both Geelong and Elizabeth and captures the extent to which post
'one of the biggest moments in Australian history' is made, how redeployment will be difficult and that low paid small business options; the aged care sector or long term unemployment become the main labor market options facing redundant workers.
What I liked about the book is that doesn't just deal with reportage of the social story, which is does well through indepth descriptions of the impact of the redundancy process on the worker and their family unit, but also reports quite a bit of the media discussion about the economic rationale for the closure of the industry as well. In this sense, we have seen the social impact through Glover's and other works well documented so for me, the value add here was a robust discussion about the economic reasoning behind the closure of the industry in listing the standard economic arguments (subsidies can't go on for ever; value of dollar made it inevitable; workers overpaid; all advanced economies have seen a decline in manufacturing and Australia no different etc etc). While the book doesn't try and debunk these arguments (but mind you they have been academically critiqued very effectively elsewhere by academics from NSW) he spends considerable time at the end of the book debunking the alternative economic vision (Silicon Valley style innovation policy) very effectively and how the public policy settings outlining our innovative 'new economy' won't be able to either create middle Australia jobs or employ unemployed automobile workers or be a good 'cultural fit' to our social and economic history.
"I have sat through funerals before but nothing like this. Australia has never seen what can happen when an entire industry packs up so completely in such a short space of time. The closest we have ever come to is watching the steel industry rust up in Woolongong over two decades"
I thought this book was great, and it helps to lay the foundations for a critique of economic policy since the 1970s and the suggestion of a new public policy strategy attached therefore for Labour
'one of the biggest moments in Australian history' is made, how redeployment will be difficult and that low paid small business options; the aged care sector or long term unemployment become the main labor market options facing redundant workers.
What I liked about the book is that doesn't just deal with reportage of the social story, which is does well through indepth descriptions of the impact of the redundancy process on the worker and their family unit, but also reports quite a bit of the media discussion about the economic rationale for the closure of the industry as well. In this sense, we have seen the social impact through Glover's and other works well documented so for me, the value add here was a robust discussion about the economic reasoning behind the closure of the industry in listing the standard economic arguments (subsidies can't go on for ever; value of dollar made it inevitable; workers overpaid; all advanced economies have seen a decline in manufacturing and Australia no different etc etc). While the book doesn't try and debunk these arguments (but mind you they have been academically critiqued very effectively elsewhere by academics from NSW) he spends considerable time at the end of the book debunking the alternative economic vision (Silicon Valley style innovation policy) very effectively and how the public policy settings outlining our innovative 'new economy' won't be able to either create middle Australia jobs or employ unemployed automobile workers or be a good 'cultural fit' to our social and economic history.
"I have sat through funerals before but nothing like this. Australia has never seen what can happen when an entire industry packs up so completely in such a short space of time. The closest we have ever come to is watching the steel industry rust up in Woolongong over two decades"
I thought this book was great, and it helps to lay the foundations for a critique of economic policy since the 1970s and the suggestion of a new public policy strategy attached therefore for Labour
May 22, 2018
Kurmelovs must have done a mountain of research into what the media describes as a simple issue of cost-effectiveness - the result is a heart-rending story about the people it affects, people just like the rest of us, raising children and working to live.
It would be easy to come away from reading this book feeling that it was just a series of stories, each with similar beginnings, similar twists, and very much the same endings. But that’s because the closure of the Holden plant in Australia isn’t just an isolated event, and it didn’t just affect a small group of people.
If we are to understand how the transition from an industrial society to a post-industrial one will affect each and every one of us, then we need exposure to these stories because as this book shows us, the bland politicized statement ‘stop giving them handouts’ ultimately affects us all.
I won a copy of this book in an on-line competition with Kill Your Darlings
Local politicians positively spin the opening of the latest Hungry Jack’s franchise as ‘good for local jobs’ because the official youth unemployment rate in the area is pushing 17 per cent or higher.And yet the Australian car industry closure affects people raising those very youth, and what jobs can they look forward to? Are bartending and premium agriculture in the ‘New Economy’ of Tourism, Food, and Wine in a water-poor state secure jobs?
All it would take is one bad recession, or one long drought, for it all to be wiped away again.And if you, like our governments, are thinking start-ups and tech will take the place of manufacturing jobs, think again.
Guys popping rivets on cars and driving trucks aren’t going to be working in start-ups. They don’t even have the networks to get those jobs done.
It would be easy to come away from reading this book feeling that it was just a series of stories, each with similar beginnings, similar twists, and very much the same endings. But that’s because the closure of the Holden plant in Australia isn’t just an isolated event, and it didn’t just affect a small group of people.
If we are to understand how the transition from an industrial society to a post-industrial one will affect each and every one of us, then we need exposure to these stories because as this book shows us, the bland politicized statement ‘stop giving them handouts’ ultimately affects us all.
I won a copy of this book in an on-line competition with Kill Your Darlings
December 26, 2017
I really liked the way that the author Royce Kurmelovs writes. This book is very easy to read, broken into many small chapters, enabling the book to be one of those ones that you pick up and put down as you have small bits of time to read.
The book covers much more than just the death of Holden, it really covers the entire death of manufacturing in Australia, the impact it has had / will have on regular Australians, and the role that the ideology of the Abbott / Hockey government had in killing manufacturing in Australia.
I really like that Royce went and interviewed so many regular people, the people that politicians like to refer to as the battlers. These people might not be degree educated, but they certainly are not idiots. They know what’s going on, and can see straight through the bullshit that is so commonly sprouted by politicians (of all persuasions) these days.
Reading the book left me questioning what is going to be the backbone of our economy moving forward, and how successful is the transition from manufacturing to a serviced based economy is really going to work.
The book covers much more than just the death of Holden, it really covers the entire death of manufacturing in Australia, the impact it has had / will have on regular Australians, and the role that the ideology of the Abbott / Hockey government had in killing manufacturing in Australia.
I really like that Royce went and interviewed so many regular people, the people that politicians like to refer to as the battlers. These people might not be degree educated, but they certainly are not idiots. They know what’s going on, and can see straight through the bullshit that is so commonly sprouted by politicians (of all persuasions) these days.
Reading the book left me questioning what is going to be the backbone of our economy moving forward, and how successful is the transition from manufacturing to a serviced based economy is really going to work.
September 15, 2024
The closure of Holden and the other Australian car factories and their suppliers in the 2010s devastated whole communities throughout Victoria and South Australia. This book consists mostly of the heart-breaking personal stories of the workers who lost their jobs and way of life and their families and their communities.
January 28, 2018
Written by someone who is obviously concerned with social equity. Well worth a read.
January 5, 2020
My review is i really enjoyed this and can you please recommend me more books like this? I need the help of YOU - my book loving friends to find more books like this so i can fall in love with reading again XOX
September 26, 2016
A compassionate look at the human cost of economic decisions. Super easy reading.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews