Long time Holden supplier sees the end of the road Jim Griffin's Driver Consolidated Industries has been a supplier to Holden since 1948. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones MCJ Jim Griffin had spent all of Wednesday morning in Canberra, trying to convince politicians that Australia's automotive industry still had a future. But just after 2pm, as he stood in the halls of Parliament House, his hopes had vanished: General Motors Holden announced it would quit making cars in Australia from 2017. ""Everyone was shocked,"" said Mr Griffin, who runs Diver Consolidated Industries in the northern Melbourne suburb of Reservoir. ""We're a company that's supplied General Motors Holden since 1948. We have been there from the beginning and we will be there at the end. They are words I hoped I'd never have to say but that's what will be the case."" Mr Griffin said it was too early to say how the Holden closure would affect his business, which employs 115 people stamping, diecutting and welding car parts, 70 per cent of which are supplied to Holden and Ford. ""We will have to reassess that now."" ""It's four years down the track. We will be doubling our efforts to reduce our dependency on local vehicle production, which we have been endeavouring to do over the course of many years anyway."" Terrible day for Australia Still Mr Griffin said the news was hard to take, describing it as a ""terrible day for Australia"." ""It's a terrible day for manufacturing, it's terribly disappointing. ""What I want to do is get back to Melbourne to talk to our employees. I have been on the phone to them already and making sure they have got the latest and most accurate information about what's going on. They'll be feeling it."" Earlier in the day, Mr Griffin had met with staff from Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane's office, former Labor Industry Minister Kim Carr, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon and others. His said his pitch had been upbeat and met with passionate discussion. ""Our basic approach has been rather than to talk about the size of the crater that's going to be left when the industry goes ... if we took the money that was being offered and possibly redirected it ... we could get to a point where it could remain world competitive."" Kick in the guts He said the politicians were just as shocked as he was when Holden made its announcement. ""There's a lot of people up here in Canberra in various government departments that have put a lot of effort into the automotive industry over the years and it's a kick in the guts to everybody. ""Nobody wants to see it fail. It's a very bad piece of news."" But Mr Griffin didn't point the finger at Holden or its GM masters in Detroit. ""We have known for some time that Holden had been reviewing the future of their business. ""But when you have considered what they have done through the course of this year. They had released a magnificent new VF [Commodore] product and they set about planning for the next model ""When you consider what they had done with the unions in endeavouring to restructure their EBA. They overturned every rock that they could to try to put together a business case which would see them stay in the country."" Dollar to blame Mr Griffin said ultimately a high Australian dollar killed off 65 years of history. He said that had made Australia exports less competitive and at the same time imports more competitive. ""It's a double whammy. It's been burning the candle at both ends."" He said about 32,000 people were employed in the car parts supply chain, many of whom would be able to retrain into other areas in the coming years, but he said there would be some who would be unable to be redeployed. ""We are pretty disappointed."" The focus now turns to Toyota, which at this stage will be the only car maker remaining in Australia after 2017. Mr Reilly said while many of Toyota's suppliers supplied just Toyota, he doubted whether the Japanese company could continue to achieve its economies of scale. ""We will have to see how that will play out.""