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That's the message from chairman and managing director of GM Holden Mike Devereux, who has hit back at claims by the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers (APESMA) the next-generation Commodore - due in 2014 - would be the last Australian-designed model.
"Actually the claim that was made on radio - and I'm reading a transcript - was that the 2014 Commodore is not designed and engineered in Australia - first of all I needed to dispel that, even though that is not what Chris Walton meant to say, it is what he said, so I needed to dispel that myth," he said.
Devereux says no design and engineering decisions have been made for Commodore beyond the 2014 vehicle, but the long-term future for manufacturing in Adelaide - where hundreds of millions has been recently spent by GM - is not in question.
"Where GM engineers anything has no bearing on what we build in Adelaide - the two things are unrelated, in our recent past we've had VE locally-engineered but way back at the start of Commodore, it was an Opel, Holden has evolved from adapting architectures, to VE and so the manufacturing business case is quite separate from what we engineer," Devereux says.
APESMA chief executive Chris Walton claimed yesterday Holden insiders had suggested the Commodore beyond the 2014 model may not be created in Australia, which would result in up to 300 engineers in Melbourne losing their jobs.
"We're trying to have very transparent conversations about the options for the talented engineering base we have here in Australia," Devereux says. "Those conversations, if they're productive, ought to remain confidential in order to secure great outcomes."
Devereux says Holden is still in "formulation mode" on what happens beyond the 2014 Commodore.
"No, we haven't made a decision on what we will build in Adelaide post our current range and post model-year 2014, I won't speculate on the timing," he says.
The claims of job losses have cast a shadow over the company's Elizabeth manufacturing facility as it gets underway with production of the new Cruze hatch.
The Adelaide factory employs around 2500 people building Commodore and Cruze - Australian Manufacturing Workers Union state secretary John Camillo says there is reason to be confident in job security at Elizabeth.
"For the next three to five years I'm quite happy and comfortable with that going forward," he says. "We always looked to the five-year plan, in terms of 2018/19/2020 - it is probably too far out to see now - we will be sitting down with senior GM executives next week and thrashing out the issues then."
"We have always looked at future plans as part of negotiations. Given the investment they've made here I'm very confident in regards to job security at Elizabeth. But there are no guarantees ... we could have another GFC," he says.
Minister for Trade and Manufacturing Tom Koutsantonis says Holden has confirmed its strong committment to it South Australian operations.
"I will be meeting Mr Devereux in the next couple of weeks to clarify matters but he assured me that Holden is committed to SA and the workers at the Elizabeth plant," he says.
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