Industry Minister Kim Carr previously encouraged the idea that he would freeze or slow down the scheduled 2010 cut in tariffs on imported motor vehicles. That was a feint to enrage the policy neo-liberals and allow Bracks’ review to slip through a multi-billion-dollar expansion of direct subsidies to the car companies.

The Bracks report suggests a decisive shift in Australia’s industry policy debate. Supporters of the automotive industry must embrace innovation and the environment, not tariffs, to win the taxpayer support that has always been its lifeblood. The new tactic is embodied in the Bracks report.

The car industry has benefited from a long series of generous “adjustment schemes” since tariff barriers began to be dismantled in the mid-1980s, but Mr Bracks insisted this should be the last time it put its hand out for “transitional assistance”.