Thousands of Greek-Australians were employed in various car manufacturers and especially Holden.
Migrant men around the world came to build the Australian car, and for them those factories meant everything. It was hard work,
Some people used the car factories to get their start, others stayed for life.
Maria Vamvakinou MP, member for Calwell, paid homage to these men “on the fourth anniversary of Arrivederci Holden and the fifth anniversary of Antio (Αντίο) and Güle Güle Ford, when the last of Australia’s once great car manufacturing industry closed their doors and with it ending an iconic era of post-war nation building in this country.”
“Holden, like the Ford factory in my electorate that shut shop in 2016, was more than just an icon of Australian car manufacturing. Both were major employers of the thousands of post-war European migrants who came here under the Arthur Calwell migration program,” she said.
“Jobs were key to establishing the basis of a new life in a faraway country. Australia needed their labour in order to grow, and they needed hope for a better life for themselves and their families.
“On the assembly lines and factory floors they not only built cars, but they forged stories of mateship and camaraderie and built suburbs and communities around them.
“Broadmeadows and Ford, Elizabeth and Holden, entire suburbsand streets that brought cultures and faiths together and rose to build contemporary multicultural Australia.
“These workers were embraced by Labor and the union movement that collectively defended their rights and aided their integration into the Australian community, a community that they shaped and changed.
“These migrants didn’t only just make ‘Australian Made’, they in fact made Australia.”
