Yes, Australian govt. has
stopped all subsidies for vehicle manufacture which were in place since roughly 1950. GM supported Holden via partnership, Ford partnered with Nissan, Mitsubishi with Chrysler, absorbing ownership in about 1981, when Chrysler was bankrupt.
AMM built Ramblers, etc under license in Port Melbourne. British Leyland had a plant there, Then came Toyota, Honda, etc. much the same as in the UK.
The button plan of the 1980's forced Holden badged Toyotas, etc. and visa versa.
You have about 23 million people, not certain how many licensed drivers on a continent where cars don't rust rapidly. Holdens best sales year was 1973, with 200,888 units made. I'm reading that from GM's 75 year anniversary book. Even Oldsmobile produced 918,119 units that year, and it was defunct in 2004.
Times have changed for sure. Asia does most manufacturing today, with Mexico in second, at least in parts making, if not final assembling. Most of GM's manufacturing capacity seems to be from China, and Thailand. Even the Daewoo/GM plants in Korea have stopped production I believe. They were building the Malibu.
Ford just made global salaried staff cuts, mainly out of the USA. Very likely many down under.