phantomguy

Sorry Guys for the bold text - so much - I only intended a few odd sentences in BOLD but have slipped up. Again my apologies as I was not intending to yell at you. this subject is too importna to be ignored for lousy format. :-)

Guys All this talk above import tariffs etc ... just misses the mark. This topic has been raised in forums for eons. If you want to get rid of the Ozzie rip off in car prices you have to get the 1989 Act of Parliament (and it regulations and regular "tightening" amendments which have taken place as late as Nov 2010), you have to get a large public groundswell to force the Australian Government to change its laws administered by the Dept of Infrastructure, which create monopoly importers and is decidedly anti-competitive (strange when we espouse "free trade" on the world stage at Gatt etc). In Short ... duty on imported cards is 10% then GST is 10% - unless you fall into the Luxury Car Tax rate of 33% (I think it still is) - but the figure set in about 1990 has never been indexed so instead of being now about $200,00 it is still about $60,000. And of course IF the cards were priced here at UK/USA/Japan competitive prices many quality cars would still not reach the threshold. We all hear Charlie Harper on Two and Half men complaint about his $80,000 Mercedes (about $200,000 here) and many of us have had personal experience, or that or friends of relatives overseas, who have purchased vehicle at half or less than they sell for in Australia. My own examples are - a cousin in UK just purchased a brand new RH drive Mercedes E350Cdi for 36,000 pounds (=A$55,000), the same LH drive vehicle in USA sells for US$49,000 (say A$50,000) and the Australian price is A$142,000. Even in NZ the price is NZ$140,00 which on currency conversion is 25% cheaper than Australia. 250% higher!!!! Other examples are Nissan GT-R base model - LH drive US$84,000, RH drive in UK 54,000 pounds, but in Australia is A$160,000. 250% higher!!! Again, in the lower end, BMC 129Coupe - in UK 19,000 pounds (= A$30,000), in the US $29,000 (= A$29,000), but go to buy one in Australia and the price is A$62,000. 210% higher!!!. And on and on ...... The problem here is that in almost every car brand and model, the Australia Government has allowed the manufacturer or master importer EXCLUSIVE IMPORTING RIGHTS. And so NO ONE - i.e NO ONE, not even a private person wishing to bring in one vehicle, can import that vehicle unless - (a) you have lived overseas for 12 months and have owned the vehicle for 12 months, and have lived in the country where it is garaged for 46 weeks of that time; OR (b) you find a make and model which has NEVER been imported in Australia nor has been on the import approval list for the manufacturer/master dealer; and then either - (i) apply to have that vehicle make and model added to the SEV schedule (takes time and money and it must meet Aust design Rules but they will not require a vehicle to crash test) [sEV = Sports Enthuisist Vehicle); OR (ii) Apply for a Low Volume Import licence allowing you to import max 100 vehicles pa - but licence is expensive and so is the process to meet ADR (funny that our rules/standards would be "so high" that Benz and others cannot automatically meet it, yet Great Wall can meet it. Mmmm!) See, the upshot of this is that Mercedes, Honda, Audi, etc etc etc just have to request their vehicles put on the their Import Licence, provide documentation such as to meet ADR, an if requested provide one vehicle (minimal cost to them) for a destructive crash test, and agree to import a minimum of 3000 vehicles pa and hey presto! they get a "single import licence" which means NO ONE else can import that vehicle whatsoever. Then they have it made - they can name their price because they is no way even one vehicle from another market - NEW or USED i.e manufactured since 1989 - can get into Australia or get onto the market at a price below theirs (or in the case of the USED vehicles below they inflated used car prices here - inflated because the new prices are 250% inflated also - so it flows through. The history of this fiasco ..... originally in the mid 1980s the Labor Government adopted a reducing protection (i.e. Import duties) on motor vehicles - Called the Button Plan - conceived and managed by Senator John Button - to force GMH and Ford to get more efficient and more competitive. The duty was to be slowly reduced over 10 years from 60% I think it was - to 5%. When it got down to about 15% the "big boys" here threatened to pull out of Australia and put 30,000 workers and another 30,000 subcontractor workers out od a job and on the dole. The Government relented and the duty drop stopped eventually at 10%. Later a clamp down by the Government on the "fat cats" buying European instead of Australia "luxury?" models brought in a 33% Luxury car tax at around $60,000. You could get quite a nice Porche for a little over that at that time. Of course it didn't stop the well-off from buying BMWs instead Caprices and LTDs. And of course that figure was NEVER indexed so just became a another tax-grab by the Australian Government. Then in 1989, still under threat of Ford and GMH walking out, a new idea was born - restrict import of overseas vehicles to just one corporation, who could then price their products to Australians at much higher prices (with fat profits) having regard to the high prices for locally manufactured vehicles and the fact that vehicles sold by them into other markets (at fair prices) could never come in and "compete" here with their inflated products. SWEET DEAL FOR ALL - Except the Australia consumer who again has has wallet ripped from his pocket. Trouble is this time the "rip off margins are being made by the overseas manufacturers (as well as Ford and GMH to some extent) and a huge slab of our family (and business) budget (as in the case of exhorbidant fuel prices) is being shipped to overseas balance sheets and bank account. I hate to say it but high import duties together with a "free" import market would mean the "rip off' money stayed in Australia with our Government. Financial Impact on Australia ... we all know that the family vehicle is the 2nd biggest purchase we make (and it is repeated every 4-5 years on average) and whilst not every imported make and model is 250% higher than in most other 1st world countries, on avergae we are paying A$20,000 more than we need to for the average motor vehicle because of the "single import licence" scam - protected by government. Think about this - 1 million vehicles are sold in Australia every year ( more would be if prices we "normal" and then we could also get "young people out of "death-traps" and help to reduce the road toll). That means every years we as Australian individuals and businesses are paying $20 billion dollars more than we need to. And this has been going on for 22 years - is that over $400 billion we have wasted in lining the pockets of overseas "pirates"? But looking forward - If we took that for just two years that $40 billion could pay $1million to each of the auto workers and say 1/2 of the subcontractors who could not be employed in other than supplying the motor industry with components, and just as happened with uncompetitive textile clotheing footware, furnitur etc etc manufacturing, scrap the local car manufacturing as they did in the UK where prices are about on par with US prices. THEN FROM 2013 WE COULD BE PAYING THE SAME PRICES AS THE USA, IK ETC. OR NEAR ENOUGH. So, what do you other forum members think about this situation and the solutions? Stop complaining about this and band together with friends and family to lobby your fedceral member on this important and expensive problem that we Aussies just cannot afford to let go on.