With the recent announcement of changes to the FBT rules by the prime minister, Kevin Rudd, the government also announced that they would undertake a ‘Buy Australian made car policy.’
The prime minister stated that this policy should increase overall sales of locally-made cars by approximately 18,000 units.
Some facts:
* Locally-made vehicles now account for just 9% of overall vehicle sales.
* The sale of locally-made vehicles are now at the lowest percentage of sales ever.
* The sales to all government departments, local, state and federal, has dropped by 26% since 2008 while the new vehicle market grew by 9%.
The FCAI states that in 2012 local, federal and state government departments purchased 51,000 vehicles, of which about 16,000 vehicles were locally-made, and 19,500 in the first six months in 2013. This is a drop of 37% compared to 2012.
When you have a look at the downturn in vehicle sales in July, following the announcement of the FBT changes, the industry was forecasting 92,500 vehicles whereas the actual figure was just 88,500.
The reality was that up to mid-July the forecast figure was looking accurate. However, following the FBT announcement, cancelled orders and orders put on hold caused a large adjustment to the monthly results.
The reality is that government sales alone cannot have a meaningful impact on vehicle sales and Australian manufacturing.
We need a plan, an agreed strategy, to bolster the sale of Australian-made vehicles. Why not have a different set of FBT rules for Australian-made cars verses imported cars? The level playing field does not exist and never did – we need to look after our industries and our people.
We also need to build a greater range of vehicles here. With the Toyota Hilux coming in 3rd place in July 2013 with 2825 sales, compared to the Australian-made Holden Cruze selling 2465 in July, why don’t we build a 1-tonne work horse in Australia?
If we are going to provide Government money to Holden and Toyota let’s have a strategy that allows us to grow the market for Australian-made cars rather than a donation which simply plugs a hole.
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