A key government discussion paper outlining a number of options for the future of the motor industry has provoked widespread reactions to changes to the Motor Vehicles Standards Act 1989.
A statement released by Australian Imported Motor Vehicle Industry Association chief executive, David Vinsen welcomes last week’s 2014 options discussion paper put forward by assistant minister for infrastructure and regional development, Jamie Briggs.
In the statement the IMVIA’s Vinsen notes: “The overwhelming response to the media release by government has been the excitement among Australian motorists about the prospect of changes to the current legislation that would ultimately lead to cheaper motor vehicles through the removal of barriers to parallel new and used vehicle imports.
“It is clear that the Australian public is aware of the price discrepancies in new vehicle pricing in the Australian market and are now more than ever aware of the restrictions that have been placed on imported vehicles that have created a sheltered environment where new car distributors have been able to gouge Australian consumers.”
AIMVIA will be putting together a submission toward the review of the Act in the coming weeks.
In contrast to AIMVIA’s positive endorsement was the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) chief executive Tony Weber who says the changes will only benefit the “top end of town”, and called for the government to instead focus on removing the 33% luxury car tax and import tariffs.
“There is this notion in this country that people pay much more for cars, but the vast majority of cars are very competitively priced, and certainly at the low end there is absolutely no evidence of any differential,” he says.
The Federal Government’s proposal to allow new cars to be ordered from overseas online would “completely obliterate the new-car market” and may end up costing more than buying locally.
Foreign cars would cost up to $12,000 each to ship and process — in addition to the purchase price — be void of any warranty and ineligible for capped price servicing deals, which are subsidised by the local divisions of each car company, the Australian Motor Industry Federation (AMIF) warns.
“I’m not sure if this is a political stunt, but this announcement is premature and has been done without consultation with the industry,” says Richard Dudley, the chief executive officer of the AMIF.
“It might be a discussion paper but there has not been enough thought put into this, and there has been no thought given to the negative impact on consumers,” Dudley adds.
If the proposal went ahead Dudley predicts there will be “mile-long queues outside the courts in every jurisdiction as consumers try to take action against the local distributors who didn’t sell them the car”.
AMIF says there are 100,000 retail motor trades businesses which employ more than 308,000 people and have a combined annual turnover in excess of $162 billion.
“These businesses are already doing it tough, we’ve seen seven months in a row of new-car sales decline, and now the Federal Government wants to open the floodgates to privately imported new cars,” says Dudley.
“The impact on jobs will be profound and dealers will close.”
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