Australia may still be RIPPED OFF when the car manufacturers go.

This week on CruiZeFm, Kristian Appelt, from Iron Chef Imports, Grandma is a Nuttcase, The Fugitive with no legs. and David Conole Car review Kia Cerato.

The car enthusiast and the industry that supports them have to take some responsibility for their future, powerfull lobby groups are currently shaping the future of the car industry in Australia and Kristian Appelt from Iron Chef wants you to know something very important. Last week he wrote this post (below) on his FB site, and we Caughjt up with Kristian Appelt.
GOT YOUR NOSE: TIME FOR THE GAME TO END.
As a child, I had a selection of crazy great-uncles who would, at family gatherings, routinely ‘get my nose’, leaving me astounded by their proboscal removal and reattachment skills. Unfortunately for them, I eventually wised up. Therein, attempts to get my nose were met with eye rolls, groans and general annoyance.

In Australia, automotive manufacturers and their distributors have engaged us, the general public, in a game of ‘got your nose’ that has lasted for decades. Through industry representative bodies such as the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), they have successfully managed to lobby governments of all persuasions to prevent almost all vehicles, both new and used, from being parallel imported to Australia outside of their officially sanctioned channels.

Up until recently, their main argument has been to help protect our ailing local manufacturing industry. But with local makers packing up and heading home to their respective parents, the reasons for opposing parallel importing are now looking less like a passionate defence of Australian jobs, and more like a passionate defence of a highly profitable market.

As you may already be aware, Australia is one of the most diverse automotive landscapes in the world, with 62 different manufacturers selling here, compared to half that number in the US. The industry will have you believe that this means that the marketplace is fiercely competitive, and that as a result margins are slimmer than a supermodel’s waistline. But no-one sets up shop with the intention of making a loss; the fact that we can achieve new vehicle sales records year-in year-out with so many different makes and models should, of itself, be an indicator that Australia is a ‘healthy’ market, profit-wise.

Accordingly, a new Porsche 911 Turbo S that would cost you AUD189,000 in the US and AUD256,000 in the UK cost will set you back AUD445,000 on Aussie soil. A BMW M5 that costs AUD121,000 in the US and AUD136,000 in the UK costs AUD230,000 here. This disparity is reflected across almost every manufacturer, and the more expensive the vehicle, the larger the gap. Shipping to Australia is cheap enough to rule it out as a factor, and even our illogical Luxury Car Tax doesn’t explain away the pecuniary Grand Canyon.

Via the recent Productivity Commission’s review of the Automotive Industry and its own review of the Motor Vehicle Standards Act, our federal government has flagged that the game of ‘get your nose’ may soon be coming to an end. The reports read in typically ambiguous fashion, but most in the industry quietly expect that there are some sweeping changes on the horizon, the main one being that vehicles can be purchased and imported from overseas, without restriction, providing they are either new or less than five years of age.

Prior to now, the importation of vehicles outside of factory-backed channels has been heavily moderated, restricted to makes and models not sold here new, with overall numbers also capped. With the proposed changes and resulting reduction in red tape, the number of parallel-imported vehicles could increase ten-fold, possibly more. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in great wailing and gnashing of teeth from the FCAI, distributors, the vehicle finance industry and assorted complicit media outlets,