The current minimum noxious emission standard for new light vehicles in Australia is ADR 79/04, which is based on an international standard known as Euro 5. The current minimum noxious emission standard for new heavy vehicles is ADR 80/03, which is based on an international standard known as Euro V, with vehicles meeting equivalent US or Japanese standards also accepted.
For heavy vehicles (trucks and buses over 3.5 tonnes), a new ADR 80/04, based on the Euro VI (Stage C) requirements will apply to newly approved heavy vehicle models supplied from 1 November 2024 and all new heavy vehicles supplied to the Australian market on or after 1 November 2025.As with ADR 80/03, vehicles meeting equivalent US or Japanese standards will also be accepted.
- Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, at 22nd Mar 2024
The Albanese Government is currently trying to change the emissions standards and fuel consumption standards for new motor vehicle sales, primarily to bring us in line with Japan. This seems to me to be an entirely sensible policy, as Japan adopted Australia's safety standards with regards Side Impact Protection Systems some time ago; so normalisation with Japan is a good idea. Japan itself already adopted the Euro 6 emissions standards and the EU has also just recently adopted Japan's fuel consumption standards. In theory this should mean that there is little if anything to do when a car is imported into Australia. In theory it should be easier to get a landed product here.
In practice though the biggest whingers against the plan have been Ford and Toyota; likely because they have the biggest to lose in terms of potential profits. For a while now the Ford Ranger and the Toyota Hilux have sat atop the sales charts. As Ford and Toyota are multi-national corporations, of course they will offer the cheapest and lowest quality product that they can get away; and in the case of Australia that means quality just a cut above mediocre. The Thai-built trucks that Ford and Toyota choose to dump on Australia are in no way reflective of the quality of the workforce but rather the quality of the materials and IP being put into them. As they are only required by the current Australian Design Regulations to build cars to Euro 5 specifications, then that's all that they will do; the overarching reason why automakers can lower quality vehicles on Australia, is that Australia being an island nation with no motor manufacturing industry of its own to speak of, amounts to a captured market (because the very tory Abbott Liberal Goverment's policies in 2013).
The country’s top-selling car brand, Toyota, has urged the Albanese government to slow the pace of new car emissions standards, saying it is too ambitious, will cause price rises and reduce the range of vehicles available.
Toyota, which sold more than 200,000 cars here last year, including the number two model, the Hilux, issued the statement at the same time new industry analysis laid bare the size of the challenge facing importers.
That analysis finds few models in the current domestic car fleet meet the standards, meaning the task of changing the make-up of cars sold in Australia to meet the new standards will be significant.
- Financial Review, 28th Feb 2024
Nevermind the fact that Toyota already meet Euro 6 standards in Japan, so suggesting that the "task of changing the make-up of cars sold in Australia to meet the new standards will be significant" is quite frankly complete bunk; as evidenced by their own website.
Owing to the fact that we have a hideously rightest broadcast media in this country, and an electorate which is rationally and irrationally self-interested, then any proposed changes to the standards if they result in cost increases, will be railed against as if they were the Devil incarnate. Discourse seems to be mainly centred around the proposition that Albanese Government is trying to take people's trucks away and that trucks will become more expensive, in spite of the evidence before their own eyes that owing to the fact that we do not have a motor manufacturing industry in Australia any more, the real cost of motor vehicles rose by 35%, and I note that Toyota themselves have removed the Toyota Hilux WorkMate from their lineup. Again, this is purely a profit driven decision and has nothing to do with government policy.
The most visible consequence of the then Abbott Government actively killing the motor manufacturing industry in Australia, was a very rapid shift to light trucks like the Ford Ranger, Toyota Hilux, Isuzu D-Max et cetera. This is in addition to the SUVification of everything. Perhaps the most emblematic evidence of a successfully killed the motor manufacturing industry in Australia, is the introduction of the the Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge RAM as massively massive brodozers for cosplay cowboys. The first and obvious problem with this is that they weigh about 500kg more than the traffic they replaced, and cause nearly triple the damage to other road users in terms of property and personal damage. The second and obvious problem with this is that not only do bigger things work more efficiently at doing damage, as they are light trucks they aren't bound by the relevant Australian Design Regulations with regards pedestrian safety either. All the work done in improving road safety has been undone in three years.
Not only are the kinds of people who buy these things likely to be more aggressive on the roads, and more likely to underpay their staff, they're also less likely to be actually doing work in these brodozers. A hundred thousand dollar brodozer is itself an expensive investment; that invariably means that they then get dressed up with nice wheels and body kits and never visit work sites. A truck with chequerplate boxes, or metal pull down sides, with dents in the side, is very obviously a tool to be used for work. A chromed garage queen is not. Nevertheless, as more than three-quarters of new vehicles are currently bought with ABNs, then this means that about a third of the expenses of those vehicles, including depreciation, are written off on tax. This means that the same knaves who underpay their staff, also rip off the taxpayer as well. It figures.
Scruitinising this though is a difficult job. Mtor vehicle registrations a task for State Governments. Income Tax and Company Tax are within the remit of the Federal Government. There is no sharing of data. There is not cross-referencing of data. The best that we can do is the ATO's anonymised data set; which because it quite rightly removes loads of detail, can only give you general details in the aggregate. Furthermore, one of the problems with the ATO's anonymised data set is that although you can get general details for Motor Vehicle expenses, and even Occupation Codes, actually mapping the two requires opening up individual tax returns which is not an option, and the actual details for each Motor Vehicle within a tax return sit inside a text field which means that you would never be able to get generalised data anyway.
The state motor registry offices and the data held by insurance companies would be of no help either, since although they are concerned to the finest detail about every vehicle in question, for tax purposes and insurance premium purposes, the only distinction about what vehicles are used for is if they are 'private' or for 'business'. State motor registry offices can not tell you how a vehicle is used, since they do not actually care and have no ability to check the genuineness of what they have been told.
The open and yet unstated lie about Motor Vehicle expenses generally in Australia, is that heaps and heaps of people don't really have genuine Motor Vehicle expenses. What they have is a Motor Vehicle and a business and they choose to run the expenses of that Motor Vehicle through the business as a tax minimisation strategy. Again, the Australian Tax Office doesn't actually care about the specifics of any given motor vehicle, so they aren't concerned about delving into the the specifics of any given motor vehicle's use in a business. They only keep broad data ranges and actively audit anything which exceeds those broad data ranges. Even if they did, it would not be unusual for a Plumber to have Motor Vehicle expenses relating to a work truck. Here's the fun thing though: the ATO has no idea what a 'work truck' actually is, since they only keep the details for each Motor Vehicle within a text field inside a tax return.
Anecdote is not evidence but in evidence's complete absence, this will have to do. An ex-client of ours who runs a series of franchise gyms, had a very expensive two-door low slung Italian sports car which he ran through the business for tax purposes. In principle there is nothing wrong with choosing any car that you like and in fact the ATO does not care what car you have but if you are running a Hubrisa Aurii and choose to run 100% of the expenses through the business, the ATO will suddenly take interest. I mention 'ex-client' because he left us after we refused to run his personal mortgage through the business as an expense (largely because this fails the Section 8 ITAA 1997 deductibility test) and we later found out from his friend that he had been audited by the ATO and the results were not pretty.
Now I mention this because although anecdote is not data, it is instructive as an object lesson. In my experience as an accountant for more than 500 clients, when you ask people to submit anything like a Motor Vehicle log book to verify what proportion of expenses are in fact business expenses, more often than not you end up with clients flap into a mild panic and they have to donkey up a log book; which has been more than likely been invented there and then and isn't genuinely genuine. As the ATO believes literally anything that you tell them, they are fine with it; as long as the expenses fall within the broad data ranges. If what you tell them is not believable, they can and will use any means necessary to bring someone into compliance; which includes trial by financial exhaustion and/or prison.
Now you and I and everyone knows that deep down, the amount of donkeying up of log books for Motor Vehicle expenses is practically endemic because the only people who would actually care about the truth at the time, are nerdulent geeks with OCD and the number of nerdulent geeks with OCD in trades, is exactly nil. Tradespeople generally want to do the job of their trade and thanks to everyone's inherent drive for selfishness, the ethics of donkeying up a log book for Motor Vehicle expenses is always thrown out the window. Morals are character qualities of poorer people because the kosmos decrees that you do not get to be rich if you are stupid enough to hang on to them. And even if the ATO were to run an audit on this specific aspect of whether or not a brodozer is used for business, the ATO does not have the investigation tools to determine how a vehicle is used. A truck looks like a work vehicle to people who do not really care about what a truck is actually used for.
The underlying moral problem is that Motor Vehicle expenses can and are used by people as a rort. The people who actually suffer as a result of businesspeople donkeying up of log books for Motor Vehicle expenses, are you and I, the taxpayer. It is strange that when people find an advantage, even if it is illegal, even if it is morally dubious, that defending that advantage becomes a matter of entitlement. Businesspeople who are engaged in running dodgy practices will even try to beat you with the line of argument that whatever vehicle they drive is a matter of personal choice, as if that were some moral ringfence of glory. This is at the same time when they receive tax incentives for an illegal act.
It is insanely obvious what is in fact a genuine work vehicle and what is not. Something like a Toyota Hliux with fold down metal sides is very obviously a work vehicle. A Dodge RAM which has low profile tyres and mag wheels and which has very obviously never ever left the black top in its life, is very obviously a garage queen owned by a cosplay cowboy. Push any line of enquiry though and what you find out pretty quickly is that instead of towing a bobcat, what people actually want a Dodge Ram for is towing boats, caravans, and horse floats. Towing those things is good and fine but we all know that those things are not business expenses. What we find out pretty quickly is that we the taxpayer effectively fund about a third of people's private entertainment.
This is what lies at the heart of the problem. The hideously rightest broadcast media in this country already hate the existence of government, and the current Albanese Government is on the other political football team. We have Dictator Dan, Palace Chook, and Airbus Albo on one side, and policies which actively caused suicide on the other but that's fine because those people do not matter. The cosplay cowboys who drive brodozers, are more likely to vote for their political football team. They are the good guys; including if they manslaughter pedestrians and cause increasing amounts of property damage but all of that's cool in the name of profits, right?
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