The issue is that we should have the option of buying secondhand cars in Japan (we have a FTA with Japan)
and to enable that the Government has to first change the MVSA 1989-2002 so that Japanese vehicle safety
and emissions are accepted in Australia instead of the existing hybrid EC/US standards we have now.
We have a car population of abour 13 million of which 25% are fuel guzzlers. The worst million or so could be easily replaced over time by good affordable smaller Japanese 4 cylinder cars. Let's face it, a working class person with say a 1995 Ford Falcon
cant afford to buy a new car nor can they afford a $7K 10 uyear old high kilometer japanese one. Instead, if permitted
this category buyer can buy a 10 year old Toyota Corolla, loaded in pristine condition with less than a 100 clicks all
for less than $2K FOB Japan and unlike the orpans permitted now, there's no parts issues.
Just imagine the fuel savings for the country ( we import 80% of our petroleum) if a million petrlo guzzzlers were sent to the parking lot in the sky and replaced economically by a million smaller fuel efficient cars. Assume the average car travels 20,000Ks
a year. For an old Falcon @ 14L/100Ks that's 2800 litres of fuel versus half that for the smaller car.
For a million fuel guzzlers replaced, that's 1.5 billion litres of imported petrol saved.
That's even discounting the benefits of the lower CO2 gasses.
