ian

Hi everyone In the never ender fight to stop the government doing us over again, I've added a step 6 to my "how to stop the 15 year rule changing" page. ie http://www.r34skyline.com/politics/do15years.htm#Step6 I show you how to find out if you are in a marginal seat and who your local member is - who you should complain to! Get on those phones! :-) Ian ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Step 6: Contact your local representative, especially if you are in a marginal Libera/National seat! Some of the fedral seats can be lost with just a few hundred votes in the next election! So if you are in one of the marginal seats, talking to your local representative will be especially effective.. If you'd like to know if you are in a marginal seat, and the contact details for your representative, I've put a list up by electoral name (http://www.r34skyline.com/politics/electio...n2004/index.htm), or by postcode (http://www.r34skyline.com/politics/electio...alPostCodes.htm). Even if you're not, there are instructions on how you can look up who your member is, and his contact details, on either of those links. So contact your member and tell him how unhappy you are, and that you will be thinking of this issue when you vote later in the year! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree entirely - which is why I advised only sending an email as a last resort - if you didn't have any time to a 'snail mail' response.. :-)

Yep, I made that form from what dotars originally sent out :-) Quite a lot of people have downloaded it from my site, and my main submission has been downloaded in excess of 3000 times... :-)

Hi Negun Was this originally a longer post? On the notification email I got the below text - which made some good points! (...it's been a few years since I had to do a shaken) >>>> I just had a read of this letter and thought I would throw in my 2 cents Lets address this first comment in the letter a) ?Whether the vehicle was the age that it was supposed to be, and? In order to send a vehicle out of Japan you have to send the disuse registration papers to customs here in Japan. I couldn?t imagine someone changing the Chassis No. They would be onto it right away. At times you can buy a perfect looking GTR34 for around $12,000 AUS or less but it will say Buhin Tori which means it is to be pulled apart and it has no paperwork. ( ie the vehicle has been stolen and recovered or it?s a repo ) NO PAPERWORK CAN`T SEND A CAR OUT OF THE COUNTRY. Next comment B) ?if it is, whether it is in a fit state for use in Australia, including concerns about asbestos brakes and exhaust fittings?. B) About 3 or 4 years ago every vehicle over a certain age had to have a yearly shaken. Which basically means taking your car over the pits. Now it is every 2 years. So every 2 years whether your vehicle needs or not the exhaust is checked, the performance mods have to come off (this is one of the reasons why there is so many used parts here) brake pads have to changed etc etc . 15 years ago the brake pads had asbestos in them but I couldn?t imagine someone driving for 15 years on one set of original pads. Off course they would have been changed) also the vehicle has to go over the pits in Aus. Do you think they are going to let faulty exhaust go through. 1. ?Why are there 15 year old vehicles still available in Japan when they are virtually taxed off the road after 5 years.? This next statement. I don?t know which hat they pulled this one out of. I have two vehicles here in Japan. The second vehicle is 15 years old. The shaken (equivalent to taking your vehicle over the pits) was 120,000 Yen $1445 AUS for 2 years (This includes 3rd party insurance)+ the road tax was 51,000 Yen $614 AUS a year for smaller vehicles is 31,000 Yen a year $373 AUS The reason why Japanese change there vehicles is not a ?Tax matter ? its more of a cultural matter. When you buy a new car here in Japan you can drive it for 3 years without renewing the shaken. After 3 years they trade in or sell there relatively used new vehicles. The have the funds from the 3 year old vehicle to purchase an updated model. Also the Japanese think that after 3 years with an average of 30,000kms on the clock that the vehicle may be prone to breakdown thus repairs will be costly so they upgrade. Hell if a car has 100,000 kms on it then that vehicle is over the hill and gone. Every day I am away from AUS I realize how the average Australian is getting screwed over. You people ought to get together on a cruise. Travel down to Parliament Place and do some serious drift work outside of Johnny?s office.

DOTARS has extended the time for submissions till the 27 March 2004, so if you haven't got one in yet, get cracking! :-) How did I find this out? From the NCC, not DOTARS, even though they KNOW that I'm heavily involved with this issue... Read an email response I got from NCC at http://r34skyline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=22 One other bit of news, my main submission has been downloaded over three thousand times from my web site.. :-) Ian

Edge, good points, I agree entirly! But unfortunatly, you show a distict ability to know what you are talking about, and that ISN'T the process used by some people in Canberra.. :-) Ian A couple more posts from me to come below.. :-)

Hi Everyone, just a quick update. I've had over 2500 down loads of my 30 page submissions at www.r34skyline.com, so lets hope lots of people have sent in a protest! I've changed the ACCC to the NCC on my what to do page, and created an entire page about the NCC - http://www.r34skyline.com/politics/ncc.htm I've also added a few other pages - http://www.r34skyline.com/politics/submiss...sions/index.htm where I'll post a copy of any submissions you want to copy me in to (mail them to submissions@ my web site). And an "other information" page - http://www.r34skyline.com/politics/other/index.htm where I'll put other interesting information when it becomes available. Contact me with anything interesting! Ian and the post above this one looks interesting, I'll write up a response and post it in the next couple of days..

You're using logic, which I don't think is fair :-) :-)

And the reason R32 GTR's have depreciated so far is that Australians paid 100,000 for them when in Japan they paid about half that! This price difference being a direct result of the trade barriers in place to stop competitive imports. Thus in Japan they have gone from 50K to say 12K over 15 years, where in Aus they have gone from 100k to 25K over the same time. Wow, they have dropped about the same percentage over that time! What a surprise! It's just a hell of a lot more money in Aus due to the inflated price at the start! Which wouldn't have happened if we had allowed parallel imports back then! The obvious answer from the consumer point of view, is drop all the barriers and let there be competition!

My argument is that these trade barriers are more about protecting the importing companies - the local production is additionally protected by the tariffs and the shipping distances. And the only reason they are competitive enough to ship overseas is BECAUSE of the government protection - exactly what WE complain about when WE try and export food to Europe or the USA! That's the trouble with trade protection, if everyone protects their local market, and want access to everybody else, it just doesn't work.. And in the longer run, having the protected industry normally does more damage than good - if you're interested I'll give a few examples. And yes, at this point I would have mentioned NZ, but you did for me :-) And even ignoring them, we are a big enough market to have efficient importing, we are NOT a big enough market for manufacturing.. Actually, you have things back to front here. NZ had massive problems due to rampant protectionism in many areas, including (as you mentioned) high unemployment, and also bad trade balances, stuffed economy, etc etc. Freeing things up did them a hell of a lot of good, and certainly went a fair way in helping the underlying problems! (for more info, go to http://www.tln.org.nz/home.asp) Hmm, not many that I can think of (taking at least the medium term view) - pretty much quarantine issues are the only one I can think of - ie when we want to keep out pests or diseases that we don't have and certainly don't want!

I agree with predator - that wouldn't be a bad idea - but I'd widen it to 'modern' cars as well. If everybody else gets their R34 for half the price I did, I don't care! It will mean more of them on the road (good) more parts in the shops (good), more people who can do things to them (good), less crappy V8's on the road (good), and I knew that risk existed when I bought the car! And even if the car price drops in half, it STILL is less of a loss to me than buying a local non imported car with similar brakes, steering, traction control, comfort, power, etc would have been due to what the silly price would have been!

Hm, not quite right - not just a personal opinion. The numbers - ie age of our fleet, new car cost in terms of average after tax wages, car holding period, tax level applied by government etc etc, all indicate what I said. The Australian car market is pathetic compared many others, in terms of price, features, and model choice... And given how cheap it is to ship cars around, this just shouldn't be so! And it's a bigger gap that you realise - when I was looking for a new car in Japan a few years ago, the same model was in Aus for more thant TWICE the price... And don't re read your notes, they will induce sleepiness.. :-)

I disagree, I think there is a simple solution, make it much easier to bring cars in UNDER 15 years of age! And if all those 'shit boxes' can pass the same road examination test that all the other cars already in Aus have to, and people are deciding to bring them in (and even assuming they have trouble selling them) why should we interfere with their choice? And how many of them are there relative to the 150,000 NEW four wheel drives sold last year? Ian

If you look at what I said ie It's clear what I said - the number of OLDER cars wouldn't be increasing! and I think you are right - though not for the reason you are thinking.. Anybody, in any industry, who wants what THEY already have to be made artificially expensive for anyone else to get, ie "I'm all right, stuff you mate" doesn't need to say much more on the topic :-) As for Well yes, though not in the manner you mean.. One of the problems in Australia is that new cars are TOO expensive, and the depreciation rate is too SLOW (except in the first year when it drops to a more sensible value) compared to any other comparable country. Thus the price of second hand cars is too high as well - which all leads to a very inefficient market, and our extremely old and crappy fleet. In contrast, in Japan new cars are much cheaper, they depreciate fast, and are replaced often... And I find it hard to believe that anyone paying 60K for a car wouldn't realise that it wasn't going to drop in value pretty fast - ie that is YOUR choice when you buy it! Give me yell if you want me to take you through the economic consequences of free trade vs trade barriers and protectionism.. Ian

I agree entirely.. And anyone having a look though my paper will see what I'm actually advocating is an 'option 4' ie Option 4 - Make no changes to the current arrangements, AND remove some of the more ridiculous restrictions and procedures on cars < 15 years old. i.e. change SEVS so that - 1. There is no quota for each RAW, i.e. scrap the restrictive 100 vehicle per year limit. 2. Modified vehicles can be imported. 3. Each individual RAW application can cover a range of engines and variations of a model. 4. Allow damaged and previously repaired vehicles to be imported, though require them to be identified as such, so that any downstream buyer will be aware. 5. Allow for individuals to apply for the Import Approval, not just RAWS 6. Tyres only need to be changed if they are not roadworthy If we did that, the number of > 15 year old cars wouldn't be increasing!!! Ian

Which is clearly what they are trying to do - so that what you get for a car in Aus, and the price you get it at, is left 100% to the manufacture to decide.....

That's an interesting thought - just about every person on this site has strong feelings about something - but nobody - including you - seems to ever want their name involved! So DRIFTT, and I'm happy for anyone here to put their name up :-) And anyone can ask me any questions, name or no name! And maybe a reply that I emailed to someone last night (in response to an email) will help you figure out who I am and why I'm having a go at not just the 15 year rule, but SEVS as well... This was the email I got - ---------- Just wondering who is running this site? I find it hard to believe its being run out of the goodness of someone's heart without financial backing from any companies in the industry? X ---------- And this was my exact reply - ************** Hi X Actually, and you can look up the domain name ownership, I run the site! I own a r34 gtt, have lived in Japan (and other places) and have been a car nut for many years. I've also been involved in the big end of the corporate world, so yelling at the government doesn't particularly stress me... I was planning a r34skyline site, as it is difficult to find information about them on the web - most of it is R33 and R32. When the DOTARS thing came out a few weeks ago, I thought 'here we go, government stuffing us up again'! and decided to do something about it - and the web server was already setup. So yes, that is exactly what I'm doing - I'm doing it 'cause the government pisses me off, and I want to do something about it. Being technically minded, the web stuff isn't hard for me to do either! I (no one else) went hunting for the japanese emission numbers, etc etc, and I PM'ed a few other skyline nuts for comments which I incorporated. So no financial backing (web sites are cheap) and I did it all in a week between getting my main work done! I've never been in the car industry and have zero backing from anyone except my wife :-) If your still not convinced, send me a number and I'll give you a ring! Ian Quick ************** Does that make it clearer who is behind www.r34skyline.com? And don't anybody take offence at skyline nuts above, as I'm firmly putting myself in that group as well :-)

Hmm, you might not of understood my post if you think it was a rave.... Was I to subtle... :-) Ian

Hmmm, looking at the history site - http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/u...%2Fframe4d.html you are completely correct... So I've gone hunting on the internet, to see if the GT-X bage earlier on this post is original. The quick conclusion I've come to is it isn't, as I can't find a single other 'Gt-X' turbo car with it on.. Interesting enough, I found exactly my car labled as a GT-X turbo in quite a few places, ie http://www.geocities.com/hpl912/gallery.html the "skyline 25 GT-X turbo" is exactly my car (don't they look good for a 4 door.. :-) as is http://www11.plala.or.jp/minato302/PATLIGH...car/201/201.htm (of course, a GTT and GT-X are going to look the same..) In that case, yo CAN NOT tell a -X turbo from a GTT - it has the same model number, and does NOT have a ugly GTX badge like the one in this posting. It's obviously just a short hand for a GTT with eXtra options... and it doesn't bother me that I have a GT X turbo instead of a GT... :-) Ian

And as far as I can see, a GT-X Turbo would have a model number like - B (4 door) GK (RB25DE, or RB25DET) B (2WD + electric super hicas) R (right hand drive) E (250GT,25GT, 25GT-X) F or A (five speed or auto) R34 U (Intercooler & turbocharger) DA ie BGKBREFR34UDA for 5 speed, BGKBREAR34UDA for auto. where mine (being a GTT!) has a T (25 GT Turbo) replacing the E... ie BGKBRTFR34UDA for 5 speed, BGKBRTAR34UDA for auto. So I suspect you may not be right about those features only on a GT-X Turbo, alternatively, nissan didn't get the E/T letter right - it interesting to note that they don't specificly mention the 25GT-X TURBO as a model in the info above... Thoughts again? Ian

Hmmm, not quite right, unless I'm confused about what I have sitting in the driveway! My 34 GTT 4 door has (had) the Xenon lights, DOES have the Automatic light system, DOES have a drivers seat vanity mirror, and DOES have the Holographic sound system with a CD (it sounds pretty good, which is why I haven't replaced it). Are you saying my car is a X Turbo??? Why wouldn't I see any 'other' sign ie it has the standard GT badge... Thoughts?

Spoken like someone who has not driven a 34... :-) :-)

oh, I should also say I've got the late R34 GTT nissan brochure (24 pages and lots of pics), but it is a bit to big to put up here in the forum.. I'm building a new skyline site right now, I'll put it up on that soon... Ian

Yep, the 4 door silver one above is a 4 door R34 GTT, with after market panels added. It's also got the factory optional window tinting of the rear windows, and the 'wind guard' around the front windows.. ie it's the same car as I drive :-) I'm not sure what the difference was between the GT-X Turbo, and the GTT, though most of the web sites I've seen ie http://history.jbskyline.net/index5.php#10thgen think that the X is the model down.

hmmm, very interesting response to the discussion.. Most of the discussion had been very positive about Famous! I know absolutely nothing about famous except what's been said about it's legal set up ie the broker and insurance company have directors in common, but the insurance company is offshore. This is quite a legit way of doing things, and it is done for the simple reason of limiting the liabilities, and not having to satisfy Australia's insurance requirements. So the relatively straightforward decision for anyone looking for insurance is - do they want cheaper premiums with a company with less legal constraints, or more expensive premiums with someone who is more regulated. That's a simple fact, which I'm more than happy to explain in further detail if anyone wants me to