No LCT on safer cars: ANCAP

Safer cars should be exempt from the Luxury Car Tax, much like 'green cars', according to the Australasian New Car Assessment Program. Manufacturers of vehicles with good safety credentials have also argued for the exemption but now ANCAP has added the matter to its agenda for a successful outcome to the 2017 Road Map.

"The benefit to society for having safer cars is equally important as having hybrid or diesel cars," ANCAP Chairman Lauchlan McIntosh told motoring.com.au.

"The ANCAP Road Map is the first time anyone has really said: here's all this technology, we want to see it introduced. This is our position on what we expect for these cars.

"This took a lot of negotiating; we've done a huge amount of work with manufacturers starting years ago and we're now saying we're going to lift the standard again.

"What's important in Australia is that we get to the same stage as everyone else... If it's available in Europe or the US or Japan, we've got to insist that it's also available here."

Mr McIntosh uses autonomous braking as an example: "It's been available since about 2009 and here we are, three years later and still slow to see the feature come in. If it's been working well for years why isn't it standard across more cars?"

People have to move with their wallets, he admitted. And "dealers have to be brought up to speed" to explain the feature(s) to consumers. "We need an encouragement program, like they have for environmentally-better cars," suggested Mr McIntosh.

Some manufacturers have pushed for it, he says, "But we need to take another approach: ask why. There's a question on what the Luxury Car Tax does anyway besides take more money, and it doesn't really encourage people to buy Australian-made cars."

A diesel Ford Territory (pictured), for example, might be exempt from LCT but a petrol model with extra safety equipment is not. Impediments to manufacturers and consumers keen for high-end safety standards are under ANCAP's scrutiny. "And one of them is the Luxury Car Tax. It shouldn't be difficult to change".

"If a buyer has to pay $5000 extra for the top safety upgrades that money also attracts LCT. Nobody's gone out of their way to make it so; it's just been overlooked. We'll be looking at that more now that we have the 2017 Road Map settled.

"The more you encourage these cars into the market, the sooner they end up in the second-hand market and 'ordinary' people can drive them. It allows the manufacturers to train their technicians and dealers to explain the technologies: there's a big flow-on effect."

A safety upgrade package attracting LCT is not the only obstacle confronted by car buyers in Australia. Mr McIntosh uses the Mazda CX-5 as an example, where added safety tech like blind-spot assistance costs extra but "in Europe those technologies come standard on that model."

The question is why is that so? "Do manufacturers have to get additional approvals in Australia? If we talk about the government assisting the industry, surely encouragement of the implementation of well-established equipment is due," said Mr McIntosh.

"The government needs to look at that and it's also up to us [ANCAP] to raise the issue."

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