Why is my new car taking so long to arrive?

If you were promised your new car would arrive in late-2024 or early-2025 and you’re still waiting, chances are you’ve been affected by the same phenomenon as thousands of Aussies: industrial strike action.

At its core, workers at some busy arrival ports across the country are on strike while demanding increased pay, which according to reports is causing multi-week delays thought to affect some 35,000 vehicles at ports including Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Fremantle, Melbourne, and Newcastle.

It also means that ship loads of new vehicles are stuck on vessels already here and waiting to dock, while the domino effect means those ships can’t return to countries like China or Japan to collect another batch of new vehicles and bring them to Oz.

The stand-off is between the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and Qube, one of Australia’s largest logistics providers, and the issue is thought to be far from resolved.

According to transport news outlet ATN, the union has reportedly rejected Qube’s offer of an 18 per cent pay increase and is demanding a wage “almost 130 per cent above the stevedoring award”.

While the strike is affecting the automotive industry including brands Toyota and Ford – and is the reason we haven’t been able to locally test Australia’s first PHEV ute, the BYD Shark 6, despite customer deliveries commencing this week and the model recently being spotted in Canberra – it’s also affecting other industries.

Regional ports responsible for handling smaller volume goods such as food and household goods are also being delayed, while ATN reports Shipping Australia is calling for federal action to end the lengthy dispute.

“Make no mistake, while this industrial action may be slow-moving, and is not as visible to the everyday Australian as other shipping and port sectors, this disruption will surely begin to cripple our economy,” the body wrote in a recent letter to the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. “Australian families, businesses, and industries will inevitably start to suffer.

“We have reports of large ships, full of family cars, bouncing back and forth between the main car import terminals because the ships have difficulty discharging. There are vessels stuck off the Australian coast with no reasonable prospect of getting a berth soon. Cars are being offloaded at the wrong ports and then trucked – at massive cost – across Australia.”

It’s unclear how much longer the strike action will continue, although some reports suggest it could stretch out until April.

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