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Tasmanian Sojourn: How Does The Southern Isle Drive?
My spouse works for a university and has a role which requires her to attend interstate conferences. Last week it was a ride to Hobart; three days of work then a bit of down time.
Day one: arrival on a cloudless Sunday and hotel right next to Constitution Dock (finish line for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race). Do the basics of unpacking and walk around the immediate harbour precinct; some wonderful fish and chips (bad luck if you’re a vegetarian seeking anything other than fried potatoes though, as my partner is) and a topless double decker bus ride around to Wrest Point, to the base of Mt Wellington and the Cascade Brewery, through town and back to the harbour. What becomes increasingly obvious is Hobart is a living museum, locked in a time bubble with regulations forbidding development and buildings of a residential nature past a double storey. Being Australia’s second oldest city is one thing, making it look like a time traveller’s paradox is another.
An odd piece of road design has the main north western entrance streaming past Constitution Dock, leading to Hobartian gridlock morning and afternoon. I say odd as it is right next door to what is the town’s main tourist attraction, in real terms and having to wait for traffic that should be a block or two away isn’t tourist friendly. Having said that, at least the delay between greens and reds and turns is minimal to NSW’s laughably titled “world class system”. Sadly, Hobart is even more infected by colour blind drivers than the rest of the country, with eight of ten drivers having no idea what an amber or red light stands for, to the detriment of pedestrians that thought they were safe to cross….
Come Wednesday lunchtime (whilst the boss was at work, the kids and I had visited the Cadbury factory, overrun with American OH&S laws and a trip to a wildlife refuge), after solid rain since Monday and no chance to visit the 1200+ metre peak of Mt Wellington as a result, it’s a lazy 90 minute drive to Port Arthur. The one thing about maps, which brings to mind the old stories about tourists visiting the mainland and going “it was only this far on the map (spreading finger and thumb)” is that everything really isn’t that far away. Cold, wet and grey skies dominate the landscape and here is another sign that the insiduous desease of bad driving has clearly spread to our southern cousins; no one, but no one uses headlights if they are locals. Our hire car, a Nissan X-Trail (thankfully upgraded from a what would have been too small i20, with petrol and CVT box), with a West Aussie trained driver at the wheel, has lights ablaze, only to be greeted by confused Tasmanian faces.
Port Arthur itself, a marvel of convict construction, is probably best seen when it’s not being covered in Niagara Falls….sadly, poignantly, there’s no apparent acknowledgement of those that lost their lives during the mass shooting in 1996 with that absence overshadowing what we should have felt. The roads themselves are generally well built and maintained, plus there’s a welcome reliance on the driver to be more aware of road conditions on hillside roads in some areas by having only the vertical reflector posts rather than the crash barriers automatically expected.
Thursday morning, still wet and the schedule is to drive to Cradle Mountain. Due to a minor navigational hiccup we end up heading north on the highway to Launceston rather than the planned route through the mid western coast. Again, the roads are easy to drive, causing the X-Trail no issues although I had switched it into torque-sensing 4WD for the expected wet roads. The highway to Launceston is not particularly engaging until we head west, south of Devonport, with the spectacular bluffs of the Mt Roland and Gog Ranges in view. Unfortunately the route taken takes us north and out of view of the beautiful Lake St Clair but leads into some tight and steep roads through the quaintly named Mole Creek before finally arriving in 5degree air temps and Cradle Mountain.
The X-Trail has performed well; two adults, two kids and probably 70kg of luggage for around 570kms from the unleaded fuel. Cars passed: not that many. Cars with headlights on: not that many. Cars of a dark colour: just about every one. Safety factor:….ummmmmmmmm…..
Friday morning; it’s back down to the Cradle Mountain view point at Dove Lake as it’s a clear and almost cloudless day; it’s a spectacular sight but the wind chill precludes a planned walk. To drive to the lake, the authorities have put in place a 40kmh limit along a 8km long road most of one lane. It’s smart, simple and effective but surprisingly not to do with traffic control, as a night time animal spotting tour the evening before confirms. It’s solely to do with minimising animal fatalities, with wallabies, possums and “paddy melons” (a almost kangaroo version of a quokka) plus the declining Tasmanian Devil population finding their lives ended by vehicles. A quick visit to the Tasmanian Devil refuge just up the road, an effort to help stem the shocking facial tumour disease that’s decimated a terrible 80+ percent of the island’s devil population shows them as they are; a surprisingly cute, almost puppy like creature curled up in the morning sun.
Most of the state limit is either 100 or 110 kmh; that’s most comfortable enough with the roads generally not straight enough on the western side to offer a higher velocity, whilst the highway north to Launceston clearly had room to increase. From Cradle Mountain, to Burnie, across to Devonport and finally Launceston (with a diversion to the cataract chair lift ride on the western fringes, plus a Devon Tea shared with the 
numerous peacocks and peahens) was a leisurely drive, along some quality surfaces. For the most part, Tasmanian roads are smooth, maintained and ask the driver to be aware of the conditions and take responsibility for their safety. A noticeable not quite downside is having a sign, say 300m before a turnoff alerting you to a potential sight to see….yet no sign AT the actual point you were meant to turn and the distances certainly weren’t always accurate….Another noticeable lack was police or highway patrol cars. I genuinely don’t recall seeing one until Friday evening coming into the airport at Launceston where JetStar lived up to their reputation with another two hour delay….
Mainland drivers should visit Tasmania, to experience a less restrictive, less “nanny state” way of doing things. For example, the road to/from Port Arthur and up to Cradle Mountain encompasses plenty of areas where there’s no speed advisory signs nor crash barriers. You, the driver, are expected to do what a driver SHOULD be doing: be aware, drive to the road and the conditions. The downside is the lack of genuine safety enforcement, not just in Tasmania but Australia wide, when it comes to wet road situations. Using headlights and indicators is a basic safety function, as is stopping for red lights. The argument for speeding as a revenue raising exercise is fair yet, mitigated somewhat, by the fact that there’s no police action on other safety aspects which WOULD also contribute to revenue. Currently, NSW’s stance on non-indication is 2 demerit points and $140 per infraction; if policed as a safety initiative it would be a massive contributor to the coffers, yet……
One final point of note: the Government provided indication signs with two markers; one each for a fatality or a crash, each clearly defined. Thankfully and welcomingly, we didn’t see many at all….so, perhaps, apart from the lack of regard for other drivers under dark skies, there may be safer drivers in Tasmania due to the lack of other over policing….
FBT: Post election
Now the Federal election is over and the Coalition have taken pole position, Tony Abbott’s declaration that the mooted changes to the Fringe Benefit Tax will not go ahead is now ready to be checked. And, seemingly, this is the case, according to a communique dated 3 September, four days before the election.
A letter sent to the Australian car industry, its employers and employees associated with it, appears to confirm the Coalition’s determination to not go ahead with any modifications to the Fringe Benefit Tax, as it stands; part of the letter states: “…we encourage all stakeholders, including employers and employees engaged in salary sacrifice programs, to urgently and immediately return to normal trading activity in order to repair the damage done….” and: “…we want to acknowledge the role the leasing and salary packaging industry plays in assisting with new car sales, generating demand and, therefore, generating jobs.”
With a marked and measurable slowdown in sales and yards full of cars that were ordered and cancelled, the car finance and leasing industries can look forward to a settling of the market and resume the trading levels experienced over the last couple of years. It also has to be said that the reaction of the car lease industry, with the changes not put into legislation and, for the most part, really only put forward as a change should Labor had won, could be seen as a huge overreaction and ultimately a back ended scare.
Since the change of government, car leasing firms have been rehiring people stood down prior to the election and interest in purchasing fleet vehicles has increased. Danny Wilson, from leasing company NLC said: “We started 23 people back at work this week and we’ll keep an eye on demand, and if that keeps getting stronger we’ll keep improving our staffing levels,” he said.”We saw sales start to return almost immediately after the election – even from the Monday or Tuesday.
”We’re below what we’re normally projected to be at this time but I think we’re trending towards that 75 to 80 per cent mark. In terms of the sales levels, it does take some time for those to work through your system, but in terms of our inquiry levels, we’re up to that 75 per cent mark.”
What has also come out of the change of government was this simple observation from Leigh Penberthy, the President of the Australian Salary Packaging Industry Association: ”With the Liberal government now in place, there is no new law to be passed because there were no changes made to the tax law,” he said. ”Effectively, it’s now pretty much as it was prior to July 16, and I guess the industry has got to get back on with business.”
Simple really; the expectation was that the Coalition would win plus there was no actual legislation put forward, voted upon and passed/denied by the government. Sadly, it has come at an industry cost with Falcon and Territory sales collapsing even further and this is being seen as a contributing factor to the company’s decision to close local manufacturing down. Regardless though, let’s hope it is a return to business as usual.
Fringe Benefits Tax proposed changes: an update.
Writing this one day before the election and with the expectation the Coalition will win doesn’t change the past; much like the words from the immortal “Dragnet”, these are “just the facts”. Since the changes were announced by Kevin Rudd, this is what’s happened: approximately $160 million dollars worth of business for the Australian car industry has been wiped in August. Sales had been growing at around 5% for the six months until June 30, it’s now down by 0.2% in August compared to the same time last year. 
At around 4600 vehicles at an average cost of $35000, it’s a significant hit. Yards are holding far more ordered but unsold stock due to so many cancelled orders. Jobs have been lost in attached industries and sales are down by 3.5% in Queensland and up to 8% in Western Australia. Business purchases are down 10 percent compared to this time last year impacting further on Ford Australia’s already tattered figures, with the venerable Falcon finding just 573 new homes in August, the lowest in the nameplates 53 year history. The changes mooted were intended to help raise $1.8 billion as an offset of scrapping the carbon tax yet there’s been no formal analysis of the changes and with many buyers in business purchasing vehicles via means that don’t attract the FBT or defer purchases then that figure is seeming more unlikely.
Holden’s new Commodore, selling under internal expectations still, though, managed just 400 more in August than July, delivering 2809 vehicles. Only Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, Hyundai and Mazda saw sales increase. Also, with fuel prices in no danger of retreating, it’s unsurprising that the Mazda 3 and Toyota Corolla were the highest sellers in August (4188 and 3861), followed by the Toyota HiLux, Holden’s VF Commodore, the Hyundai i30 and Holden Cruze variants.
Car Industry Support: Who's Right?
It’s red face time at Holden, Toyota and Ford as it’s been revealed a secret report commissioned by Australia’s three remaining local car makers, intended to back their calls for extra funding, is contradicted by a report compiled by a company formed as a merger between the original company used and another. Allen Consulting Group was asked to look into how the automotive industry impacts here in Australia and found that a loss of $23 billion would hit the economy between 2018 and 2031 if all three closed shop, stating the loss would be far higher than the amount of funding supplied. Unfortunately for the companies, Allen Consulting merged with ACIL Tasman to form Allen ACIL and a report issued by them says that taxpayer backed funding should be withdrawn. It was stated that the support is effectively a tax on the rest of the economy whilst the more successful industries prop up the less successful.
Initially released in April of this year, the three car makers have had to commission a revised report, after benching the initial one at a cost of around $100, 000 dollars, with the findings now expected for later this year. So it begs the question; who is right? Are our car makers truly in need of continuing funding in such a competitive market (it’s said there’s over sixty manufacturers available in Australia) or would it be better to cut the losses and have them as mainly import only?
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