#Roads & Transport
Target:
Federal government
Region:
Australia

Please support the following petition to have the current private motorcycle imports laws, pertaining to motorcycle’s built after 1989, amended to permit the private importation of Australian Design Rule (ADR) compliant motorcycles.

Currently the private import scheme is too restrictive and excludes Australian's from privately importing post 1989 motorcycles for personal road going use. This petition calls on the Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Leader of the House, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, to introduce a bill to make amendments to the current laws.

We ask that the law be changed to allow the importation of motorcycles into Australia that have been granted ADR certification in the past (Australia most often imports European specification bikes direct from the factories), and have historically been sold on the Australian market with full ADR compliance.

We believe that we should be able to privately import, for road use, a motorcycle model that has historically been granted ADR approval, but is no longer being made by the factory, or being sold new by the official importers as the factory has discontinued the model. Currently potential owners are restricted in being able to purchase these motorcycles on the Australian market due to the small numbers of motorcycles being imported.

The current regulations deny motorcycle enthusiasts the opportunity of importing, and registering bikes (often limited edition models) for road use. We ask that motorcycle models that have previously been brought into Australia by the official importers in small numbers (often due to limited worldwide availability by the parent factory), and are not readily available for purchase on the local market, be permitted to be imported into Australia and registered for road use.

The current regulations do not allow a citizen to import a motorcycle made after 1989, unless they have lived overseas, and owned it for a period of 2 years. Alternatively you can import a post 1989 motorcycle as a local resident, if you are prepared to submit the motorcycle to the ADR certification process again yourself, which can easily cost tens of thousands of dollar’s (so this makes it unaffordable), and yet that exact same bike model in European specification was sold here 4-5 years ago with full ADR certification!

If the regulations are amended by allowing discontinued models to be imported that are either no longer either produced by the factory, or imported by the Australian distributor this will still protect the local motorcycle industry.

To the Minister of Transport, We believe the current requirements pertaining to the importation of second hand motorcycles built after 1989 into Australia is too restrictive. We believe the current strict regulations are unjustified!

We call on the Minister to consider the following points for motorcycle’s made since 1989.

· Modern motorcycles are equipped with digital instrument clusters, which can easily switch between mph and kph to satisfy ADR requirements.
· Motorcycles can easily be tested to ensure they meet current ADR noise requirements.
· Motorcycles aren’t left or right hand drive.
· Australia often receives European specification bikes (headlight alignment, noise, emission requirements, instrument display units, i.e. (kph on the speedometer), as motorcycle factories no longer make a Australian specific model due to our very small motorcycle market by world standards.
· Motorcycle ADR's are a small set of design rules that are easily checked during registration inspections, (mudguard length, indicators, mirrors, horn, noise etc
· Modern motorcycles meet current Australian noise and emission requirements as they are built to meet European noise emission levels, which are what Australia has historically implemented years after the European community.

We call on the Minister to make the following amendments:

· Amend the build date rules to allow for the importation of motorcycles that are at least 5 years old.
· Allow no more than 1-2 bike(s) to be imported per person, per year. This identifies the buyer as an enthusiast or collector. This protects the local motorcycle industry and identifies the importer not as being a potential threat to established motorcycle retailers.
· Allow the importation and road registration of motorcycle models that have previously been granted ADR certification, but are no longer being made by the factory and/or being sold new by the official importers, and distributors.

We believe that Australians should have the right to purchase, import, and ride on the road a motorcycle model that is the same bike that has historically been imported and granted ADR certification

Signed,
The Australian motorcycle community.

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The Amending Australia's Private Motorcycle Import Laws petition to Federal government was written by Nathan Innes and is in the category Roads & Transport at GoPetition.

Petition Tags

law motorcycle