The federal Transport department has refused to release details on the comprehensive internal modelling used as the basis for next year's fuel efficiency standard, which will dramatically reshape Australia's new car market.
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It is suspected the withheld documents contain government indications as to which car companies are unlikely to achieve the tough new emission targets and either may disappear from the Australian market, be forced to pay huge financial penalties for not hitting targets, or buy compensating credits off more successful rival companies.
Modelling by private industry analysts has revealed that based on current EV sale rates and without significant and rapid change to their product line-up, legacy brands like Jaguar, Peugeot and Jeep were under significant pressure with the arrival of more Chinese EV only brands in the next 12 months.
Even Mazda, one of Australia's best-selling brands for decades but a laggard in rolling out EV models, faces a huge shake-up to its range in order to survive.
The request made by ACM, publisher of this masthead, under freedom of information asked for the department's modelling of projected fleet emission outcomes for car companies under the Option A, B and C alternatives presented to government, as well as the cost-benefit analysis summary.
Five documents were identified as relevant to the request but access to all five were refused under Section 34 (4) of the FOI Act which protects cabinet confidentiality.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet was consulted on the department's decision and it confirmed that "the relevant information remains subject to cabinet confidentiality" and was "business information".
"The disclosure of the business affairs information would result in an adverse effect on the business, commercial or financial affairs of an organisation or undertaking," the department's FOI rejection notice stated.
It also said that disclosure to conditionally exempt information "could result in embarrassment to the Commonwealth government, or cause a loss of confidence in the Commonwealth government".
A multimillion-dollar national advertising program to support the federal government's adoption of a new vehicle efficiency standard, called the "Modern, Cheaper-to-Run Cars Awareness Campaign", is now rolling out to support the government's plan.
Around 9000 submissions were received in the lead-up to the government's decision and some predicted the death knell of some long-running legacy brands.
"We recognise that there are a range of different views in the community - especially given the cultural place that cars play in our society," federal Transport said in its summary documents.
The richly-funded car industry lobbied vigorously for, and achieved, dispensations which pushed two of its big and popular SUV tow cars, the Nissan Patrol and the Toyota LandCruiser, into the light commercial (Type 2) category where slightly easier emission targets were achievable over those of "Type 1" passenger cars.
These huge tow cars are strongly purchased by the influential grey nomad car-buying cohort.
Despite diesel dual-cab utes being among Australia's most popular vehicles, light commercial vehicles were in for very tough road under sharply increasing emission requirements post 2025. These tough requirements have now been somewhat eased.
While the scheme officially will start on January 1 next year, the industry gained an extra six months of leeway. Manufacturers will not begin earning credits or accruing penalties under the scheme until 1 July 2025.
There are no supply bans or prohibited vehicles in the legislation, nor is any prescriptive methodology applied.
However, the government's secrecy around its internal modelling raises a number of questions around whether it had always intended to set a "high bar" on emissions in the full knowledge that it would generally agitate the car industry lobby, then lower it very slightly so as to appear consultative and inclusive.
Alarm bells had rung out loudly across the industry when the government first flagged the legislation with the car industry lobby writing in its submission "implementation of the proposed targets on the proposed timeline with the proposed penalties will have a disastrous commercial impact on many Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and may result in the exit of some models from the Australian market, if not the withdrawal of some OEMs entirely".
The manufacturers are still working through their longer-term product plans but there are already some subtle signs that consumers are bringing forward their vehicle changeover plans ahead of a potential 2025 brand and model shakeup and price increases.
Nationally, sales of new cars and commercial vehicles are already running at full steam ahead in 2024, with April another record month.
