LICENSED car dealers are threatening to take industry investigations into their own hands, claiming the Western Australian Government’s policy to tackle illegal car dealers has failed.
LICENSED car dealers are threatening to take industry investigations into their own hands, claiming the Western Australian Government’s policy to tackle illegal car dealers has failed.
Motor Trades Association executive director Peter Fitzpatrick said the association was talking to some private investigators about gaining evidence on illegal car dealers after a government inspectorate established last year had failed to lay any new charges.
“This inspectorate’s inaction is making dealers see red out there,” he said.
However, car dealers are being told that they might soon see some results, 18 months after Consumer Protection Minister John Kobelke promised to “get tough on shonky backyard car dealers”.
Industry and Consumer Services director Dave Hillyard, who is in charge of the inspectorate, said it had been hamstrung due to an inability to access the Department of Planning and Infrastructure’s motor vehicle licence database until early this year.
“We have a number of prosecutions that are virtually completed and now have to go through the statement process. With the access to the database that should be resolved fairly quickly,” he said.
Licensed dealers are also concerned about the Government’s delay in joining a national register of written off vehicles – a measure that would help prevent stolen cars being ‘reborn’. This occurs when a stolen car is fitted with the compliance plate of a similar car that has been written off by an insurance company after an accident, and is then re-registered.
A Department of Planning and Infrastructure spokesman said the register should be operating in WA in July.
He said the delay had been caused because the department was in the process of upgrading its computer system.
Backyard car dealers are those that buy and sell cars from their homes, without attaining a car dealer’s licence. In some cases they are not paying any government taxes or charges.
It is suspected that some of these backyard dealers are involved in ‘re-birthing’.
While there are no accurate statistics, it is understood that backyard car dealers cost the industry millions of dollars.
Mr Fitzpatrick said car dealers were subjected to very stringent inspections from the Department of Planning and Infrastructure, “yet there’s this whole market out there of illegals that nobody checks”.
“We have supplied the inspectorate with a list of 80 to 90 names that we believe are involved in backyard car dealing,” he said.
Mr Hillyard said it was difficult to prove that somebody was an illegal car dealer, especially after the unsuccessful prosecution of former One Nation national director Frank Hough for unlicensed car dealing – a matter started before the current inspectorate was created.
“In the Frank Hough prosecution the court said he was doing nothing out of the ordinary,” he said. “That effectively set the bar higher.”
Mr Hillyard said his inspectors had to prove acquisition and disposal of the vehicle.
“We also have to establish that the person is in the business of buying and selling cars,” he said.
Ron Mitchell Motors owner John Singleton said some backyarders were regular fixtures at car auctions.
“Some of these people buy damaged cars, fix them up and sell them off,” he said.
“It’s a danger to the public.”
Most insurance companies dispose of written-off cars through car auctions. However, some wrecks still have their compliance plates intact.
John Hughes Group of Companies chairman John Hughes said the Government should legislate to have the compliance plates from written off cars destroyed to prevent re-birthing.
