Axing the Australia tax - a very slim chance of cheaper toys soon
The "Australia Tax" refers to items that are distributed by monopolies in this country, often by foreign-owned companies, that ends up making it cheaper to express-post the exact same item from another country.
Since branded toys by Mattel, Hasbro and Lego suffer from this "Australia Tax" situation, due to trademark protection and parallel importing restrictions on those trademarked products, our retailers are almost always charged more than what customers pay at retail in America.
Regardless of what people can afford or wage rates, the wholesale prices are set before any of those customer and staff elements apply... and retailers need to pass on those higher prices to make a profit, if they want to keep selling that product or Brand. (if they dispute the wholesale prices, they risk being black-listed by a supplier, preventing them selling any of their products under the current monopoly anti-parallel-importing laws)
After many years of consumer groups (like Choice) highlighting and challenging the validity of the problem (and obviously the corruption of politicians putting their financial backers or personal financial interests before consumers/voter), a Competition Review Panel has drafted recommendations that include procedures to eliminate the situation that creates this "Australia Tax".
Unfortunately, these are just recommendations... which is far from becoming policy or being adopted and enforced. And when money is the central factor of policy, it will always be contaminated by corrupt people in charge, who protect their own interests and their friends and donors' interests.
At least it is a step in the right direction, on a long long road to fairer prices on Branded imported items.
If I can privately import toys from a secondary source in America like Amazon and still make a profit reselling them, imagine how much cheaper retail toys would be if they were allowed to bypass the local "authorised" distributors if they won't "price-match" or give a fair deal.
This was the graph I did up two years ago based on known or calculated cost breakdowns... and it is the yellow bar that is the "Australia Tax" that's being targeted. It should be the similar to what Hasbro America charges American retailers, based on just four expenses up until that point - production, transport, taxes, Hasbro profit - none of which are much different for us here for identical product shipped from the same country.
Fingers crossed something eventuates in our (consumers) favour... but we'll have to be very patient if it even does.
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. Small Lego sets seem OK priced, but on larger sets the price discrepancy if harder to swallow. I'm glad I can find 99% of their products in Australia, but get pissed of when one doesn't come out here and I have trouble importing the set.
Originally Posted by theshape
