Time to Roam Magazine Issue 4 - August/September 2013 | Page 7

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upfront news

Govt ignoring camper threat

Picture: Camper Trailer Guild founder and cub Camper CEO Roger Fagan inside his Sydney
manufacturing plant which employs 55 people.

Industry calls for tougher rules to stop
potentially dangerous camper trailers
being sold are being ignored by the Federal
and State Governments.
Australian manufacturers allege the
suspect campers don’t comply with weight
regulations for safe towing, while some also
have non-compliant gas fittings.
Adding to industry’s frustration, the mostly
Chinese-sourced campers are being sold
with ‘Australian Made’ stickers attached.
The Australian Manufactured Camper
Trailers Guild believes buyers are being
misled and their safety is at risk.
The camper trailers at the heart of the
dispute are mostly assembled in Australia
from components made in China.

Guild founder Roger Fagan believes there
are at least 3000 camper trailers sold by
one Sydney-based importer and assembler
that are non-compliant because they exceed
the 750kg limit for un-braked vehicles the
moment any luggage is added.
He has evidence of another importer that
has fitted gas stoves to campers in breach of
local regulations.
In both cases, attempts to highlight the
problems to Federal and State MPs appear
to have so far failed to deliver, as has
attempts to lobby the body responsible for
supervising the ‘Australian Made’ logo.
“It’s a lot like the problem faced by
our farmers and food manufacturers.
Supermarkets pass off food as being

Australian-made because they claim the repackaging here and marketing make up more
than fifty per cent of the cost of production,
so therefore it qualifies,” Mr Fagan said.
The Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission told the Camper Trailer Guild
it was up to its members to take expensive
legal action in order to prove consumers
were being misled.
Sydney-based camper builder Karl Geddes
of Blue Tongue Campers says existing
industry compliance rules are out of date
and often ignored by the import-assembler
companies.
“The laws need tightening up, it would be
a pain for all of us, but the industry would be
better off.”
Mr Geddes said he was aware of one
company using Chinese-made couplings
that did not comply with Australian
Standards. When questioned by
compliance officers at a recent Caravan
show, he said employees hastily applied
stickers to some trailers to look as
though they had the mandatory plates.

Karl Geddes – Blue Tongue Campers

Comment: Let’s save the gold nugget
The issues facing Australia’s recreational
vehicle manufacturers are symptomatic of
what wrong with politicians and regulators
in our country.
We like to think of the industry as the ‘gold
nugget’ of Australian vehicle manufacturing.
If you’ve panned for gold, you’d know the
nugget is the valuable bit left when all else
has gone from the pan.
Our foreign-owned car manufacturers
have all but given up, despite being given
billions in taxpayer handouts.
Meanwhile the Aussie-owned
companies building caravans, campers

and motorhomes, have quietly got on with
business. The quality of their product has
seen them enjoy double-digit growth rates,
while at the same time they’ve employed
thousands of people directly and indirectly.
These companies are not asking for
handouts. Really all they want is for policy
makers to help ensure there is a level
playing field when it comes to regulation
and for better information so buyers are not
ripped off. In t