2025: Holding the line – and setting up 2026
From the wharf to the driveway, VIA has spent 2025 challenging rules that don’t fit the used-import supply chain. As 2025 draws to a close, it is worth taking a clear look at what VIA has been doing …
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Clean Car Standard - Q & A (Nov 2025)
Following the Government's announcement cutting Clean Car Standard penalties, VIA answered a range of media questions from One News, RNZ, and 3News. This article captures the essence of those intervie…
Being heard versus making noise
There is a difference between making noise and being heard. That distinction matters in the current debate over the Clean Car Standard, where good intentions risk being lost amid competing narratives.…
Dump the "dumping ground" rhetoric
It’s a slogan, not a standard. And it’s getting in the way of better policy. “Dumping ground” has crept from a few submissions into officials’ summaries and then into political soundbites. It’s used a…
Why the used-import industry still matters — and why NZ needs it
Since deregulation in the late 1980s, used vehicle imports have done exactly what we asked of them: lift the quality of what Kiwis drive, widen choice, keep transport affordable, and build a whole eco…
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We're not lazy, we're lifting what we can
There’s a perception floating around that the vehicle import industry in New Zealand is dragging its feet when it comes to emissions reduction. That we lack ambition. That we’re somehow the obstacle i…
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Why are we still bowing to Brussels?
When it comes to vehicle emissions, Wellington’s default setting seems to be “What would Brussels do?” The Euro standards are treated as holy writ, while every other regime—including the one that supp…
Clean Car Standard: stalling fleet renewal, driving up emissions
The Clean Car Standard (CCS) was sold as the cornerstone of New Zealand’s transport-emissions policy. Two years in, the numbers don’t lie – it’s cracking under its own weight. Today VIA releases Acce…
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Sunlight or Headlight? Making sense of the patchy recovery
Anyone who has been in the importing business for more than five minutes knows that “the economy” is never a single story. Right now, the headlines look encouraging: inflation is back inside the Reser…
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Road User Charging: Ambition Meets Reality in a Connected Future
The Government has set itself a bold and necessary challenge: to transition New Zealand to a universal road user charging (RUC) system, covering the entire vehicle fleet. VIA supports this direction. …
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