Its Australian Design Rules (ADRs), and they have existed since the late 1960s and get revised on a fairly regular basis and have new ones added as industry changes. Unfortunately DoTARS staff actually believe they are world leaders in design of vehicles - Japan makes the total Australian new vehicle consumption one Saturday a month on overtime!!

Its illegal for Honda to supply an Australian compliance plate for a vehicle they have not imported. The method of obtaining the appropriate compliance plate (personal import plate) is that it is inspected by a vehicle engineer who then certifies that the bike complies with all ADRs in force at time of build. This often throws up problems where manufacturers give vehicles a "nod" knowing that they dont comply and the vehicle engineer refuses to certify the personal import. A common problem was the position of rear lights on 4x4 vehicles which were/are mounted too high for the ADRs.

The rule of having owned and USED the vehicle overseas for more than 1 year requires the owner to provide photo copies of their passport pages showing date exit/entry plus evidence of using the vehicle - insurance, servicing records, registration documents. ie you cant go overseas and buy a vehicle and store it for a year and get it into Aus.- wWhich is the problem with the "store it in NZ" option.

I think that loophole has been totally closed off.