Button car plan
Australian government initiative based upon the rebadging of cars
The Button car plan, also known as the Button plan, was the informal name given to the Motor Industry Development Plan, a Hawke government initiative intended to rationalise the Australian motor vehicle industry and transition it to lower levels of protection. It took its name from Senator John Button, the then federal Minister for Commerce, Trade and Industry.
Initial planning
Industry consultation began in mid-1983 and the scheme was announced in mid-1984. It came into effect in 1985, after Senator Button visited Japan to inform the car companies there of the content of the plan. At the time of the plan's inception, Australia's motor industry was heavily protected by import tariffs, and quotas or quantitative restrictions on imports. These measures were used to support local assembly of thirteen models by a range of manufacturers.
The Button car plan aimed to slash the number of locally manufactured models to six, by forcing industry consolidation——there were to be three groups each producing two models each by 1992. The overarching aim of the scheme was to make the motor vehicle industry in Australia more efficient through consolidation of resources, and so allowing the import tariffs to be gradually reduced.
Tariff rates
At the beginning of the 1980s, tariff rates on motor vehicles were around 60 per cent. Under the plan, tariff rates were reduced by 2.5 percentage points a year from 1988, falling to 15 per cent by 2000, well below the rates in many comparable countries.
“Button car plan” enters the record as australian government initiative based upon the rebadging of cars. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Button, plan and Australian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1955803. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1992.
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