I found the part about "conditional registration" interesting. If you're a member of NSW 4WD club you get full registration ... now tell me that's not some arsehole in Parliament who either has a friend with a 4WD that is owed a few pokes in the back passage, or has a 4WD themselves. It stinks of corruption.
Have a look at the detail, too, and look carefully. Compare things to how they are now.
Now, if you want to lift more than 50mm (2 inches if you use the pre-1976 scale) you have to get it certified. They are proposing that you need certification if you want to lift it more than 75mm. That's a combined lift over standard - so it's the measurement from the GROUND to the top of your wheel arch compared to standard. This means that you have to account for increased tyre size, suspension lift AND body lift.
They're also talking about a tyre diameter increase of 50mm (again, for you people that are still using the measurements we stopped using back in 1976, that's still 2 inches, or a third of the average man's fire hose if you understand neither measurement). That's quite a difference in tyre size.
Ultimately it's restrictive, but seems they're allowing THAT club to sign off on the modifications, so perhaps the "Eden, Gilgandra, Gundagai (and rest of NSW) Navara Owners Group" might also get to sign off on these things - I wonder if that makes the club responsible for and losses attributable to those modifications? That'd be a nasty side-effect, not sure if the club thought about that before slipping some KY jelly into his friend in parliament.
As an example of how this is limiting:
We like to increase the tyre size, because that gives us a height increase where it truly matters - the differential. An increase of 50mm of tyre diameter (max legal under the proposed legislation) gives a diff height increase of 25mm.
Most people then seek a suspension lift of 50mm, which is easy enough to do, gives you an extra 50mm under chassis and increases your ramp-over, approach and departure angles.
Some people like to do body lifts as well - gives little advantage to ramp-over, approach & departure angles or ground clearance (limited by the chassis there too) - but it does increase the height of the vehicle's centre of gravity by a small amount, which is increased by the load carried. In other words, there's not a whole lot of advantage to a body lift.
So, with a 25mm lift under the diff and a 50mm suspension lift - both seem popular with many 4WDers - there's your 75mm limit.
What tyres can we change to on the Navara? This is the one that bites. The standard 255/70R16 tyres have a diameter of 763.4mm. Many people put 265/75R16s on - that's 10mm increase in width, and 5% increase in profile - the road diameter is 803.9mm, which is just short of the max 50mm allowed.
So with the usual tyres one might pick for our vehicles (on road) we're still within the limits. Off-road, you can take another set of wheels with you - many people seem to do this - and use 'em off-road. Nobody has any drama with that. You can use your 285/85R16s (total diameter 890.9mm, or just over 125mm (5 inches) over standard. You're not on the road, so go right ahead.
I don't think the legislation will affect the average driver. That's not where the problem really lies.
It brings the restriction down to what the average car has done to it, but means there's NO ROOM at all beyond that. It also opens up the door to closing down ANY modifications, which is something they might push for next - unless you're a member of "the club".
And I have a problem with that.
