30,000KM Servicing Costs.

[ninja2]

More dust, more heat

Think of Spain / Madrid ... also I'll bet you can buy Euro spec VW's in Northern Africa

poor quality roads, less freeway driving

Think of Eastern Europe for crap roads.
Many many more and steeper mountain roads in Europe (e.g. the Alps). Watch your Oil temparature next time you drive up what we think of as mountains e.g. Barrington Tops, that's engine stress, but imagine the Alps.
Euro Freeway limits 130kph and drivers usually doing 140 - 150 compared to our lazy 110 = more stress.

Plus in Australia 95%+ of us live and drive in cities ... with the occasional holiday trip (on good roads @ 100 - 100). How many of you have taken your Golf across the Simpson desert? (Even then the car would be up to it - as long as you kept your filter's clean and don't get bogged!)

more drongos with no driving ability and/or training on the roads.

OK, hard to argue that one

Bottom line: Even big car companies like VW can't afford to design a different car for every slight climate variation. they design their cars for world wide usage. Then test them in all extremes (including arctic and desert conditions) - a very expensive exercise. There are a few differences for each market: e.g. coolants and oils and tyres differ for really cold climates, but AFAIK there is nothing substantially different in the design of an Australian delivered VW to a Euro VW. (other than trivial ADR compliance issues, like child restraints etc)