The reason they are not bringing in front cuts is because they sit in stock for so long. People dont want to pay the money the importers have to get, hence no front cuts.
To give you an example of cut cost -
In Japan the front cut costs about $400 - $600 Aud (Y30,000 - Y45000) That has to be packed in a container and shipped to the dock in Japan and loaded. Cost to this point is about $700 AUD(Y55000).
Freight in the container is about $200 pro rata.
On landing in OZ there are customs agents fees, port handling charges and levies. Customs then add all the costs to this point and charge 15% import duty. After this duty is addded, then GST of 10% is added.
By this stage the front cut owes you $1300 -$1400 and that is with a container load lot.
Then you add insurance costs and currency charges for the transaction and your cut will owe you about $1650 for a budget (low grade dunger ) cut. If you get a good one that has low Km's then it will cost you approximately $2200 -$2300 landed. And then you have to pay rent and bills
People who had cuts instock were stripping them and selling them off cheap over the last 18 months to get out of them and wont restock the hard to sell cuts.
They were pulling the turbo manifolds of CA18 DET's to sell them for N/A EXA engines just to get rid of them. Now theres a drought.