Hefty price is like $400-500au. That's seems pretty normal here, but you have to remember that even though LD players started in the late 70's they remained high end units here for many many years, normal people just didn't buy them. That coupled with the fact that we have always had a smaller population than Canada means there aren't loads of units domestically.
So yeah, it's pretty much:
Cheap units need repair.
Or you jump right up to paying a lot. There's hardly ever any price scaling as such like you have when there's a decent supply (like in the US).