Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

As I rise to speak on this important bill, the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Information Sharing Scheme) Bill 2021, I want to thank the member for Fenner for the contribution that he made not only in the debate before the House but also in ensuring that this issue has stayed on the public agenda since it was first raised by Labor Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury back in 2011. Had it not been for the excellent work of the member for Fenner, this, like so many other issues, would have gone into the pile on the Prime Minister's desk, with a tag in front of it, 'Broken promises and undelivered'. The tireless work of the member for Fenner in ensuring that the public saw the benefits, that the industry was on board and that the government were tirelessly embarrassed because of their inaction ensured that this bill was brought before the House today, so I'm very pleased to be speaking on his second reading amendment in this debate.

I also want to give a shout-out to a friend of mine from my electorate. He migrated to Australia as a young man. He and his wife started a small auto repair business. Originally, it was around the corner from my electorate office, on Marshall Street in Dapto. Felice Di Cesare, or Phil as we know him—if you are needing a talent to sing at your daughter's 21st or at an engagement party, Phil's your man. He's a champion bowler; he's a wonderful baritone; he's an outstanding human being. He's involved in the local Rotary club. He's involved in so many charities. He represented the district and the state in bowling. He is just an outstanding human being. If you need your car repaired, Phil is the bloke you want to get on the job. He has now handed the business over to his daughter and son-in-law, and they're doing a first-rate job at the business as well. They're a small operation, a small business, but too often businesses like this get squeezed out of the market. They have the talent, they have the ability, they have the expertise, but too often they get squeezed out of the market by the operations that are put in place—it's the equivalent of third line forcing   , actually—by manufacturers or large retailers and distributors. This bill goes to that issue in the area of automotive repair.

The government has broken some promises to the Australian people over the last eight years, but it's often the lesser-known promises it breaks that are the ones that whittle away at household budgets, and I will return to the issue of cost of living before I sit down. This is a scheme that should have come into place many years ago, but, because of the dithering of the government, the constant change in office holders—treasurers, assistant treasurers, prime ministers—it has never seemed to be a priority to bring it forward to the parliament so that car owners could have some relief and car repairers could get a fair crack at the business they so sorely need. It means that car owners have spent years paying more than they ought to have paid to get their new car fixed or serviced. It has also denied the independent mechanics a fair chance to compete for work, giving an unfair advantage to the big carmakers. Needless to say, those big carmakers are now all foreign owned because the government chased the last manufacturers out of the country, so it beggars belief that we are honouring and putting in place arrangements that actually give preference to the mob who left Australia but leave in place highly uncompetitive arrangements disadvantaging small businesses here in Australia.

We live in an information age. Modern cars are no longer the rubbery, rickety-steering wheel, the seat belt that never quite fit, the bench seat that never quite felt comfortable and the electronics that were never quite reliable. We live in a modern age where cars are effectively a computer on wheels. And not too many years from now, the modern car will be a dirty big battery, driven by a dirty big computer with a driver more or less directing an intelligent driving system. That makes it all the more important that we have a robust market for the repair of these vehicles. We must not relax for a moment the level of standards and expertise that is needed to repair these vehicles and ensure that they are safe. We also need to ensure that we have a robust market and access to the necessary data and information that are going to enable those repairers to do the right sort of job to keep our vehicles and our roads safe.

Under this government, the big carmakers have taken full advantage of their market position by keeping data to themselves, and not sharing it openly and transparently. Make no mistake, the abuse of market power is definitely on a par with what we've seen in some of the large multinational technology companies and it's consumers that are paying the price. New car owners were given no real choice about where to get their cars serviced or fixed, and anyone who has had a car serviced lately can tell you the results: higher prices. You thought you were going in for something pretty simple but you were paying through the nose.

The Liberal Party approach to this has been somewhat of a mess. It pays to go through some of the history of it. In 2011, as I mentioned, David Bradbury, who was then Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, requested that the Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council report on the consumer harm that was being done by the lack of access to service and repair information, the data. It had been locked up by the big manufacturers in exclusive arrangements with their preferred retailers. The path was cleared to ensure that we could have the right sort of legislation put in place to remove these anticompetitive practices. However, in 2014, under the Liberal government, key industry associations managed to convince the government that a voluntary agreement was going to be enough. They agreed, with the government, on an access to service and repair information for motor vehicles agreement, that placed voluntary obligations on car manufacturers to share, with the independent repairers on commercially fair and reasonable terms, the same technical information that they provide to their authorised dealers.

We had a lot of doubts about this when it came into place. We thought there had been plenty of time for the manufacturers to put in place the right sorts of arrangements with the whole of the repair market. As it has turned out, our doubts were well placed. After two years of operation even blind Freddy could see that their solution was a failure. The ACCC, as well as the bigger independent operators like Kmart and Ultra Tune, condemned the voluntary code and forced the government to commit to a review of the code. This was all announcement and no follow through, as is so often the case with this government. The government's review never happened so the ACCC stepped in again. It was only when Labor, armed with the ACCC evidence, said that enough was enough that real action happened.

The mandatory data scheme that we're debating today and we'll finally legislate will bring the major car makers to heel. It's a win for households, a win for the independent mechanics and a win for common sense. It's particularly a win for households, because when you look at a household operating sheet—the budget that a household puts on the kitchen table and they have to ensure they make balance at the end of every month—after putting food on the table, paying the mortgage and the electricity it's the cost of running the car which is one of the greatest expenses. The insurance cost, the maintenance and repair costs, the parking cost—let's not forget the initial purchase cost or the leasing cost. It's one of the largest expenses of a household when they put their budget together and they're trying to make ends meet. So anything that we can do to bring down the cost of having that car on the road—it's absolutely essential if you live in regional Australia, as I do—has got to be a good thing.

This is budget week and you would have noticed—have a look at the budget papers—prices are going up. In fact, they're going up considerably faster than wages. It's why we say that the government has completely missed the point. In the budget they handed down on Tuesday night, we see it there in black and white, prices going up, wages going down. The government has not got a policy. The government has not got a policy for household budget relief. We're seeing wages going down, prices going up and the government trying to disown its own budget. If there is a weakness at the heart of this government, it's its failure to grasp the situation facing ordinary workers and ordinary households. Their plan for economic recovery is a plan based on wages going down and prices going up. There's not a strategy at hand to deal with that.

We welcome the fact that the government has finally got on board and adopted a Labor policy from 2011. It was originally brought to this House by David Bradbury. It was put back on the political agenda by the member for Fenner in his former role as the shadow minister responsible for consumer affairs and competition matters. Finally, we find a bill before the House. After several failed attempts, we have legislation before the House, which we welcome. I speak in favour of the second reading amendment moved by the member for Fenner. I thank him for his work and I thank my colleagues for their work in keeping pressure on the government to see this matter finally brought before the House. I commend the bill to the House.

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