THE chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Rod Sims, is fond of quoting figures. He often alludes to the fact that the ACCC alone received some 1300 complaints from new-car customers in 2015-16.

On the face of it, that looks like a the makings of a problem. Cars are expensive and no-one likes to be on the rough end of the pineapple when the purchase turns sour.

Yet more than a million cars are sold in Australia each year (almost 1.2 million last year in fact).

That means that about one in 1000 new-car sales generates a complaint to the ACCC. The problem is that there is no publicly-available data to indicate the severity or validity of those complaints.

The ACCC cannot possibly deal with every breach of Australian Consumer Law and therefore has to prioritise its efforts.

“We cannot, and do not, deal with all breaches of the Act,” said Mr Sims. “Clearly we are not resourced to do so, by a long way.

“We receive around 200,000 reports from businesses and the public, and around 500 of these are escalated for further consideration and investigation and a much smaller subset for in-depth investigation.”

Of the 200,000 reports of potential misconduct a year about 30 lead to the ACCC taking court action.

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Mr Sims cited ACCC staffing figures of around 65 investigators in each of their competition and consumer enforcement areas, around 40 people working in consumer product safety, and some 15 in consumer and small business compliance.

But the question needs to be asked whether it is a good use of resources that 1300 reports of potential misconduct related to new cars from 200,000 complaints to the ACCC in total, or just 0.65%, is enough to justify the auto industry its ongoing place in the spotlight?

Not according to Australian Automotive Dealer Association chief executive officer David Blackhall who says, “It (1300 out of 1.2 million sales) is not a data set that anyone who is familiar with statistics would be interested in.

“I think it’s wrong to constantly portray the industry as some kind of monster that needs to be brought to heel. There is a consistent unwillingness to accept that the industry runs very, very efficiently and ethically.”

Recent research into customer satisfaction levels published by Roy Morgan in December last year seems to bear this out. Car manufacturers rank top of the pile, with satisfaction levels over 90 per cent.

This puts the car companies well in front of banks, insurers, airlines and energy providers – with superannuation funds right at the bottom of the heap.

If the figures really had anything to do with it, the ACCC would realise it could do more for more consumers by shifting its attention to other industry sectors that a higher number of people are unhappy with.

So here is a challenge to Mr Sims.

Given that he is so keen to portray the car industry and retailers in such a bad light, it’s time he laid out the full breakdown of the numbers.

We need to know the exact nature of the complaints, how many were genuine, how many were fatuous, how many were easily resolved and so on until we get down to the nub of exactly how many serious complaints existed that were worthy of the direct attention of the ACCC. And we need to see that same breakdown compared with other industry sectors.

The least the industry deserves is that Mr Sims makes a case.

Then we can all be the judge of whether the industry is as bad as the ACCC (and ASIC for that matter) are making out through their constant investigations and public statements.

If he makes his case then the industry will have to face it has a problem.

If he does not make his case then we can only assume that his rhetoric is apparently deliberately elevated to justify what could turn out to be simple self-serving grand-standing at the industry’s expense because auto businesses are seen as an easy target.

Comment by Daniel Cotterill