Stuart Charity

THE Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) has vented its frustration at the continued attacks by the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association (AAAA) and its chief executive Stuart Charity on car-makers’ efforts to provide independent repairers with information on servicing modern cars and its use of senators as guns-for-hire on the eve of the Federal election.

FCAI chief executive Tony Weber issued a statement slamming Mr Charity for ignoring the goodwill created around the agreement on accessing repairer data, while also criticising Mr Charity for behaving like a maverick in trying to scuttle the agreement for his own purposes.

Tony Weber

Mr Weber said: “It is extremely disappointing when a group of industry associations comes together and forms an agreement to progress an important area of mutual interest, and then one of the parties decides to be non-consultative, ignore the negotiation processes, and set off on its own agenda.

“In an industry which values consultation for mutual benefit, how does this abrupt and selfish attitude benefit the AAAA’s members?”

The Chamber issued a briefing note on the issue:

• The Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Committee (CCAAC) completed an inquiry into the sharing of service and repair information in late 2012.
• No consumer detriment was found by CCAAC due to a lack of access to service and repair information.
• The AAAA is a co-signatory to an agreement (with the FCAI, the MTAA, AADA and the AAA) on service and repair. Contained within that agreement is an agreed process by which alleged non-compliance or breaches of the agreement can be addressed.
• The agreement was signed in December 2014.
• For the AAAA to choose to publicly air grievances before the other co-signatories have had a chance to examine in detail these alleged breaches first raised last month shows no desire to build and maintain a strong working relationship with the other stakeholders, nor enter into a process of negotiation and consideration.
• As a result, the AAAA is trying to scuttle the goodwill the industry associations have generated in the development of the agreement.
• The FCAI is deeply concerned about the AAAA’s disregard for due process in order to pursue its own agenda. This represents a serious erosion of the agreement’s stated goals and diminishes the credibility of the AAAA.
• FCAI members continue to provide service and repair information, as they always have. There are various pathways to service and repair information, as evidenced by the fact that the vehicles are currently being repaired.
• Access is provided by the Australian distributors or through third party providers of national online portals and call centres such as the MTA/VACC-operated Tech Online and Our Auto nationally-available technical portal.
• This portal offers a single point of online access to the largest automotive technical library in the Southern Hemisphere plus has a call-centre operating during business hours. Last year this centre took 62,000 calls from service and repair workshops nationwide and the site had more than 700,000 pages of its information viewed on line last year.
• This is evidence of consumers choosing to use independent repairers.
• Further to the above and in response to suggestions that the pathways to information is difficult for certain independent repairers to navigate the FCAI also provide a reference to a range of distributors access points through its own website. This is by no means the main pathway to service and repair information, of which the AAAA is well aware.

By John Mellor