Labour Promises Right To Repair For Cars

Russell
Palmer Political reporter

Labour
is promising a right to repair for cars, ensuring
independent mechanics can have access to the manuals,
software and tools needed to fix modern cars.

Consumer
affairs spokesperson Arena Williams said workshops were
having to turn away work because they could not access that
information.

“Your car belongs to you. You should be
able to choose who fixes it,” Williams
said.

Announcing the policy at Midas Manukau, Williams
said the right to repair would be key to bringing down
prices for New Zealanders “whether it’s in small regional
towns where your independent mechanic is the only person
that you can take your car to, or areas like this where
there’s lots of competition and they’re competing on price
and service”.

Teslas, Jeeps and other cars
manufactured after 2021 often had lockout software that
would mean local mechanics were unable to complete repairs,
she said.

“They can fix the entire problem – say with
fuelling or say with the cam belt – but even when it’s fully
fixed, they can’t turn off the light at the dash … they
have to send that customer’s car down the road to another
manufacturer-approved person.

“It will cost the
customer more than $150 just for that service, what we want
to do is make sure that the guys out here can finish the job
that they started.”

She said Australia brought in a
right to repair for cars in 2022, making repairs at
mechanics 25 percent cheaper on average than
dealerships.

“A
review by Australia’s Treasury found that $AU2.5b was being
saved for motorists with this scheme. We think it might even
have a bigger difference here … because we have an even
more complicated fleet of cars in New Zealand because of the
second-hand imports.”

She said a Labour-led government
could look at a right to repair for other products in future
but they were starting with cars because it could be
introduced quickly and efficiently, with similar laws also
introduced in the EU, and because vehicle costs had a big
impact on New Zealanders.

The party would also crack
down on car yards by banning secret finance commissions,
provide for no-penalty cancellations within 14 days, and
“make sure costs are clearer from the start”.

This
comes alongside promises to freeze fuel tax increases, ban
price gouging, closely monitor fuel markets and requiring
NZTA to consider making surplus land available for unmanned
petrol stations and EV chargers.

Williams told
Midday Report the Commerce Commission had found 70 to
80 percent of fuel cost increases were being passed on in
the first week, but only about 30 percent of the decreases
were, and the party giving more power to the commission
would help it crack down on that.

She said the
commission had found new unmanned petrol stations led to
3-cent-per-litre price reductions at surrounding fuel
stations.

“We
want to make sure that these competition constraints are
being taken away … these new unmanned stations, there are
about 21 of them around the country, they’re doing great,
but we need to see more of that competition rolled out
everywhere.”

She said small independent retailers
would be granted land set aside by NZTA in line with
recommendations from the Commerce Commission based on market
share.

“Probably the right sort of market share cap
for a company that was applying for that land would be about
15 percent.”

Labour’s leader Chris Hipkins also pushed
back on criticism from National that Labour’s fiscal plan
had underestimated the cost of freezing fuel excise
increases for three years.

National’s Chris Bishop
said with the government’s one-year freeze costed by
Treasury at $1.48b, Labour’s plan to set aside $1.8b for
three years exposed a $3.2b hole in its
finances.

Hipkins said Labour did not agree with a
25-cent-a-litre fuel tax increase, and criticised National’s
roading project policies.

“We’re not going to be
campaigning on individual roading projects, stopping or
starting them, because it’s not a good way of making
infrastructure investment decisions,” he said.

“It’s
farcical what they’re doing at the moment. They announced
many of the roads that they’re re-announcing in this
campaign at the last election. They cancelled them earlier
this year, and now they’re re-announcing them again. How is
that
credible?”

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