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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4881 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

As I said when we first debated this matter a number of weeks ago, the Labor Party actually does not object to licensed motor dealers having the opportunity to inspect vehicles. We support licensed motor dealers having the opportunity to inspect vehicles; but we think that ought to be part of a system of regular vehicle testing associated with registration, not part of a system where vehicles are inspected only once in a blue moon, on change of ownership. In a situation where they are inspected only on change of ownership, they ought not to be inspected by the people who are selling them. That was our position. If Mr Osborne and Mr Moore are happy to support our proposed new clauses, we will be only too happy to support the proposal to allow licensed motor dealers to inspect vehicles. In principle, we do not have an objection to licensed motor dealers inspecting vehicles; we only have an objection to them inspecting the vehicles when the only time they are going to be inspected is when they are sold and they are going to be inspected by the people selling them.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am disappointed that the Independents have so readily changed their minds and that they have not more actively sought to find a solution to the problem they have identified, but instead have elected to give up. I can only wonder why they have not tried harder to find a workable solution to what I think was a real problem. The Labor Party has proposed what we believe is a workable solution, which is to have a system of regular vehicle testing, which will mean that we will not need to have the exclusion for licensed motor dealers at all.

MS HORODNY (5.51): We also were concerned about the conflict of interest that arises when a private inspector has an interest in doing repairs on a particular vehicle. There is obviously a possibility that, to get it passed, an inspector would request repairs to a vehicle that might be unnecessary, just to generate extra business. Conversely, there is also the possibility of deals being done between private inspectors and car dealers to go easy on inspections of their particular vehicles. It was the latter case that Labor sought to address in its amendments to the Motor Traffic (Amendment) Bill (No. 3). That was to prevent car dealers and their premises from being appointed as authorised private examiners. However, Labor was still prepared to accept the intent of the Bill, that vehicle inspections should be undertaken by private examiners. We supported the Labor amendments because at least they tried to remove some of the conflict of interest, as we saw it, in establishing private examiners. But our view is that we should not have established private examiners in the first place.

Mr Osborne has now presented this Bill to fix up what has become an anomaly in the Motor Traffic Act, as it is now. We were also approached on this matter by the Motor Trades Association. We have accepted that they have raised some very valid points about how the original changes to the Motor Traffic Act may unfairly discriminate against certain car dealers. What we have now is that a car dealer cannot become an authorised examiner, but the garage next-door can become an examiner, and there is nothing to prevent the car dealer from making an arrangement with the garage next-door to do particular inspections. The dealer can also contract out his own repair business within those premises to repairers who could then become authorised. All that these original amendments seem to have done is create administrative complications for car dealers, and they do not necessarily lead to greater numbers of roadworthy cars on the road.

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