The Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce is applying pressure to a pre-election state government about the biggest issues facing the automotive industry.
With thousands of hard-to-fill automotive trade vacancies strangling small businesses due to a growing skills shortage, the VACC has launched its election campaign calling on government – or opposition – to listen and respond to “one of the biggest trade employers in Victoria”.
VACC chief executive officer Geoff Gwilym has told stakeholders, media and government, including roads minister Luke Donnellan and VicRoads representatives, that the automotive industry – especially franchised dealers – face dire consequences if the situation is left unresolved. That includes those involved with electric and hybrid vehicles.
“I don’t know what to tell the world about our once-leading vocational training sector for automotive trades,” Gwilym says.
VACC chief executive officer Geoff Gwilym.
“We are going to run out of people to fix cars in Australia – it’s that simple,” he says. “Because we’ve dimmed the lights on trade.”
Issues among the VACC’s “Better Business. Better Victoria” election campaign begin with the recognition of the skills shortage in automotive retail, servicing and repair businesses and the vocational promotion of apprenticeships to support the 16 million vehicles on Australia’s roads.
“Our members want to get labour from overseas out of pure desperation because the kids coming out of high school aren’t interested in the auto trade,” Gwilym says.
The VACC wants to see better support and incentives for employers to hire – and keep – automotive apprentices, both male and female, while increasing the funding to programs in schools to capture teenagers’ enthusiasm.
Automotive businesses need apprentices, but often can’t take the financial risk, the VACC says.
According to the VACC, students consider an automotive trade around age 14 but lose interest by the end of high school, around age 18.
Dealerships and other automotive businesses will receive support in the form of an appeal for a raised payroll tax threshold to $850,000 per annum which will stimulate employment and encourage investment.
The VACC says it’s also vital for Victorian dealerships to join the call to state and federal government to make changes to the Fair Trading Act which sees franchised retailers forced to sign “unfair contracts” where “small dealership businesses can’t afford to negotiate and tell us they’re just signing it anyway”, Gwilym reveals.
Other issues in the VACC’s election campaign include dismal data-sharing systems effectively allowing service station fuel theft to continue, double stamp duty paid by dealers and consumers on demonstrator vehicles, insurance companies squeezing the profit out of body and paint repair shops, and the 35,000 tonnes of automotive plastic that is sent to landfill every year because auto recyclers are forced to bury it. “Australia is the only developed country not to have a national policy dealing with end of life vehicles,” the VACC points out.
Retailers call for fairer trading protections.
The VACC wants to see the $2 billion gross domestic profit Victoria’s 1400 dealerships contribute every year made less difficult for the 18,300 staff employed with modernising of the Duties Act 2000, before businesses “succumb to further consolidation or closure”. The same issues around anti-competitive business practices and disregard for the Franchise Code of Conduct have been in discussion with the Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA) at a federal level.
“We are in discussion with opposition government as well as the current government, and we’re happy to in order to protect our members,” Gwilym concludes.
One managing director from a major franchised dealership group in Melbourne with 12 brands, 10 showrooms and two LMCTs says the current situation is choking dealers.
“Continuing on the track we’re on will no longer be viable,” the managing director explains. “If these dealer agreements don’t change this is not a sustainable industry.”
