The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
ANTHONY COSTELLO AUTOMOTIVE, FYSHWICK
FRIDAY, 6 FEBRUARY 2026
SUBJECTS: Albanese Labor Government’s Right to Repair delivering for motorists, small business and the economy
ANDREW LEIGH: It’s a real pleasure today to be here at Anthony Costello Automotive. They’re one of Canberra's terrific independent mechanics. Increasingly as modern cars have become more computerised, they have found it harder to get access to the information they need to fix them.
Modern cars really are computers on wheels. And so, three and a half years ago, Labor put in place the Motor Vehicle Information Sharing Scheme. The Scheme has ensured that independent mechanics get the data they need to fix modern cars. This report we're releasing today has shown that that's been a boon to the independent mechanics sector and increasing their revenue by some $2.4 billion.
That means more apprentices, more jobs and more sustainability. It's also critical to Australian households because independent mechanics are on average, 25 per cent cheaper than taking a car to a dealer to get it fixed.
Today's report also shows ways in which we can strengthen Labor’s Motor Vehicle Information Sharing Scheme. It makes clear that there's more to do around access to electronic logbooks, and potentially more to do around access to some of the more sensitive data for authorised repairers. I'd like to acknowledge the many independent repairers across the country that have worked with motor vehicle manufacturers and to make this scheme a success.
I’ll also flag up another important direction which the Albanese Government is going to be going, which is moving to introduce a right to repair for agricultural machinery. Right now, some of the issues in the agricultural machinery repair space are the same as the issues in the car repair space four years ago.
We understand that many farmers have time critical processes and that they need to get those broken machines back into the field as quick as possible. And so we're going to be working with farmers, with machinery operators in order to extend that right to repair to agricultural machinery.
ENDS