We take pride in the longevity of MTA Queensland and it having commenced its representative role for the automotive industry 89 years ago. This is well known, but there is an unrecognised statistical fact to which I’m pleased to draw attention. That is, the corporate experience of MTA Queensland’s and the MTA Institute’s staff exceeds the durability of the Association. In all, there is some 415 years of corporate knowledge and dedicated service to MTA Queensland membership by our staff.

Transitioning the Association as the peak body through significant governance, policy and economic cycles and representing employers in the automotive value chain, some of our standouts are: Industrial Relations manager Ted Kowalski, with service of 35 years; Stationery/Technical Adviser Russell Sticklen, 22 years; Group Chief Financial Officer Kathy Winkcup, 18 years; Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Member Services Kellie Dewar, 16 years; MTA Institute Training Operations Manager Marcello Riotto, 15 years; and MTA Institute Mackay Trainer Noel Bovey, 10 years . . . and the list goes on.

The calibre of the corporate team may be measured by each surpassing key performance indicators stipulated in the Strategic Plan. To some extent, these are replicated in statistical reports of the Association’s activities, the most recent of which, the 2017-18 Group Financial Year Report Card, is on the website for member’s perusal. At a time when trust in the nation’s public institutions and private sector corporations are being questioned, members can be assured that MTA Queensland’s corporate team has met all the Association’s compliance and governance obligations e.g. under the Registered Organisation Act 2009, the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the MTA Queensland constitution.

New Challenges and Opportunities
A combination of the merit of our corporate team and the key strategies that underpin the Strategic Plan has attracted the attention of a national corporation to commence discussions on a commercial industry-related partnership. Recently, I’ve had meetings with Telstra’s data technical division and MTData (which was acquired by Telstra in 2017) about the possibilities of training their workforce in retrofitting telematics hardware to vehicles. This relates to GPS tracking, fleet management, and dispatch solutions.

In addition, I’ve met Telstra’s General Manager of Premier Business Matt Thearle and General Manager Emerging Technical and Chief Technical Office Warren Jennings to discuss the ‘internet of things’ relating to the automotive industry. In the near future they will facilitate a strategic planning session where the MTA Queensland team will be introduced to the National Transport Technical team at which we will contemplate collaboration/partnerships.

These are new challenges and opportunities for MTA Queensland. I’m confident we have the corporate expertise, the policy underpinnings and the infrastructure to progress these discussions to real outcomes for the membership and the industry.

Industry
Both Kellie Dewar and I monitor the costs imposed on business by different levels of government. In submissions or stakeholder meetings, we stress the need to reduce compliance obligations and imposts on business. Recently, I attended a stakeholder lunch sponsored by the Minister for Education and Minister for Industrial Relations Grace Grace MP hosted by the WorkCover CEO Bruce Watson. The purpose was to provide an update on the focus of WorkCover Queensland.

I took this opportunity to encourage WorkCover to consider and promote emerging technologies from our industry that will reduce work accidents through their injury prevention strategy. Bruce Watson advised that the scheme is performing well, is stable and financially strong with the lowest average workers’ compensation premium in the nation – $1.20 per $100 in wages paid in 2016-17. This should engender confidence for business who are covered by the scheme.

Our Innovation Hub is working with a national company – Refueler – on an exciting fuel trading initiative that has the potential to benefit both business and consumers. Our interest in the technological product or Application (App), whilst clearly advantageous to consumers, is to ensure that it is conducive to competition supporting both small fuel retailers and independents as well as the major players. For consumers, the App allows them to buy and pay for a tank of fuel at real-time pricing at a designated service station or fuel retail site of their choosing and collect it, for example, within seven days. The potential advantages of the App are considerable and range from savings, convenience, parents paying for the fuel for their student children and even gifting a tank of fuel.

Some interesting data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has been released in the census for motor vehicles registered at 31st January 2018 in Australia. You may be surprised, and maybe not, but Toyota topped the list of registered passenger vehicle makes with 2.9 million registrations. This was the 13th consecutive year that Toyota has led the list of registered passenger vehicles. Holden remained in second position with 1.8 million registrations, but the ABS research found the number of registered Holden passenger vehicles has been declining since 2008. Ford passenger vehicles came in third place with 1.2 million registered vehicles – a decrease of 5.4 per cent from the previous year. The ABS reported that the registrations of Ford passenger vehicles has been decreasing since the turn of the century. Mazda and Hyundai filled out the top 5, with 1.2 million and 1.1 million vehicles registered respectively. The national fleet overall numbers 19.2 million registered vehicles at 31 January 2018 – a 2.1 per cent increase from last year.

And the last thing
Activities that I’ll be undertaking in the days ahead or have recently undertaken include presenting keynote addresses at two significant industry functions. The first was the Sydney Autonomous Vehicle Summit. That took place at the end of July, and in that address, I explored the ability of the Australian industry to introduce and embrace autonomous vehicles, discuss the barriers – including regulations, availability, consumer trust, knowledge and technology to opportunities within various industries, and job creations: Red zone – challenges to adoption and how to stimulate businesses to overcome these, and Yellow Zone – the crossroad in workforce and consumer readiness.

The second keynote address will be at the Mumbrella Automotive Marketing Summit, at which the emphasis is on ‘driving into the future; marketing autonomous vehicles’. In that presentation, I’ll explain where Australia and the rest of the world is currently at with autonomous vehicles and what to look out for in the future.

As Kellie Dewar says in Viewpoint, I’ll be giving evidence before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics Inquiry into impediments to business investment in Australia. It provides another opportunity to impress on the Members of Parliament the need for regulatory impact statements to accompany any policy measures imposing additional costs on business.

Aside from these, I’ll be working with the corporate team on ‘bread and butter membership’ issues and on the new challenges and commercial and service delivery opportunities to advantage the membership and ensure the Association’s future amidst significant digital and technological change.

Until next month, as Henry Ford, the industrialist and the founder of the Ford motor company said, ‘execute ideas with enthusiasm . . . as it is the bottom of all progress’.