NSW Independent MP Richard Torbay has introduced a private member’s bill into the NSW Parliament that sets out to ban preferred smash repairer schemes.

Introducing the Motor Vehicles Repairs (Anti-Steering) Bill last week, Mr Torbay said the schemes have led to the financial ruin of many family-run small businesses as well as putting drivers at risk.

The bill, which observers say is unlikely to make it into law but has the potential to make plenty of trouble for insurers along the way, imposes jail sentences and penalties of up to $165,000 on insurers who steer jobs to preferred repairers.

He says the bill seeks to address the safety and quality of motor vehicle repairs, and the “uncompetitive practices by some mega-corporations that are endeavouring to reduce small business to economic serfdom in order to satiate their appetites for ever-increasing profits”.

Well, at least we know where he stands. Mr Torbay says the bill is important because it “brings the corporate giants to account”.

He told the NSW Legislative Assembly the smash repair industry has a “long history of good service and high standards”, but insurers’ preferred repairer schemes have “led to a culture that repairs vehicles according to a price, and not to a standard of quality and safety”.

Most attacks on the industry have been focused on NRMA Insurance’s “Care & Repair” scheme. The insurer recently dropped the additional premium it used to charge policyholders who wanted to choose their own repairer. That was caused by market pressure, because bad publicity was turning people away from the company.

Mr Torbay also took the opportunity to attack the insurer’s senior adviser Nathalie Samia, who he accused of conducting a “highly inappropriate, offensive and rude” telephone conversation with him.

“She is a disgrace, these organisations are a disgrace and this concept is a disgrace.”

The Motor Traders Association of NSW, which represents smash repairers and is a long-time campaigner against preferred smash repairer schemes, has, of course, welcomed the bill.

“The bill, if approved by Parliament, is a win for consumers and smash repairers who have become increasingly concerned at cost-cutting measures forced on the industry by insurers,” CEO James McCall said.