Australia's machinery manufacturers and dealers have heard straight from three agricultural businesses about why the right to repair debate matters.
Andrew Weidemann, Sam Monk, and Paul Rakovich spoke about the hotly debated topic during a panel session at the Tractor and Machinery Association of Australia conference in Melbourne on Wednesday.
The discussion was facilitated by Case IH Australia/New Zealand general manager Pete McCann.
Mr Monk, who established silage contracting business Monk and Son Ag Services when he was 16, said having access to workshop manuals would be beneficial.
He said the debate was a good thing but dealers were still needed and played an important role training technicians.
Mr Monk said he was fortunate to have a number of very good mechanics in his business that had all "come out of dealerships, so they have been trained correctly."
"Most of our dealers are very good with backup service but it would help if we could have access to more programs, maybe not updates but workshop manuals," he said.
"Dealers are reluctant to hand them out, we understand that's their bread and butter, with our relationship with some of our dealers we can access most things now but I don't think it's for everyone to have access to.
"In my opinion, you need to have someone that's trained to some degree before you let them play around with software."
Mr Weidemann, who farms at Rupanyup, Victoria, and also has a contracting business said it was important to have reliable equipment, especially in cases where you were working 24 hours a day.
"We are very lucky and fortunate that we've got good dealerships that we've bought the equipment from and their issue is they are struggling to get people to help them in the business," he said.
"One of the key attributes of a good dealership is having good service; service sells equipment every time."
Mr Weidemann said for his business and for people that have got phone signal, assistance over the phone when a breakdown occurs was often all they needed.
But for a lot of farmers without mobile coverage this wasn't the case.
"When we go out into the field and you're 350km from Mungindi and you've got a breakdown, how are you going to fix it?," he said.
"We'll if you haven't got the ability to fix the machine, nobody's going to come out there and service it in a timely manner.
"You've got to remember that we are running big investments, million-dollar headers on large-scale properties now ... and so you've got to have the ability to be able to access that machine and fix it."
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Treasury Wine Estates head of procurement Paul Rakovich said from a procurement perspective, "you're almost advocating for wanting to lower the purchase cost as much as possible".
"Then almost having a menu board of things I can then buy back in terms of the lifecycle of the product," he said.
"I can choose whether I want service, whether I want my own workshop, what equipment I need to buy, and then I can develop the skills and organisation and what I think is valuable."
Mr Rakovich also drew on his time in the automotive industry to offer this perspective.
"Having grown up in the automotive industry, I'm also almost reluctant to say that the OEMs invest millions of dollars in the development of their products and they have this go to market approach, which includes dealers that they train and develop in the use and application of their products," he said.
"You kind of want that to continue, you can't be disseminating that further down. We used to see modifications in the car industry, say someone would come up with a great panel or body kit and it does nothing to the performance of the car and that's where you really need that expertise.
"There's got to be a little bit of respect to that as well because it comes at an investment for both the OEMs and dealers."
Mr Weidemann said he didn't think the push from a political point of view was about forcing out dealerships from being able to manage and service things.
"When people start modifying equipment, I don't believe that once they start modifying, chipping motors and all that, once you go that path you are voiding your warranty and you are on your own," he said.
"I think that those are the aspects that have to be really defined in the response that comes out from government."