You gotta fight for your right to repair

Assuming I'd be screamed and pointed at in the street a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers by young people with Spotify accounts (just wait till they're all juiced up on AstraZeneca), I hid the component in a box and hurried from the car to the outlet's front doors; heavy and reinforced like a pawn shop's, adding to the excursion's pall of desperation.

The machine had been misbehaving for several weeks and, unresponsive to percussive maintenance (hitting it) or triage with the vacuum cleaner, I removed its casing thinking it wouldn't hurt to have a squiz inside. I don't know why I did this because I knew full well unless I found a troll staring up at me from a tiny campfire, there was no way I'd be capable of identifying the problem.

There was, of course, no troll, nor any hint of what was wrong, just a surprisingly vacant space housing some green motherboards, which, from above, resembled the andenes of Machu Picchu. I stared helplessly at the circuitry the same way I stare impotently at my children or the engine of any vehicle with a raised bonnet, sighed, and surrendered to the process of outsourcing.

While driving to the shop, I was plagued by various scenarios all pretty much ending with me being laughed out of the place, my embarrassing artefact either thrown after me into an alley or confiscated and kept cruelly on a shelf, perhaps with the tag "digital dinosaur" to give the proprietors and their clientele something to giggle about.

I needn't have worried. Never before have I been bathed in such sympathy and acceptance.

The CD player was extracted lovingly from its container and given the kind of studious assessment an indemnified GP affords an ageing millennial gagging for one last Contiki tour. As a couple of assistants initiated the diagnosis, I milled about with some other males who shared my appearance and undercurrent of anxiety. Like expectant fathers all over again, we paced the thick, sound-dampening carpet, reaching out to stroke minimalist black slabs of acoustic technology and emitting grunts of approval when confronted by a particularly impressive set of valves or speakers.

After a few minutes, I was called to the counter.

Wouldn't be a problem ... something about replacing something called a diode ... take about a week ... someone would call ...

Ten days later, the unit was back home, its new diode doing whatever diodes do to make Smashing Pumpkins CDs go.

It was a triumphant moment because, given our age of obsolescence, I honestly didn't think my old Denon could, or would, be repaired yet, miraculously, there it was, reborn.

Thank goodness for the fixers, a special breed.

This army of tinkerers, tailors, solderers and handy guys seems postured for some kind of global deployment as we (rapacious consumers) seek allies in our perverse cold war against the manufacturers of those devices and appliances we can no longer do without.

MORE B. R. DOHERTY

The "right to repair" movement is growing around the world and acknowledged in Australia by the Productivity Commission's draft report issued last month "with a focus on whether consumers face any unnecessary barriers to repair that require a government policy response".

The commission launched its inquiry amid widespread concerns corporations have us over a barrel in terms of conditions attached to warranties which exclude third-party repairers from helping us out when a phone, a fridge or a tractor is on the fritz.

This certainly strikes a chord because we all have tales of bizarre domestic wastage when something as apparently as simple as getting the fan in the oven fixed becomes a drawn-out nightmare of geopolitical intrigue and environmental vandalism. So often, these stories end with an all-but-brand-new piece of kit worth thousands of dollars banished to landfill for the sake of a humble part that's discontinued or out of stock.

And while it's heartening to see the federal government's independent research and advisory body taking up the right-to-repair cause (it's also worth remembering we're already protected by robust consumer laws), the fact it's a thing at all is deeply depressing.

As we undertake our many duties in the office, on the road, in the kitchen or the shed, we're nagged by the fear the essential gadgetry with which we interface each day will pack it in, leaving us to mount the uphill expedition of investigation and repair (... all our operators are busy ...) or the far easier, yet psychologically corrosive, route of disposal and replacement.

I'm still mystified as to what happened to a malfunctioning whipper snipper I left with its authorised dealer. Expecting what seemed to be a minor problem with the throttle to be sorted fairly quickly, I called back after three weeks and was told it was out of warranty and beyond help.

Never saw it again.

Since then, with a liberating list of out-of-warranty stuff, we've tapped into our village's talent pool of lateral thinking and mechanical ability. We've had everything from dishwashers, driers and washing machines to computers, air conditioners and roller doors repaired, all cheaply and all with the satisfaction of contributing to our boutique economy through the engagement of a neighbour's formidable skill set.

I suspect it's the hunger for similar community nourishment which has given rise to "repair cafes". Thriving everywhere, these are not only refuges of practicality, they're forums of empowerment and connectivity, allowing consumers to wrest back control.

And it's whenever we call on one of our polymathic locals to get us out of a jam, it's not just their know-how which leaves an impression, it's their perseverance in seeing a job through.

Sadly, as a society, we're not used to such tenacity.

Robert M. Pirsig, in his 1974 marvel of metaphysics and horsepower, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, says a certain bravery is required when seeking to fix our problems.

If you're going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool ... Gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going.

Gumption, it feels these days, is out of stock, too.