Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The interesting point here is, as I said, that the Department of Defence are significantly interested in legislation that gives them some certainty and uniformity in moving their people and equipment around Australia. The time might come when they have to rely on the rail system as an alternative. We have recently had a lot of floods in WA. Roads have been washed out and some are under water. It just might be that someone has landed on some part of the Australian mainland and the only way to get Defence there might include some activities on the Western Australian rail system. My concern in all this is that the new owner got kicked out of WA once and at the request of the CFMEU. If it were to happen a second time and all of a sudden—let us look back to the Second World War, when certain unions refused to load equipment to assist our own soldiers—if there were some sort of dispute and the roads were not available, nor would the railway system be.

Fundamentally, whilst I have no objection to Queensland Rail operating the Western Australian rail system, I just hope they have cleared themselves with the CFMEU this time and do not get kicked out of town again, as they did as a potential tenderer to construct the southern passenger railway system—which has problems of its own and which I certainly would not attempt to raise here, taking into account the sensitivities of the member for Chisholm on this matter.

I thank the House for giving me an opportunity to make these further remarks. I support the legislation; it is very sensible. I stress that it highlights the deficiencies that still exist in a uniform regulatory regime of road transport throughout Australia in the commercial sector. There are too many differences in legislation and it makes it very difficult to operate. Furthermore, we should always have uniform legislation that allows, as the defence forces require, for sensible carriage of goods on the roads. As I have often said, all too frequently with road and rail—because we do make road services available for the motorists—we end up with a lousy road paralleling a lousy railway. We need to make some judgments about that and about the expenditure of taxpayers’ money to get the best outcome—that is, a much improved road with appropriate passing lanes and all those things that might make it easier for a motorist to pass a convoy of semitrailers carrying tanks. I think we should look at it from the point of view of both defence and the transport sector.

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