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

A committee of road safety chaired by the father of the member for Kennedy in the Fraser years looked at the circumstances of driver licensing. The evidence they heard is a matter of record in this parliament. Two engineers in Queensland came before that committee to put the case on economic and social grounds for why bigger vehicles were better than smaller ones, simply on the grounds of road trauma, and they had the statistics to prove it. Those who drove larger vehicles might have used a bit more petrol—and I know there were other implications—but they were safer. Taking that advice, when I bought my younger daughter her first vehicle, I chose a Celica—second hand, admittedly—that would have been classified in the values of that day as a luxury car. In her early driving experience, she was driving along the highway when a truck driver pulled out from a side road in front of her. She had nowhere to go, as there were trees on both sides of the road. She stood on the brakes. The car slid sideways under the bulbar and the windscreen cracked in front of her face. If I had bought her a less substantial vehicle, I would not be celebrating the recent birth of her second child.

That is what we are talking about in country areas. Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you might remember when—under a program that has also just been chucked out—through your representations I as minister assisted in the funding of some Toyotas to cart kids around part of the remote area of your electorate simply because, and this was the issue, the buses previously funded had fallen to pieces.

It not only applied to a mob of school kids; it applied to the parents that had to drive those kids in other areas to school. The point of safety is fundamental. Personally, when I get the opportunity to select a vehicle to drive, while I no longer need a four-wheel drive in my electorate, I look for horsepower and I look for suspension that guarantees me safety in my job. If I were a member of the CFMEU, the case would be put by my union leader—OH&S. The reality is that you cannot just put a nominal value on a vehicle and say it is luxurious. There is a need—I am not sure exactly where the Volvo field fits into the range of luxury cars, it has varied a little in time, but it has been internationally recognised as a safe car and I will bet you most of them are today considered luxury vehicles. Too bad if they save a few kids’ lives!

We have this mania about tall poppies. Labor is going back to its roots, hating anybody who earns even a bit of money working fly-in fly-out on the mines. If they have that sort of money, they have to be punished. Let me say to you, when we talk about workers’ jobs, the only reason that we can be competitive in the Middle East selling Statesmans and Caprices is the support of the local market. It is very small anyway—I think about 4,000 Statesmans and Caprices a year. The average car manufacturer would not do that; Ford has just walked away from it. Every time you erode the sales of a vehicle of that nature, manufactured in Australia, you undermine their effort to export competitively and those jobs go out the window. But such is the paranoia of this new government in punishing people for buying a vehicle—and by the way, about 70 per cent of those employed in the vehicle industry are employed in marketing and servicing, not in manufacturing. It is the same job for an Aussie if he services a BMW or services any other small vehicle manufactured in Australia. It does not make any difference. (Time expired)

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