Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too would like to speak to this bill. The issue of road transport is very important to my electorate as I have several major highways dissecting it—most notably the Newell Highway, which is the main corridor between Melbourne and Brisbane. I am pleased that the changes have been made to the original bill to make it more worth while. I would be a little more opposed to the charges except for the fact that this bill is only going to affect about five per cent of trucks—the interstate plated trucks and the ones registered in the ACT—and, to a large degree, the states have already implemented a level of charges, so this is just keeping everything in line.

What I am pleased to see in the amendment to this bill is the commitment to build the rest areas on these highways. The Newell Highway through my electorate has large areas between towns and fatigue plays a major problem. Indeed, we have had some severe tragedies over the years on the Newell Highway. I commend the work of Rod Hannifey, who is an advocate for the trucking industry. Through his lobbying, there are some trial locations on the Newell now where rest areas are identified leading up to them so that a truck driver who is not familiar with the road gets warning that a rest area is coming up and can prepare to slow down and turn in because if they miss that one, it is quite a few kilometres to the next one.

One of the things that I am a little bit concerned about in regard to this bill is that it does concentrate on the AusLink roads and the main transport routes. We need to not forget the minor highways and the other local roads that feed off these highways. One of the issues that the transport operators confront in the regions, particularly in my area, is the problem of mixing tourists—especially the so-called grey nomads—up with heavy transport. I spend a lot of time on the road in my electorate, Deputy Speaker Scott, as would you, and the situation that causes the most discomfort is a campervan travelling at 80 kilometres an hour—you will see it with half-a-dozen B-double transports that can comfortably sit on a 100. When you get these bottlenecks that is when frustration seeps in and people make foolhardy decisions.

One of the remedies for this is funding alternative routes. Indeed, I would commend the previous government for the instigation of the strategic fund, a component of Roads to Recovery. Work is underway in my electorate now on a couple of those. One in particular is the Wellington to Narrabri road and the Coonamble to Bindra road, which connect to each other. When there is an alternative sealed route through probably smaller, picturesque towns it will encourage those nomads off the highway and separate them out from the trucks.

The freight task is growing. It was interesting to listen to the previous speaker, the member for Forde, Mr Raguse. He was speaking about the development at Bromelton. That is quite an exciting development because, hopefully, with the Queensland government getting on side and the planning process underway for the inland rail, Bromelton I think is probably going to be one of the very important sites on that network. While the trucking industry is in the here and now, the freight task is set to double in the next few years and we need to be always pushing for that alternative for the rail line to take that pressure off these major highways.

One of the other issues of this concentration on the major AusLink highways is the transport that uses the alternative routes. A lot of these laws that come in are fine for line haulers and people who have large companies and have regular runs, but quite often the operators that get caught up in legislation and fall through the cracks are people like local transporters and stock transporters. The fact is that a lot of these people operate on secondary roads and quite often there is no provision for rest areas.

The other issue is the lack of uniformity across states. The top end of my electorate, as you know Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, joins yours at the Queensland border. There are huge problems with the transport industry because a truck can be perfectly legal in Queensland—I have got to say that the Queensland government seems to be more progressive and innovative in their approach to transport than New South Wales—but as soon as they cross over the border they will have issues with dimension, mass-weight limits and even with accessibility of road trains. If we are really going to make the transport industry more efficient and safer, we need to identify that.

In Gwydir shire in the northern part of my electorate we have an issue with road train access only to the boundary of that shire. While we have perfectly acceptable roads, because of the bureaucratic nature of the Roads and Traffic Authority in New South Wales, road trains are not allowed into that area. So we have problems then with animal health issues, where road trains will come in bringing stock down to the Myola feedlot from large areas up in Queensland. They have to unhook the trailer. There is no provision for uncoupling in these areas. Quite often in wet weather they are parked on the road or the cattle are left in the sun for maybe an hour and a half or two hours while one trailer is emptied and the other one comes back. We are going to have to have a national approach to this problem, because it is causing all sorts of problems. The lack of uncoupling areas between road train routes and non-road train routes are a big issue.

In Gwydir shire last year when I was the mayor we got B-double access. It was quite ironic. I was bringing cattle to my property from Queensland and they were brought in on a truck configuration with two B-doubles, the equivalent of three single trailers, right to the Queensland border. Then they had to come in separately. For the last few kilometres it was even difficult getting access for the B-doubles. The issue is the number of movements. On a lot of these country roads movements are the issue. It does not matter whether it is a single semitrailer, a tabletop or a road train, there are still issues with dust and overtaking and things like that. I think we need to have a more rounded approach when we are looking at the issue of making uniform configurations for trucks across the state.

The other issue we have trouble with across borders is the issue of fatigue management. No-one more than I understands the issue of fatigue and the fact that it is a great cause of accidents. But there is a lack of consistency from state to state in fatigue management. In New South Wales there has been a reprieve for 12 months with the workbooks that are introduced for people within 100 kilometres of their base area. That is particularly important for the grain industry leading up to the harvest, which is commencing in my area at the moment. There is a real issue with trucks that are spending maybe eight hours a day in a line-up at a silo, but that is considered work. So they will sign off there and then they will have to pull up and have a rest because they have timed out on their logbook. We need to have a sensible approach to fatigue management, taking into account the local operators.

I do commend this legislation to the House. We do have issues with the bills—we need to make sure that we do not have these charges indexed. If we are going to increase the charges to transport then that money must be used wisely. I commend that fact that in the bill we do have an allocation of a number of rest areas per year. I think that is a positive.

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