Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on theInterstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2008 and the Road Charges Legislation Repeal and Amendment Bill 2008. Many of the members opposite, in speaking about both of these bills, have taken care to emphasise their understanding of the trucking industry, their understanding of what life is like to be an interstate truck driver and of the difficulties those drivers face, but I think they speak with forked tongues. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government makes it very clear in his second reading speech that the package dealing with driver fatigue ‘can only be funded following the passage of this bill’. I think that that is an insult to all of our hardworking truck drivers, both those employed by trucking companies and those who work as independent contractors and who are doing it particularly tough at the moment.

If this government really cared about truck drivers, they would act quickly and effectively to put in place their $70 million package to fund rest areas for truckies. Anyone who travels the state highways would have to conclude, if they thought about it, that there are insufficient places for trucks to pull over. For the government to arrogantly say that some sort of increase in excise over a period of four years is required down the track before it can take action and build these vital rest stops is, as I said, an insult to truck drivers and demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of and a lack of care for this important sector of the community.

There are two bills under consideration today, and the coalition has very little issue with the first one. The Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2008 permits new registration charges to apply to the five per cent of heavy vehicles registered under the Australian government’s Federal Interstate Registration Scheme, which we have heard called FIRS in this place today. Already, 95 per cent of Australia’s heavy vehicle fleet are operating under the revised registration schedule. FIRS provides an alternative to state based registration for heavy vehicles and is designed to provide uniform charges and operating conditions for heavy vehicles that carry interstate goods exclusively. Currently, slightly more than 21,000 heavy vehicles are registered under FIRS.

In spite of its limited application to our heavy vehicle fleet, we in the coalition recognise not only that the bill promotes regulatory consistency for vehicles solely involved in interstate operations but also that this is a scheme that provides competition and discipline in the heavy vehicle industry. I think it is fair to say that not charging heavy vehicles for the full cost of the damage they cause to roads is, if you like, counterintuitive to an efficient freight industry. The consequence of not recovering costs in full is that heavy-truck operators, especially operators of B-doubles, are being subsidised. The National Transport Commission estimates the value of the subsidy to be around $168 million, and there has been some discussion that this subsidy may adversely affect the rail freight industry because heavy trucks, notably B-doubles, compete most directly with rail freight. The principle does hold that the service user should pay the full cost to society of providing the service, though with some important considerations and some genuine understanding. But an efficient freight industry requires that this principle does apply to road and rail alike.

I would like to point out that the revised registration charge that is now being levied across almost all of Australia’s heavy vehicle fleet will generate an extra $88 million per annum to the coffers of the states and territories, and I would expect that the states and territories will use this extra money appropriately—or I would hope that they would use it appropriately; I cannot say that I would expect it. I do think it is essential that truckies see a return on this charge. The Rudd government has made much of its great relationship with state governments and I think this is an area where it should put some pressure. I think it is fair to say too that the coalition will not support future increases in registration fees unless we can see clear evidence that this extra money is being spent on roads. With those qualifiers, we will not oppose the bill.

The second bill, about which more has been spoken today, is the Road Charges Legislation Repeal and Amendment Bill 2008. I want to talk about the second part of the bill, which amends the Fuel Tax Act to implement a road user charge rate of 21c a litre from 1 January 2009. The road user charge is levied on the basis that the costs arising from the industry’s use of the road system should be recovered. Both the trucking industry and the opposition accept this principle, but what is most important is that the amount is seen to be fair, not hiked up unnecessarily, and that it is spent on roads.

Motorists and the trucking industry currently pay 38.14c in tax for every litre of fuel they purchase. That, of course, is the excise. The trucking industry claims a partial rebate under the Fuel Tax Act, and this act sets a road user charge for the heavy vehicle sector, which is intended to recover the costs attributable to the industry’s use of the road system. Trucking operators can then receive a rebate through the tax system for the difference between the fuel tax they pay at the pump and the road user charge. The road user charge is currently 19.633c a litre, and the rebate is 18.51c a litre. Should the road user charge be set at 21c a litre, the rebate will be 17.143c a litre. So, effectively, that is a 1c a litre increase in the road user charge. It sounds a small amount, but of course it does not take long to add up the number of litres of fuel used on long-haul truck driving routes. When you consider the distance travelled, the freight covered and the task at hand, this is certainly a significant increase. This increase is the result of a decision by the Australian transport ministers earlier this year. It is very easy for transport ministers to sit around a table and make decisions about increased charges. I do not think it is that easy for those who have to wear the effect of them, but I accept that the transport ministers did make that decision.

In this bill the government has removed the link to indexation, which was something that the coalition raised as a very serious concern earlier this year, and we acknowledge that it has made that change and we believe that it is a constructive improvement. But, as has been mentioned in previous speeches, there is a concern that there is still some ability through regulation for an automatic indexation to take place and we need to make absolutely certain that that is not the case. Parliamentary scrutiny of an increase in this charge should not be removed the next time the government decides that it needs to extract more money from the trucking industry.

My main concern is that the government has linked these bills to the implementation of its announced $70 million, four-year heavy vehicle safety and productivity package. Members of the government have talked up this package in their speeches and emphasised its importance. I am not sure how many rest stops you would get for $70 million, even if you spent the entire $70 million on rest stops, but I acknowledge that any funds allocated for this important provision should be recognised. What the transport minister is doing by tying the passage of these bills to date to this productivity package amounts to blackmail. Threatening to block this $70 million package, inadequate as it is, is dirty politics. It harms the safety of those who work on our roads and it harms the safety of those who drive on our roads, whose lives and whose families’ lives matter to us as their representatives in this place.

Anyone who has experienced the life of an interstate truckie, or who has seen a truck pulled over at the side of the road, knowing that they themselves are on their way to a comfortable bed in an air-conditioned room, when the temperature outside might be 45 degrees—notwithstanding that the truck might be air-conditioned and notwithstanding that it is not the same as sleeping in the back of a car—will tell you that it is not particularly comfortable. You get up the next day and use inadequate washroom facilities and in many cases there are inadequate catering facilities and then you have to present yourself for a full day’s work, which requires a high level of concentration to drive at the speed you do on our interstate highways. You are dealing with other drivers, who are not always predictable, and when you get to your destination, you possibly have to wait hours in a queue while you get your slot in order to unload the freight that you have brought. During that time you cannot sleep. You just have to sit there and wait.

I cannot overstate the annoyance and the anger that I have at the government’s tactics in relation to this paltry amount of $70 million that we are allocating, which I might add is not all for rest stops; it is for three other measures as well. The amount that will actually trickle down to rest stops is bound to be very small indeed. The arrogance that they are displaying over this measure is an insult. We really need to make a very strong statement about that in this place.

New tax increases are not required. State governments and this government have very efficient methods of collecting tax. They have the money in the bank. They need to get out and do the job and get the rest stops in place. I think the Australian Trucking Association has nominated 18 that need to be built immediately. Members in this place need to travel some of our highways—they say they have—and actually observe where the rest stops would be and how inadequate they would be. The government has not linked the new charges to obligations on the states to deliver their promises to harmonise transport regulations, and I think that is a real problem with this bill, when Mr Rudd talked about ending the blame game. What is the government doing about this failure of the states to eliminate these cross-border rule changes, which are completely impeding the development of an efficient and cost-effective national road transport system?

All this talk about wall-to-wall Labor governments meaning we can get things happening has come to nothing. The key weakness of these bills is that they simply do not address the problem of regulation reform. We have talked in this place about heavy vehicle driver fatigue reforms. As I said, I think that links very strongly to rest areas. The states and territories have responsibility for the regulation of heavy vehicles in their jurisdictions. They have to pass the required heavy vehicle fatigue management laws and implement them, but the problem is that all around the country, despite promises made by transport ministers sitting around a table and signing off—how easy is that—the laws are not being implemented nationally. If you are driving an interstate truck between New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, in some places the new laws came into effect on 29 September but some have been given a period of grace. So as a truck driver you really have no consistent picture in your mind of how the new laws will impact on you and whether you are breaking them in the particular state you are in, because of the differences in laws and transitional arrangements. I think the need to harmonise laws between states is the most important thing, apart from providing adequate rest areas.

In New South Wales, my home state, 29 September saw the introduction of the new fatigue management laws. The government has passed laws requiring trucks to stop at rest areas that do not exist, and that is outrageous. There is a work diary that truck drivers are required to fill in. When I conducted a fuel forum in Broken Hill, in the west of my electorate, some months ago, truck drivers raised the concern that they had gone to a forum where the issue of these new requirements and laws was discussed. They had been told—and I appreciate that this is anecdotal, and I need to note that—that if they made spelling mistakes in their work diary they could be fined. A group of them heard this and obviously did not react very positively to it. I think truck drivers are paid for their ability to drive and operate an extremely complex piece of machinery, not their ability to spell correctly. So there are baffling inconsistencies in the treatment of national road freight by the states. Nothing sums this up better than a letter I received from Hehir’s Transport, based in Rand in my electorate of Farrer. I will read part of the letter:

Dear Sussan

               …            …            …

I write ... to express my support for the development of a single national heavy vehicle licensing, registration and regulatory system for heavy vehicles in Australia.

... my business and my drivers have been frustrated and penalised routinely by inefficient and ineffective regulation of the road transport industry. In these tough times the burden of regulation is crippling my business and the industry.

Our company has been accredited in the National Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme since 2004 in Mass and Maintenance modules. A national scheme it is far from. As you may be aware, the road transport industry is separately regulated by every State and Territory Government as well as by the Commonwealth Government. My business, moving freight into and out of my local community, is not limited by borders, however in the 21st century the regulation that affects my business is.

As an example, there are individual pieces of legislation in every state and territory governing numerous issues that affect the day to day operation of my business, ranging from fatigue (In some States this can be three different pieces of legislation), driving hours, vehicle axle and gross weights, dimensions, road rules, driver licensing, registration, vehicle access, driver behaviour, vehicle roadworthiness, load restraint, vehicle design, combination design, emissions and noise control, to name a few. Each of these matters is duplicated around the country, and none, not one is the same. There are more than fifty pieces of legislation around the country, and that’s not even starting to list the other general business operating laws ... taxation, workers compensation, OHS etc.

In addition, we must know about and carry individual permits for each state, in each vehicle, just to move freight for the benefit of the nation around the country. Each permit can range from 2 pages in length to some ... 300 pages long, with every page required. These permits are regularly updated. To administer this process can be a nightmare, and if we miss a single page the fine can range from $180 to $1100 on each occasion.

You may be aware that over recent years, the chain of responsibility provisions has been introduced to a number of pieces of legislation governing the road transport industry. By and large a positive move, however as a result my customers now require my employees to fill in more documentation, complete more forms on every journey and carry more paperwork on their behalf.

Much of this has been done under a national model approach overseen by the National Transport Commission (NTC). With all due credit to the efforts to date by the NTC, the national model approach has not worked.

The practical implications of the laws are also a significant concern for my business. Rest areas are a key issue. Laws regarding fatigue and driving hours are very specific in relation to the need for drivers to take rest breaks, which will often occur whilst in the middle of a journey. There is a fundamental shortage of heavy vehicle rest areas, and when drivers do find a rest area it is often full. Combined with Road Rule 200, which prevents heavy vehicles from parking around towns and cities for greater than an hour, heavy vehicle drivers are being forced to drive in contravention of the law and whilst fatigued due to demonstrably insufficient places to take quality rest breaks.

It is in this context that I write to you seeking your support to bring some sanity to the current situation. I cannot emphasise strongly enough that running an interstate transport business efficiently is now almost impossible. The paperwork is never ending.

I would like to thank the truck drivers in my electorate, the independent contractors, the big truck companies that provide employment to drivers, the owner-drivers and those who travel the long and sometimes terrible distances in rural and outback Australia, with very little thanks and certainly not much understanding, it would seem, from the present government.

I look forward to the amendments that the coalition will move in this parliament to the Road Charges Legislation Repeal and Amendment Bill to prevent the establishment of an automatic formula for excise rises. As I said, although there has been some recognition by the government in this legislation, we want to make quite sure that the next time the government needs to find an excuse to raise taxes it does not go to the trucking industry.

We are also moving to lock the federal, state and territory governments into promises made in February to build heavy vehicle rest areas. We in the coalition believe that at least 50 should be constructed on the national road network each year, and plenty of money has already been collected from the industry to fund such works. We do not have to turn to the transport industry in this time of drought and financial uncertainty and, as a government, put our hands out for more money. States are introducing new fatigue management rules requiring drivers to stop and rest; but, as I said, there are inadequate rest areas available. The coalition wants the states and territories to get on with the task of delivering uniform national transport laws and regulations because so far the promises have been empty.

I have not mentioned—and I probably should—that the increases in charges that these bills will bring about when they are passed through the Senate will of course be passed on to consumers, increase the price of goods that we buy in the supermarket and add to the pressure that households are already under. It would have been good if the government could have absorbed some of these costs. I look forward to the amendments that we in the coalition will move and to the ongoing support from this side of the House of the trucking industry generally.

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