Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure for me to speak on the Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2008 and the Road Charges Legislation Repeal and Amendment Bill 2008. Not only do I support truckies and their families and not only do I—like many people, if not everyone, in this House—have friends who are truck drivers but also I have a real affinity with the work they do. I think many of us in this place should ponder the type of work they do, the workload, the time away from home and what it means to their families. Truck drivers, particularly interstate truck drivers, are very much like us. They tend to leave home, perhaps on a Sunday evening, travel interstate, spend the whole week away from home working and then return home on a Thursday night or Friday morning. That would be very familiar to members of parliament. I always feel that there is an affinity between our working hours, if not the type of work that we do. I have been known on occasions, when asked what I do, to say, ‘It’s like being an interstate truck driver; you leave home on a Sunday afternoon and you get back on a Friday morning.’

With that said, I want to acknowledge the essential services provided for this country by the broad trucking industry and truck drivers. There is no question of the essential nature of the service they provide. There is no question of the need. It really is the backbone of Australia. Moving freight across this nation is what makes our economy tick. There have been a number of reports in this area. In the last parliament, I was involved with a very significant report as a member of the House Standing Committee on Transport and Regional Services. We inquired into the freight task across Australia and learned a lot about some of the needs of truck drivers and some of the job and family pressures that are on them.

They also do a very complex job, while on the surface it may not appear to be to some—we have heard in this place a variety of views on that. We just heard the last speaker saying that truck drivers drive an expensive and complex piece of equipment. It is good to hear that from at least some members of the opposition, but that is not the view of all members of the opposition. We heard a most interesting view last night—a contribution from the member for O’Connor, Wilson Tuckey, who tried to make a comparison in his normal, colourful way between what a truck driver does and himself. He was saying that he was once the holder of a heavy vehicle licence but was not allowed to renew it because there had been too much of a gap. He had lost, the authorities said, the experience or skills to drive a truck, so he could not renew it. He thought that was an affront to him. He likened it to riding a pushbike. He said, ‘Once you know how to drive one of these trucks, you know forever; you don’t need to go through all this complex stuff like having a licence and renewing it and all the other bits and pieces. It’s just like riding a bike; one you know how to do it, you’ll know how to do it for the rest of your life.’ It is probably a little bit more complex than riding a bike, and you are not going to kill too many people or get into a very serious accident on a pushbike compared with what you might be doing hauling an 18-wheeler or a B-double down a crowded road.

What has characterised the opposition in this debate, sadly, is either their lack of empathy, understanding and knowledge or their sheer opposition for opposition’s sake. In debating what makes a really good bill and in moving forward on a range of things that need to be done, we need to make it very clear from the outset that both of these bills perform some very critical tasks. One is a very small increase in the fuel excise from 19.3c to 21c. It is a very small increase, a very small charge, but an essential one and it is essential for truck drivers. This increase gives them a boost. It is about providing them with better facilities and resources. It is about improving the road transport network for them and other road users. Those are the facts not according to us but according to a Productivity Commission report which was commissioned by the previous government. It was commissioned by John Howard, who in April 2007 was the Chair of COAG, which required the Australian Transport Council, through the National Transport Commission, to come up with a new system of charges, to be implemented by 1 July 2008. This is really a follow-on from the previous government’s acknowledgement that there was a need to do something.

I think we in this place need to accept that there are only two things you can possibly do that will make a real difference practically and immediately. The first thing is to improve our road network in terms of safety. Improving our road network is critical. If we want fewer accidents, if we want truck drivers to be better rested and if we want the freight task to be more efficient and safer overall, then we need a better road transport network. How do you pay for better roads? In the end you do it through taxes. That is the bottom line. The states and territories very clearly provide the greatest proportion of funding for roads within the states and territories and the federal government comes to the party for the national road network. The reality is that the Productivity Commission’s study into road and rail found that there just was not enough capacity in the existing system. The recommendation is that we have a very small increase. We need to be clear about that. It is a very small increase from 19.3c to 21c, but it will make a very big difference. That is the key. We have coupled it up with a number of other packages, but it is essential.

The government is determined to make a difference in road safety, to improve our roads, to make sure that truck drivers have the proper legislative networks in place and that there is harmonisation across the states and territories so that the things we here are criticising are dealt with. That is why we are moving down this path. We also heard from opposition members on unfair increases of taxes and charges and how detrimental this might be. A number of organisations, including trucking bodies, have done their own estimations of the impact this charge will have on families and out in the community. Their best estimates are that between 7c and 17c per $100 will be added to the grocery bill. That is the sort of difference. I think it is an acceptable difference when we start talking about people’s lives, about road carnage and about the things that we in here can practically do to make a difference. I am prepared—and I know most families are—to accept 7c to 17c extra on a $100 grocery bill as a necessary cost of improving the safety in which those goods at our supermarkets travel.

Let us not hear this claptrap from the opposition, this banging of the table and this carrying on about how there is going to be devastation and carnage and how this will be the end of the industry. You hear all the doom and gloom. There really is a three-ring circus in the opposition. Yesterday we saw the first ring of that three-ring circus. The Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, came into this place and did what he has been doing for some time. He is trying to create the greatest magic trick of all time. He is the Australian version of Harry Houdini. He is trying to make a budget surplus disappear not once but twice. He is getting up on stage and trying to do this. Yesterday we heard from the member for O’Connor, Mr Tuckey. He decided he was going to be a clown in that three-ring circus. Today we see the third ring. We have opposition members coming in here and claiming all sorts of rubbish about what this bill will do, about its necessity and about where it has come from. I would say to them: take a close look. (Quorum formed)

I have to say that it is pretty rich of the opposition to come in here and call a quorum on what they consider to be one of their areas. This is their territory. They are talking about road transport. You hear the National Party batting on and carrying on in here about how important it is. But, when the debate is on and when there is freedom to speak in this place, what do the opposition do? They take every opportunity to silence debate. They want to gag debate. We see the member for Ryan in here. He is the culprit; he is responsible for gagging debate. The reality is that, if you are interested in these issues—and these are about really important things: safety and reducing the road toll—then you will allow people to speak on these bills. I am quite disappointed in the way that the opposition have behaved.

Let me put on the record right now some of the statistics, which are the reason we are making the very vital changes in this bill. At a national level, one in five road deaths involves a heavy vehicle. Usually speed and fatigue are the largest contributing factors. That is why the state, local and federal governments need to act together. They need to act in a coordinated way to ensure that we provide safer roads. I am sure I am about to get a little bit more, if the member for O’Connor has been listening to my contribution, as he is walking into the House! I expect a few words to come flying across any moment. In 2007, at the national level, road crashes killed 1,616 people. Those involved motorists, truck drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians, and the number was 18 more than in 2006. The really frightening part about the statistics, particularly those involving heavy vehicle use, is that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of fatalities on our roads. Governments, trucking associations and everybody else involved cannot just sit back and let these shocking statistics continue. We are talking about people’s lives and people’s families. We are talking about essential services.

Forty-seven per cent of those accidents involved single vehicles and 10 per cent involved articulated trucks, the rest being made up of others. On the surface, these figures may not seem like a large percentage but, when you look at the national level or turn to my own state of Queensland for a moment, the figures are much higher and much worse. In fact, they are quite frightening figures. Today, when I did some extra research on the carnage on our national roads, I was taken aback by just how large the problem is. In Queensland as of 10 March this year, heavy vehicles were involved in 26 of the 65 deaths that occurred on Queensland roads. This represents around 40 per cent of the total road toll for this year, and that is despite the fact that in Queensland heavy vehicles represent only two per cent of registrations. It is a very disproportionate representation in terms of road fatalities and it must be acted on.

For a long time there has been a debate, and again I think a false debate, as to who is at fault. Often truck drivers get blamed. The blame is pointed squarely at them because they drive the bigger, heavier vehicles, but let me assure people listening to this debate now and people who might read this debate later that that is actually not the case. It is a myth. The case is that the great majority of fatal accidents involving articulated vehicles, heavy vehicles and trucks are not the fault of the truck driver. I think there is an easy explanation as to why that is the case. While at times it is the fault of the truck driver, and accidents will occur—there is no question of that—I think where we come in and where our responsibilities can best be applied is in providing better roads. That is why this government is acting, after waiting 12 long, wasted years and seeing the now opposition do very, very little about the road transport network, investing very little in national infrastructure and not dealing with the issue or accepting that our road transport network and rail systems interlink. We need to play a leading role.

I think the former federal government for a long time decided they were busy doing other things, that there were other things more important. They actually articulated that over many years and in many different places. They said it was not their responsibility. Their view, their ideology, was: ‘We’ll do the big-ticket things that we think are really important—national security, immigration and a couple of other things.’ We agree they are important. We also agree, though, that road transport is important, that the freight task in this country is important. We think it is just not good enough to say, ‘That’s just the responsibility of states and territories.’ We say no, that we live in a pretty wide land—this is a big country—and that if you are going to move freight right across the country you need to act in partnership with the states and territories, you need to harmonise and you need to take some action, as we are doing today.

Again, I heard criticism earlier from one of the members of the opposition, who was saying that there was no real commitment to working with the states because we had not compelled them. Let me inform the opposition there is more than one way to deal with this matter. It is not all about compulsion. It is not all stick. You can actually offer a few carrots in this debate, and that is what we have done. We are prepared to work through COAG. We are more than prepared to sit down at the table and negotiate. We see this as a long-term strategy. We see this as a way forward in partnership with the states and territories—something I know is a foreign concept to the opposition. They have never worked in partnership. They have always worked for themselves. They have always worked in their own best interests.

These two bills will do a number of significant things. They will be part of a $70 million fund across the country to improve rest stops and to provide some new black box technology for trucks. We are going to be working with trucking associations, the trucking industry and trucking unions, making sure that we consult widely and with the whole sector. We want to make sure that businesses have their concerns addressed, we want to make sure that truckies have their concerns addressed and, in the end, we want to make sure that we provide a decent level of funding and an ability for the states and territories to provide the safe road network that we need.

If there is one thing we can do in this place and one thing alone that will make the biggest difference in reducing the road toll, it is improving our roads. We have taken that on board and we have done it in a number of ways, not only through this legislation but also through Infrastructure Australia and through making a massive commitment to infrastructure right across the country. We said in opposition and through our policies coming up to the last election that we wanted to be nation builders, and we are now delivering on that. These two bills that we are discussing and debating here today are adding to that.

I think both of these bills should be supported unanimously by everyone in parliament because of the essential work they do. The small, petty criticisms that we have heard from the opposition are just that. In the end, they began this process last year through COAG. John Howard, then the Prime Minister, was chairing the COAG meeting when he asked the Productivity Commission to look into this and look at new charges in terms of delivering better roads. So there was some commitment, but what happens when they get in opposition? They just decide, for opposition’s sake, that they will oppose, criticise and hinder these bills as much as they can. I commend these bills to the House, because they are about road safety. They are about truck drivers. They are about improving the lot of all the families involved in the freight task across Australia, about acknowledging and recognising the contribution they make and about the partnership role that we ought to be playing with the states and territories.

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