Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, the honourable member will mention the D’Aguilar Highway on another occasion! That highway is important in serving the west and the south Burnett parts of South-East Queensland—so an important road in itself.

It is important for us to have a national approach to these matters, simply because there is trade across Australia for goods moving from Victoria to New South Wales to Queensland. If different regimes are in place then you have compliance costs. The national code is a springboard from which we can have advantages when we trade overseas, and consistency across the jurisdictions is important.

As I indicated, we have road, rail and sea lines running through or adjacent to my electorate and it is very important to me and to my constituents that there are clear and safe guidelines. Internationally, it is important that we are doing exactly what the rest of the world is doing, for much the same reasons. There is an ever-increasing amount of international trade. In fact, this country depends on international trade. Although we tend to send out some volatile materials, a lot of them are benign, but it is important that regulations are consistent across the world.

The Australian Dangerous Goods Code incorporates the UN guidelines but retains some Australia-specific requirements which are updated periodically to make sure that they meet our guidelines. This bill, as previous speakers have said, meets our obligation under the Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Road, Rail and Intermodal Transport. It is a national scheme of legislation of the type that has been coming very much more into vogue in Australia in the last two decades. It is an example of cooperative government. The state and territory governments and National Transport Commission developed the framework so that there can be consistency. The National Transport Commission has established a set of national guidelines which each state and territory has then adopted or is about to adopt into its own legislation.

In conclusion, this bill firstly repeals the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 so that the ACT can pass its own legislation, and I applaud the move that gives the ACT the opportunity to look after its own interests. The code itself is valuable because having a single national code makes the transport of hazardous goods more efficient and safer. It is a great example of government cooperation across state and territory boundaries. Finally, the matters relating to the carriage of dangerous goods are something about which I am particularly aware and in which I have a particular interest with regard to my electorate. I commend this bill to the House.

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