Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have got to commend Barnaby for that—15 minutes of absolute nonsense and a clear indication that he has no understanding of the transport industry. He got up and spoke about how they have to protect this and protect that. I put it to you this way, Deputy Prime Minister: if it were farmers, would you be thinking the same way? Would you not want farmers to be paid a fair amount of money for their work? That is exactly what you are doing today.

I have spent 20 years in the transport industry in a whole range of things, whether it be driving trucks, selling parts, servicing vehicles or even doing the bad stuff of driving tow trucks at heavy vehicle accidents. I have seen what happens. I have seen each and every day owner-drivers coming in who are being forced to work for less money and longer hours just to make ends meet. Every day they are forced to work longer and harder, and it is not right and not fair. There is absolutely no reason—unless you are doing the bidding of the IPA, which this government is doing—to sit there and say truck drivers do not deserve a fair rate of pay.

Quite often trucks will be sitting down at the wharfs, waiting to get loaded on. They sit there for five or six hours, trying to get on, and then they get told, 'You've got a slot in Sydney and you've got between 5 and 6 pm to get there; and, if you miss that, you're out for another six or seven hours.' That happens all the time in this industry. So what do the drivers have to do? They do five or six hours work. Then they have to hop in the truck and drive for another 10 or 12 hours to make sure they get there on time to get their slot or they basically wipe out a day. They do not do that because they want to; they do that because that is the way they are being forced to do it. That is why I speak very strongly against this bill.

I remember the days. Obviously the Deputy Prime Minister has read a catalogue and named a truck, but he obviously does not know much about those trucks. When I worked at Freightliner Australia, we went out of our way each and every day to make sure the owner-drivers who came in to get parts or service were looked after quickly to get them back on the road, because we knew they were not making any money when they were sitting in that workshop.

If you have been to an accident and seen when a set of dual rear wheels come off because someone has not been given the time to go and replace the wheel bearings—and a set of duallies come off at 100 kays an hour—let me tell you, that makes a mess a big mess. When you go to freight-forwarding places and they say: 'Look, just chuck these extra couple of palettes on. You're a little bit over weight, but you'll be alright. Get going. You've got eight hours to get to Sydney from Melbourne.' Then you get caught at the weigh station. It is not the freight forwarder that gets the blame; it is always the truck driver. Owner-drivers and truck drivers are always the ones that cop the blame in these situations. It is not fair and it is not right.

If the government was fair dinkum about looking after people, they would not be just walking out the front and getting their jollies because a truck came past blowing its air horn like we just heard; you would actually get in there and find out what goes on. You would find out about the conditions they are working under; the fact that they have to bust their chops day in, day out and take shortcuts to make sure they make their times.

We heard the Deputy Prime Minister talk—and I thought it was very disparaging the terms that he heard. He said, 'truck drivers are not the best educated'. I think that is absolutely appalling. It is absolutely appalling for him to come into this place and disparage truck drivers and owner-drivers like that. I tell you what: most of those guys would be a lot sharper than that bloke will ever be. It is just wrong to treat people so badly and think it is fine because the IPA have told you to drive down wages and conditions. That is exactly what this is about. If you fair-dinkum want to talk about road safety and looking after people, then pay them a proper wage so they do not have to shortcut the system and so they do not have to take get assistance and take illicit substances to keep themselves going.

I have done many runs from Melbourne to Sydney and I do not know how people do it. I take my hat off to them, because it is the most boring road to drive on. When you are doing it two or three times a week, it gets very boring. You do those midnight runs where you run out of Melbourne at eight o'clock, you get to Tarcutta, you drop your trailer, you turn around and you run back again. You have to work flat out. You do not have time to stop. You do not have time to have a rest. You have to make sure you keep going and going and going. And they do that each and every day.

You think about the maintenance issues. Something simple like—I don't know—a Horton fan clutch. It costs 1,500 bucks, plus fitting, for that one part. But that puts your truck off the road for a day. Most owner-drivers are not earning a lot more than that a day. Then they get to their destination and—as the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out again in his ignorance—there is talk about backloading: 'If you do it for cheaper, that's okay.' No, it is not. Let's be honest. Backloading is nothing more than getting owner-drivers to lower their rates to get back home.

That freight has to be moved. Why shouldn't it be moved at an appropriate rate? Why shouldn't it be moved at a rate where someone is actually going to be able to pay their bills and put food on their table, and not have to panic that if they are 10 minutes late they are going to be stuck for four or five hours? It is unfair and it is wrong. That is why we need to have a Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

We got there because this independent tribunal has the power to make these remuneration orders, approve and assist with collective agreement negotiations, and conduct research into pay and conditions and related matters that can affect safety in the road transport industry. The tribunal conducts its work in an open and transparent manner—an accessible way—which has been lost in this debate.

It is well canvassed that a decision by the tribunal in December 2015 is the cause of this. The tribunal spent more than 12 months consulting on a proposed order to set payment rates for owner-drivers. Then it released a draft order, along with a statement for further consultation. There was some criticism of the proposed payment rates. So the tribunal sought to get more information from stakeholders about their views. But the information was not forthcoming. I think that that is an important thing to note. The big companies said, 'No, this is no good', but they did not supply information to show why or to show how it could be better done. They just said, 'Nah. We just want to make sure that people are paid fairly.' It is part of the belief that we have to drive wages and conditions down.

We know that when people go out and buy themselves a new truck, a new trailer and all that, they could be sitting there with $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 worth of debt hanging over their head and they cannot afford to be sitting around waiting. You have to keep going and going. So what happens is the big fat cats at Coles and the like will sit down and say, 'You come in and you do the trip for $1,200? There's a little bloke who'll do it for $1,100.' So you will do it for $1,000. And you keep lowering and lowering and lowering. This continuation of trying to remove safety nets, to lower wages and conditions, is just another Work Choices by stealth so that the government can stand there and say: 'It's not us; it's the industry.' It is not the industry.

People are desperate to have work, to build their dreams, to put food on the table, to pay their bills. They will do what they have to. Again, I go back to the point earlier: if we took truck drivers out of this equation and put farmers in, I could guarantee that the National Party would be up in arms, screaming: 'Farmers deserve a fair right. They deserve fair pay for their produce.' I do not disagree with that. You should be entitled for a fair day's pay for your work and you should be entitled to be remunerated properly for the investment you have made.

But, outside of a farm or outside of a business or any place, truck drivers are on our highways. They are running up and down in 62½ tonnes worth of steel—and more and more plastic these days—in their vehicles, working hard to try and make a living. To sit there and say that we do not think they deserve a fair day's pay is appalling. It is absolutely appalling.

These people, people I know, run up and down the highways and work their butts off day in, day out. They hardly take a decent rest break. As we used to always say: they are the lifeblood of this nation

They keep this nation moving. We have seen examples of accidents, and I have been to them, where people were overtired or going a bit hard trying to get to their destination to make sure that they made it on time so they could get paid.

In some cases, these guys are forced to wait three or four months to get their pay. Not many small businesses can carry themselves for 120 days, but truckies are forced to do that while continuing to pay $1.40 per litre. On a trip from Melbourne to Sydney, you would put in 1,200 litres, running on tyres that are between $300 and $600 apiece. A universal joint can break at any given time, and you are looking at $200 to $400 plus fitting for a universal joint. I know; I have been out to do repairs on trucks on the side of the road. It is not a simple thing. When you have truck driver walking up and down, pacing, because he knows he is going to miss his slot, you know the extra stress it is causing him. It is not fair that they should be treated this way. The people who drive our trucks, and the families they feed, are so important to our communities.

I very strongly oppose this government's IPA agenda in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If there are issues with the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, why didn't the government do something about it? Why didn't they put in a submission to say how we can do things better and how we can manage this process properly? They did not. Instead, they just came in and said, 'Just get rid of it. It doesn't suit our ideological beliefs, so we'll get rid of it.' It is not the right way to do it. The government should really take the time to sit back and just for once think about something. Get the Prime Minister to make a decision and stick to it for more than 24 hours, to make sure that we look after the people who are driving up and down our roads.

The Hume Highway is a highway that is probably the main artery for road freight in this country. It is a really magnificent road, particularly in Victoria. It is a good-quality road and a safe road. Why do we have accidents on it? Why do we have so many accidents, particularly down towards the bottom end, towards Melbourne? We have that because people are tired, overworked, overstressed and rushing to try to make ends meet. We in this place would be very unhappy if all industries were treated this way; so why do we treat truck drivers as second-class citizens? Why do we think they are uneducated, as the Deputy Prime Minister said? It is not right and it is not fair.

The government use this and say, 'This is just the TWU.' Thank God we do have the TWU. There was a great case I was reading about this morning. An owner-driver had been ripped off $24,500. He had to take a loan out on the mortgage on his house to keep his business running because he had been ripped off by an unscrupulous operator. It was not the government that came and helped him; the government could not give a toss. It was the TWU that went out and helped him get that money back, put it back into his house, take that stress and anguish away from him and give him and his family an opportunity to keep running and keep growing his business.

We see the government walk out and stand next to some people, do some signing and get a selfie—which is about the depth of the ability of this government—and then walk off and say, 'Yes, we must get rid of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.' The challenge I put to you lot opposite is: go and spend some time in the entire sector—with the drivers, mechanics, tow truck drivers and everyone involved in there—and have a look at the pain and suffering you are going to cause. You are not just going to put people out of business; you are going to drive people into very serious health issues and, in some cases, suicide.

Do not do this. Support the people that are out on our roads. Support the businesses and give them a fair go. Do not wipe out this tribunal. Stand up, do the right thing and the grown-up thing, and work to actually find a better solution, because each and every day there will be another crash on the road and another truck driver injured, and you in government will have to sit there and ask yourselves, 'What have we done to stop it?'

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