Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

The difficulty that many governments have come into in trying to determine what an independent contractor should be paid outside the contract that they make with their employer is that that effort often ends in disaster, as it did for you with the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

In that instance, you determined, in your wisdom, that you would tell independent contracting truck drivers how they would get paid. That was subject to two findings which produced damning reviews into the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. They both recommended that the system that Labor introduced in 2012 be abolished. They demolished the arguments for its retention in finding no clear link between remuneration and the safety of drivers. The mandatory pay rates—many of you will remember the protests that occurred at this stage—

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