Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the important matter of making sure that our trucking industry across Australia is safe, is sustainable and works for all Australians. Transport workers keep our country moving. Our supply chains rely on them every day. Those workers show up and have shown up all the way through COVID. It is altogether welcome that those opposite finally recognise that the trucking industry is made up of hundreds of thousands of hardworking Australians. They want to embrace that, after 10 years of not having done so. They're just late to the party on this. It's great that they're there finally, but it has taken them 10 years, 10 years of undermining and taking advantage of this workforce and this industry. Finally you've come to the table. That's great news. We welcome you. You're a little bit late and you've stuffed up a few things along the way, but you finally got there, so that's ripping good news.

Make no mistake, those opposite, despite what they say in here, are not on the side of truckies nor logistics workers in general. They've done everything in their power to make it harder to be a truck driver in this country. They did that for the last decade while they were in government. Our roads are the workplaces of so many Australians. In my electorate of Hawke we know what it means to work in the transport industry. More than 2,300 are people employed in road freight and transport in Hawke alone. This industry has the second-highest employment rate out of any industry in our community. It's second only to health care and community services. We're surrounded by freight and logistics businesses. We're not far from the port of Melbourne and are bounded by the Western Highway, Australia's second-biggest freight corridor. This matters to my community. My community gets it.

Road transport is a major contributor to Australia's economy, delivering around $31.1 billion in the 12 months to June 2022, and it will keep growing. Our road transport workers are the backbone of our nation's supply chains. We found that during COVID. Supporting our transport industry by paying our truck drivers fairly means safer and more secure work conditions for those workers and safer roads for our community. Pressure on our nation's truck drivers has real-life consequences, and those consequences, as we know, can be disastrous. There are always improvements to be made in this sector, and I'll be on the side of the transport workers every step of the way.

The industry comes with its own set of challenges, particularly when it comes to safety. Sadly, road transport remains Australia's deadliest industry. Truck crashes are leaving families devastated and wreaking havoc across our communities. Incidents of injury, death and chronic health impacts are all too common, and, when coupled with perilous working conditions and wage theft, it's clear that this is an industry that sorely needs reform. This is all part of the push for a fairer system—one that recognises the pressures faced by transport workers and operators, and rebalances the system. The top end of the supply chain shouldn't be the only ones that reap the dividends of the hard work put in every step of the way by transport workers. Better conditions and safer rates are the basic premise of improvements that need to be made to this system, and we have a Labor government that's on your side when it comes to this, so that mums and dads come home to their kids and can provide for their families, put food on the table and keep the lights on.

The Liberals have form when it comes to undermining transport workers and our transport industry. In 2008, the National Transport Commission found that low rates of pay for truck drivers were linked to dangerous outcomes for transport workers and for the community. Following this, the Labor government established the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which secured minimum pay rates and lifted standards across the industry. But, as they always do, in 2016, the previous Liberal government got rid of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, Australia's road safety watchdog, and turned their backs on transport workers across our country. As usual, we're moving to clean up standards in the industry, with the key outcome from our recent Jobs and Skills Summit being to consider allowing the Fair Work Commission to set fair minimum standards to ensure that road transport industry is safe, sustainable and viable. So, while those opposite push for out-there changes that make things abjectly worse for transport workers that and disregard the industry when they say that they need certainty and responsible oversight, it's Labor that time and time again has to clean up their mess. Rather than throwing stones from the sidelines, we're getting on with the job of governing for all Australians. That's what responsible governments do. That's what this government must do to clean up the mess left by the previous government and back in transport workers across our country. We'll keep working collaboratively to make sure we get this right because every worker in Australia deserves a safe work place, especially our transport workers who keep our country moving.

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