Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, but they've got depots all around the country with their refrigerated warehousing. When we get to what the member for Barker is fighting against, it's a 10 per cent annual increase. This increase just doesn't happen organically. Normally, we hold it at CPI. It's a decision that's made by each of the state transport ministers and the federal transport and infrastructure minister. During COVID we froze those numbers because the industry was on its knees. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the transport industry during COVID for getting everything that's in this place. Everything that's on our shelves, everything we wear, all our clothing and all our food arrives through the transport sector. The transport industry clip the ticket.

At the moment, the transport industry has been absorbing a CPI cost of around 2.4. I think the last time I met with the ministers was when we applied a CPI cost. This calculation that's been put forward by the department for a 10 or 11 per cent increase was done on a sliding scale, and they're applying a depreciation model of the assets of our roadways. That's fine if you're having to borrow money and you're applying that depreciation schedule across the board. But the bulk of the funding from the states is done on a fifty-fifty ratio, so my argument is that the depreciation schedule shouldn't be applied at the 11 per cent—that's the accounting side of it—because the industry cannot substantiate or handle a 10 per cent increase. Making arguments around safe rates couldn't be any further from the motion that the member for Barker has put forward. This is not about the safe rates of truck drivers who, as a nation and a parliament, we owe a great debt of gratitude to for what they do. Without them, as the slogan goes, our country would stop, and there are no truer words.

I'm sharing with the parliament that, as a former transport operator, an increase like that is not something that can be simply passed on to the sector. There is a thing called an annualised fuel levy that you can pass on. But if you're contracted—and I know, from the contracts that I had with major companies—there's no provision to actually pass that on. When you think about transport companies, please, as an Australian public, do not think that the biggest transport operators are the norm. The average transport operator in Australia has got five trucks, and they're not those big companies with the flash logos that automatically come to your mind. They're mums and dads. They're family businesses. Most of the dads are in the truck driving, and there are two or three other drivers. Mum is at home doing the bookkeeping, and, on the weekends—I tell you what—they're doing oil and grease changes. They cannot handle a 10 per cent increase.

For those on the other side, when you want to speak against this, get up close and leave your name on the microphone. If you're going to own a 10 per cent increase to the transport sector— (Time expired)

Honourable members interjecting—

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