Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to discuss the Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill 2010. The bill was introduced into the House on 12 May and is designed to ensure that owners of heavy vehicles registered under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme, FIRS, will not pay a higher registration charge next financial year than owners of trucks registered under state or territory registration schemes.

There are about 20,500 heavy vehicles registered under FIRS, a scheme designed for operators running heavy vehicles engaged in interstate operations. The scheme was established as an alternative to state based registration for heavy vehicles weighing more than 4.5 tonnes. It is designed to provide uniform charges and operating conditions for heavy vehicles engaged in interstate operations. Registration charges for such vehicles are imposed by the provisions of the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985 and are contained in the Interstate Road Transport Charge Regulations 2009. These regulations apply a formula based on a calculation developed by the National Transport Commission, the NTC. These calculations are endorsed by Australia’s transport ministers via the Australian Transport Council.

The National Transport Commission is responsible for reviewing national heavy vehicle charges and calculating an annual adjustment. These calculations, designed to capture the cost of heavy vehicles on Australian roads, were last prepared by the NTC in its 2007 Heavy Vehicle Charges Determination. These charges are applied to heavy vehicle registration charges and the road user charge, or the amount taken from the rebate that heavy vehicle operators may claim from the fuel excise. The new adjustment figure was established by the NTC in its 2010 Heavy Vehicle Road User Charge Annual Adjustment, which was agreed to by the Australian Transport Council on 30 April 2010.

The opposition accepts that it is appropriate that the NTC regularly review the means by which it calculates the cost of trucks on our roads, particularly given that the mix of heavy vehicles using the road system has changed. The new adjustment rate is 4.2 per cent. Unfortunately, it seems that there are administrative complexities that mean this new rate cannot be applied without this legislation. The Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985 stipulates that regulations made under this act take effect not from when they are tabled but 15 parliamentary sitting days from when the new regulations are made. This means that a new regulation made under the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985, applying the lower rate, would not take effect until late September 2010—and even that assumes that there will be no election called by that time. As a consequence, at least 1,000 FIRS owners will be charged, under the old formula, a 9.7 per cent increase. By repealing subsection 5(6) of the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985, this legislation permits a subsequent regulation made under this act to apply immediately. The new regulation, stipulating a 4.5 per cent annual increase, could apply from 1 July 2010. It will still be a disallowable instrument and consistent with the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.

If this amendment is not passed, owners of FIRS registered heavy vehicles will receive a renewal registration notice which will charge the rate as stipulated by the regulation in force—the regulation applying the old formula. This old formula would impose a charge increase of 9.7 per cent—clearly, unacceptably high. Under a 9.7 per cent increase, the owner of a typical B-double would pay an additional $808 in registration—and that is too much. Of course, it needs to be remembered that, because of changes and a phase-in of new registration arrangements for various sizes of vehicles, the 4.2 per cent will not be the figure that will apply automatically to all registration increases. Some will pay more as a result of the phasing-in of newer charges.

The coalition understands that state governments are now applying the 4.2 per cent increase to over 400,000 heavy vehicles registered in their jurisdiction. Obviously, if FIRS heavy vehicles remain under the old charging formula, the scheme would simply collapse. People would migrate to the place where the registration charges are the lowest. The coalition has been assured that there is no non-legislative option for remedying this problem. The Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985 does not have refund provisions, so it is not possible for the government to collect the higher registration charges calculated on the basis of the existing formula and then refund the money in excess of 4.2 per cent to the affected operators. Therefore, the coalition does not oppose the legislation.

I take the opportunity that this legislation provides to raise a number of other issues which I have been bringing to the attention of this committee and also to the House on occasions when legislation altering road transport charges has been before the parliament. The Rudd government raises a considerable amount of money from the heavy vehicle sector. The main source of this revenue is the road user charge or the amount taken from the rebate heavy vehicle operators may claim from the fuel excise. Currently the road user charge is levied at 21.7c per litre. This charge raises for the federal government approximately $1.4 billion every year from the heavy vehicle sector to cover the costs to our road system inflicted by trucks.

There are some around who do not appreciate just what a significant contribution the road transport industry is making towards the cost of our road network and, indeed, the impact of its operations on road. Too often people in the rail transport sector, for instance, like to suggest that road transport is undercharged and that is therefore an excuse as to why rail performs poorly in competition. However, the people who make those claims do not acknowledge, it seems, that just the road user charge alone collects $1.4 billion every year from the road transport sector. That is a significant contribution, indeed, towards maintaining and upgrading roads.

I think that it is time that the government committed more of the tax revenue that it receives to deal with one of the key issues our truckies on Australia’s road system face, and that is the problem of the lack of adequate roadside stops. This is a long-running issue that has been made more urgent as a result of the introduction by the Queensland, New South Wales, Victorian and South Australian governments of the fatigue management laws on 29 September 2008. These laws reduce the number of hours that truck drivers can work before they must take a break. The problem is that there are not enough rest areas where truck drivers can stop. This problem will only get worse as the number of trucks on our highways continues to increase.

The problem is becoming so urgent that we are now seeing the absurd situation where drivers are unable to comply with the mandatory breaks stipulated by the fatigue management laws because there is nowhere for them to stop. It is really almost dishonest of a legislature to pass laws which require vehicles to stop but then not provide places where that can happen. In some states, it is not even a defence against fatigue management laws that there was simply no place available to stop. So I think there needs to be greater sensitivity to the impracticality of actually abiding by some of these laws when there are inadequate places provided for roadside rest facilities.

After undertaking a study of the state of Australia’s roadside rest stops, the National Transport Commission in November 2005 issued its National Guidelines for the Provision of Rest Area Facilities. This report sets out where rest areas should be built in order to comply with various road agency guidelines and cater for the needs of heavy vehicle drivers. An independent government research agency, Austroads, then audited Australia’s major highways against those guidelines. Their report showed that none of the audited routes met the national guidelines—none of them. There were particular problems in Queensland and the Northern Territory and in New South Wales. Only about half of the major rest areas on the Hume and Pacific Highways in New South Wales meet the spacing requirements of the guidelines. In fact, according to the industry, there needs to be another 900 rest areas on the 22,500 kilometres of the national highway network to bring it into compliance with the national rest area guidelines.

The guidelines also apply to state roads. With many of the state roads, the situation is even worse than it is on the national highways. That is why, during a parliamentary debate earlier in the government’s term, the opposition moved a series of legislative amendments to require the government to commit to the construction of 500 rest areas over the next 10 years. We are satisfied that this number of rest stops would at least bring Australia’s road network into broad compliance with the rest area guidelines. Unfortunately, the government rejected this sensible compromise that would have done much to make our roads safer. Instead, the government is pressing ahead with its so called Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program. This program will provide $70 million out to 2011-12 to fund a number of rest stops. I understand that the first round of projects, with funding worth $30 million, is now fully allocated and that the second round, worth $40 million, will be allocated fairly soon.

Looking through the first round of projects, I am amazed to find how few of these projects actually involve the construction of new rest areas. In fact, for New South Wales, only six new rest areas are being constructed. In the Northern Territory, three new rest areas are being built; in Queensland, seven; in South Australia, 13; and in Victoria, just one—a trailer exchange on the Western Highway in Nhill. While I commend many of the other projects, such as bridge strengthening for higher productivity vehicles, it is obvious that the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program is woefully inadequate.

I want to emphasise that when the opposition raised these issues with the government we said that our future support for increases in the road user charge would be conditional on fair and reasonable progress being made on achieving the objective of providing rest stops broadly in accordance with the Australian standards. With only 30 having been constructed so far, the government is clearly falling behind its obligations in this regard. I repeat the statement that I made at that time: the government cannot count on the opposition continuing to support increases in road user charges if in fact fair and reasonable progress is not made on delivering roadside rest stops for the trucking industry, which is obliged to stop under the new fatigue regulations. Frankly, 30 or perhaps 40 or 50 over the period between now and 2011-12 is not good enough.

So I serve notice on the government once more that they will need to do very much better in that regard. I call on the government to use some of the road user charge revenue to fix this problem, and I also call on the government to stop its wasteful and reckless spending in so many other areas, which would enable resources to be allocated to an infrastructure project of economic significance such as this one. How much better would Australia have been if the government had not thrown away so much money on cash handouts worth $23 billion that disappeared without trace? What could have been done with the over $2 billion that was squandered on the Home Insulation Program? What about the $1.7 billion of taxpayers’ money that has been wasted in funding overpriced school halls?

And now we have an interest bill rising to $8 billion per year. That would be enough to complete the duplication of the Pacific Highway and have some change left over. Had so much money not been wasted we could have done so much more to upgrade the national road system and to ensure that these rest areas are built.

These are important issues, also, for the trucking industry. Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the federal electorate of Dawson with the new LNP candidate for Dawson, Councillor George Christensen, whom the government was kind enough to mention in dispatches this afternoon. He is an excellent young candidate who will make an outstanding representative in this parliament. We travelled around a number of the areas of major road concern in the Mackay area and we also met with the Mackay Road Accident Action Group, which has done a fantastic job to heighten awareness in the road transport industry of the importance of safety, and developing a culture of safety within the industry. They have also identified a number of significant areas where the road conditions are contributing to safety concerns. We visited the Nebo Range, for instance. It is sometimes impossible for heavy trucks to climb up the range because the surface is so slippery. Those sorts of things are dangerous, and it is no fault of the truck driver if the truck starts to roll backwards when it should be going up, because there is not an adequate grip on the road surface.

Also in those meetings, concerns about the quality, quantity and adequacy of the various truck roadside stops was raised with us very strongly indeed. The roadside stops there are often dirty and not properly maintained. Some of them do not have adequate facilities. There are women truck drivers; they are making up an increasing proportion of the drivers around the country, even in the heaviest rigs. In fact, they are prized because of their carefulness as drivers. But I was informed that at one roadside rest area the women truck drivers who pull up have to walk two kilometres to get to the ladies toilet and then walk back. That is hardly satisfactory.

I notice that the member for Capricornia wandered briefly through the room a moment or so ago. This particular rest area is in her electorate. I am disappointed that she allows this sort of circumstance to continue to fester. That is only one example. There is also an issue where tourists and others choose to camp in the roadside truck stops. The tourist industry is very important, and there are lots of grey nomads who move up and down the coast, particularly at this time of year. We need to provide adequate places for them to park rather than to have them using the truck roadside stops, which are specifically designed and essentially funded by road transport operators to meet their obligations under the new fatigue management laws.

So we need to have many more of these roadside stops. They need to be properly maintained. There needs to be a system of maintenance. The quality of the facilities that are provided needs to be suitable for people who are going to spend quite a number of hours there. Drivers are not stopping for five minutes under the fatigue management laws; they might be spending the whole night there, so the facilities that are provided need to be adequate for that purpose.

I think it is important that the government devote sufficient funding to upgrade our national road system so that the road transport sector is able to operate efficiently. The truckers certainly contribute significantly to government revenue. They provide a vital service to our nation to move freight and goods to market and to stock the stores right around the country. Things have changed dramatically. With central warehouses and with just-in-time manufacturing techniques, the road transport sector is being required to play an increasingly important role in moving goods around the nation. So there are wider economic benefits to be gained from providing the facilities that are so important to make that sector work well.

It is regrettable that the government has not spent more of the stimulus money on key, productive infrastructure such as roadside stops. Far less money would have been required and it would have resulted in safer and more productive roads if the government had in fact invested in these stops much earlier. The coalition will support this legislation, but as it does so it calls upon the government to stop wasteful spending and focus instead on dealing with the sorts of infrastructure issues that I have just raised.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have always taken the opportunity to speak out in support of bills that affect the transport industry, and today’s debate on the Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill 2010 affords me another such opportunity. The trucking industry is the most deadly industry in this country, with five times more fatalities than its closest rival. What a dreadful statistic that is.

Australia is facing a massive growth in the demand for freight transport services, with the total freight estimated to almost double by the year 2020. Currently, heavy vehicles operate across our country from state to state, transporting almost two million tonnes of freight. In fact, 75 per cent of that freight is carried by road. In urban areas, with their shops, warehouses and distribution centres, 90 per cent of all freight is moved by heavy vehicles.

As many as 370,000 heavy vehicles operate in Australia, and in my electorate, which has the Hume Highway running through it, we see a significant portion of the heavy transport that operates between Sydney and Melbourne. The Hume Highway is the main road corridor, and a significant proportion of freight is moved between Sydney and Melbourne via the Hume Highway. It is certainly one of our busiest interstate corridors. It is estimated that 20 million tonnes of freight are moved via the Hume Highway each year.

On the corridor of the Hume Highway that lies within the bounds of my electorate of Werriwa there are 6,000 heavy transport movements per day—I happen to know the statistics because we had some discussions with the previous, coalition government about getting funding approved to widen the Hume Highway in my electorate—and it is for this reason that it is so critical that the Hume Highway be widened, particularly with the bottlenecks that occur between Ingleburn and Campbelltown.

I have urged this House to widen the Hume Highway on many occasions and took every opportunity when in opposition to raise the matter with the then Minister for Transport and Regional Affairs. I tried to get undertakings not for political reasons but because of the need; however, the undertakings were not forthcoming. So I was very happy when I was able to make the case to and persuade those holding the purse strings of the Labor Party as we entered the 2007 election. They saw merit in this $140 million project. They committed to the undertaking of that project and that is precisely what has occurred.

The federal government has committed $112 million, I think it is, to the widening of the Hume Highway in the very sensitive section of the highway in and about my electorate. It is fascinating that, every time I drive down it, work is proceeding. It is about six months ahead of schedule. It is one of those things that I think is very much a success story both for the trucking and heavy transport industry and for the other road users. This is a commitment that has been delivered upon. It was not matched by the other side of politics, but it will leave a long-term, positive legacy for our transport routes.

I would like to pay credit to George Kypreos, Managing Director of NACE Civil Engineering, which is a local company based at Prestons—again, in my electorate. His company won the contract for widening the road. His workers are out there working on that. They are working for a local company, doing the engineering, construction and asphalting of that road. The company is also employing many local people in a range of trades. Whilst that was not provided to us as part of the stimulus package, I know what the work that is being undertaken there is injecting into my local economy. I am confident that once this project is completed it will bring considerable benefits to our community and very significant benefits to all road users.

Sadly, the latest road fatality statistics are in. As I said, the trucking industry is the most dangerous industry. Twenty per cent of workplace deaths occur in the trucking industry. Horrifically, four to six people on average lose their lives in trucking related incidents each week in this country. That is in the vicinity of 280 to 300 people each year. That is someone’s son, daughter, brother, sister, mother or father ripped away in sudden, dramatic and tragic circumstances. It is not just the workers driving the trucks; it is the carnage that occurs as a consequence of those accidents. Those figures are extraordinary. Apart from the pain, suffering, loss and grief burdened by the family members concerned, I also have feelings for members of the emergency services—the ambos and the police—who have to attend those horrific accidents. Bear in mind, there is also a very real and significant economic cost as a consequence.

I know that truck driving is pretty punishing work. As the member for Werriwa, I am aware of a large southern-bound truck stop on the Hume Highway—oddly enough, called Uncle Leo’s. I have been encouraged to drop in there, which I do, and talk to the drivers between 5.30 in the morning until eight o’clock at night. I know how punishing the work is, because they take the time to talk to me about it. For the ones who do not, you can still see the apprehension and the anxiety in their body language. Fatigue in that instance really does its own talking.

The shadow transport minister talked about developments in trucking. To that extent he was right, and there will be a lot more. He mentioned logistics and on-time delivery. That is something that has occurred and it has changed the face of trucking in this country. When I talk to the fellows at Uncle Leo’s in the mornings, they talk to me about the ‘just on-time delivery’. They are parked there not because they are resting but because they have been given slot times, like at an airport. They have been given slot times as to when they can arrive at their destination and offload. They are, on an unpaid basis, manning these mobile storage facilities. There is a lot of frustration for those people. Particularly the owner-drivers do not like the system where they and their vehicles are being used in such a way. They are not just complying with the regulatory requirements in terms of rest breaks; this is added on top of that—when they can go, stop et cetera. That is one of the frustrations that these people have. It is no wonder that some of that plays out on their physical and mental condition when they are driving these heavy vehicles on our roads.

When I go out there, I am normally in the company of people from the Transport Workers Union. I have to say—and this is probably not the right place for it because this is not a debate on workplace relations—that as an organisation they have been tireless in making a positive contribution to the development of health and safety in their industry, and that should not go unrecognised. In particular I would like to acknowledge Tony Sheldon, the national secretary of the union, who on many of those occasions, because he actually lives not far from me, has turned up at those meetings at that truck stop. I see what they do and I see the efforts they put in to ensure that drivers see their work as professional, do not take shortcuts, and put health and safety first and foremost when they go about their business. I commend the efforts of Tony and the Transport Workers Union in leading the way in that respect in their industry.

This commitment to prevent road fatalities and serious injury is obviously shared by everybody. By way of background, the Council of Australian Governments agreed in February 2008 that heavy vehicle charges should be adjusted to maintain cost recovery. This links in to the standard of our roads, which has a direct correlation to the accidents involving heavy vehicles, and the resulting fatalities that occur. In raw terms, it is about ensuring that there is an appropriate charge applied against every heavy vehicle movement and is aimed at recovery against infrastructure with respect to our roads. Essentially, it is about ensuring that heavy vehicles pay their fair share for the impact they have on our roads.

This agreement that was struck with COAG was given effect through an automatic adjustment formula in the Interstate Road Transport Charge Regulations 2009 and adjustments in the heavy vehicle registration charge. They are highly dependent on the changes in the levels of spending on roads, bridges and the entire infrastructure associated with our main transport corridors. The previous speaker, Warren Truss, expressed a view that the government should spend more, but I get really irked when I hear that coming from people who were in government for 12 long years and failed to spend the money and give the matter the necessary priority when they had the opportunity. You cannot keep putting this down to the 13th year. They stand up and lecture us—‘You should do more’—but the truth of the matter is that we have done a lot. I have seen what has been done in my own electorate and the spending that is going into roads. On a broader scale, the spending that is taking place on the upgrading of our roads, bridgework and transport infrastructure is making our roads safer and, as a consequence, having an effect on the charges occurring in the heavy transport industry.

The purpose of the bill before us today is to amend the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985, which imposes registration charges on 20,500 vehicles registered under the Australian government’s Federal Interstate Registration Scheme. The passage of this bill will ensure that from 1 July 2010 owners of trucks and trailers registered under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme will pay a registration increase of only 4.2 per cent as opposed to the pre-adjusted figure, which was 9.7 per cent. As I stated, the adjustments to the heavy vehicle registration charge are highly dependent on changes in the levels of spending on and usage of the roads, bridgework and transport based infrastructure which heavy vehicles traverse. It is only fair to make this adjustment, given that spending across all levels of government has increased significantly in recent years and that an unexpected and substantial growth in the number of large vehicles would result in a potential over-recovery of $116 million in the 2010-11 period if this adjustment was not made.

It should be known that all governments have agreed through their transport ministers to amend their respective charges and regulations to modify the annual adjustment formula to maintain cost recovery and therefore enable the 4.2 per cent adjustment to be made for 2010-11. It is only fair that the charges reflect these changes. It is a sound decision and, whilst I know the industry acknowledge the need to pay their fair share for road usage, this adjustment is a preferable outcome. What we want to see, with our roads being further improved, is a consequent adjustment in the safety of heavy transport fleets as they operate across this country. I commend the bill to the House.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill 2010 amends the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985 and in doing so ensures that heavy vehicle owners who operate under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme are charged with a lower registration fee from 1 July 2010 than would otherwise be the case. Those owners will not be unfairly levied in comparison with vehicle owners who are registered in the state and territory systems. The bill does this by deleting subsection 5(6) of the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985.

The Federal Interstate Registration Scheme applies to those heavy vehicles engaged solely in interstate operations. FIRS provides for uniform charges and operating conditions for those vehicles rather than requiring owners to comply with a number of different state regimes relevant to the states they travel through. Those vehicles registered under FIRS are subject to registration charges set out in the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985. Those registration fees are intended to cover the fair costs arising from road usage by these heavy vehicles.

COAG has previously agreed that heavy vehicle charges should be adjusted annually to maintain cost recovery. In February 2008 the Australian Transport Council, made up of all the transport ministers, adopted the 2007 Heavy Vehicle Charges Determination. This ensures that the road user charges and heavy vehicle registration charges achieve cost recovery from the heavy vehicle industry for its fair share of road infrastructure and maintenance costs incurred by governments in Australia. In 2009 an agreed automatic adjustment formula was included in the Commonwealth Interstate Road Transport Charge Regulations for that year for application to the 20,500 heavy vehicles registered under the FIRS. That automatic annual adjustment to heavy vehicle registration charges applies from July of every year.

Adjustment to the heavy vehicle registration charges depend heavily on changes to the level of spending on roads and bridges and on changes in road usage by heavy vehicles. When factors such as the increased expenditure on roads and growth in the number of higher productivity heavy vehicles on those roads were fed into that automatic adjustment formula, the result showed a higher than necessary increase to the registration charge to apply from 1 July 2010.

If no adjustment was made the automatic annual adjustment formula would result in a registration charge increase of 9.7 per cent for the coming financial year. The federal government would be therefore recovering more money than was necessary in the current conditions from heavy vehicle owners registered under the FIRS. It was estimated that the potential national over-recovery through the registration increase would amount to $116 million in 2010-11. When this became apparent all transport ministers agreed to amend their respective charges legislation to ensure fair treatment for the trucking industry and to avoid a situation where the industry was being effectively overcharged in a way that was contrary to the original intent of the Heavy Vehicle Charges Determination.

Amendments have been made to relevant legislation to ensure that the formula neither under- nor overcharges the trucking industry and that this should be put into effect from July 2010. This of course is something that will be welcomed by the trucking industry as it is those owners and operators who will benefit from the reduced registration increase now calculated under the adjustment formula.The adjusted figure has been calculated by the National Transport Commission and reflects the changes in the heavy vehicle mix on our roads that in turn changes the demands on our road network and the cost recovery equation. As it turns out, the adjusted registration increase is only 4.2 per cent for the next financial year as opposed to the original 9.7 per cent increase. This is good news for the trucking industry.

All governments have agreed to an amended calculation of a 4.2 per cent annual adjustment to take effect from 1 July this year. The states and territories are set to implement that change for the vehicle owners registered under their respective systems. The problem for the federal government and those owners with vehicles registered under the FIRS is section 5(6) of the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act. That subsection specifies that any regulation made for the purpose of section 5—and section 5 deals with the amount of charge—must not take effect earlier than the first day after the end of the disallowance period. The operation of section 5(6) means that it prevents amended regulations that would lower the annual registration charges adjustment, from a 9.7 per cent increase to a 4.2 per cent increase, from coming into effect from 1 July 2010. The reference in the subsection to the first day after the end of the disallowance period means that it would be late September before regulations putting in place the lower registration amount could come into effect for the benefit of FIRS registered owners.

Clearly, that section seeks to give protection to vehicle owners by providing that changes to the relevant registration charge must not happen without due parliamentary scrutiny. In this instance, however, the change will have the effect of reducing the registration fee, and the operation of section 5(6) will have the perverse outcome of leaving those registered under FIRS paying a 9.7 per cent increase in their registration while owners of vehicles registered under state systems can pay the lesser adjustment of 4.2 per cent immediately from 1 July. If left unchanged this would affect over 1,000 FIRS vehicle owners who would be charged the higher 9.7 per cent registration increase, rather than the proposed 4.2 per cent increase, because the adjusted charge would not come into effect until late September.

It is very important to note that the current act has no refund authority. There is no mechanism by which the government could return to the vehicle owners the overpayment of registration they would effectively be making for the period from 1 July 2010 till late September 2010. That is why the government has proposed this bill, to deal with the situation and ensure that heavy vehicle road users pay their fair share towards the cost of maintaining and improving our roads and that they are not hit unfairly by an over-recovery. The bill will allow the new regulation to take effect from 1 July 2010 and will see FIRS owners paying the lower 4.2 per cent annual adjustment from that time. I am sure we have the support of the opposition for this fair and sensible amendment.

This area of heavy vehicle registration charges illustrates the level of agreement and cooperation between the different levels of government as we try to streamline the regulation and administration of our road transport sector. Governments recognise the importance to industry of uniform standards and legislation to make life easier and more productive for heavy vehicle drivers and owners who currently have to understand and comply with multiple sets of rules and regulations at various levels of government. Under the Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Road, Rail and Intermodal Transport, the National Transport Commission has been given the job of producing model legislation for state and federal governments and for overseeing the implementation of agreed reforms. The owners and drivers of Australia desperately need greater national consistency in road transport laws in areas such as heavy vehicle registration charges, carriage of dangerous goods and road rules more generally. I am pleased to see that COAG has agreed that by the end of 2012 Australia will have a single national heavy vehicle regulator with responsibility for regulating all vehicles over the weight of 4.5 tonnes. That regulator will administer national heavy vehicle laws and the registration scheme.

One area that we absolutely must get right in both the content of regulation and its enforcement is fatigue management. This was brought to my attention just last week in a meeting with representatives from Kalari, Peter Renton and Margi Keyworth. Kalari is a major operator in the transport business and their trucks are a familiar sight on Central Queensland roads as they provide a vital service to the mining operations in our region, especially when it comes to transporting explosives. Peter and Margi came to see me last week to make me aware of some trouble that they have had with the operation of the Transport Operations (Road Use Management—Fatigue Management) Regulation 2008. This is of course a Queensland government regulation but it is based on the model regulations produced by the National Transport Commission.

One of the key requirements of the regulation is for drivers to maintain and have in their possession when they are driving a work diary that records relevant work activities that contribute to fatigue. Those work activities include things like driving a fatigue regulated heavy vehicle; instructing or supervising another person to drive a fatigue regulated heavy vehicle; perform another task, such as loading things onto or unloading from the vehicle; inspect, service or repair the heavy vehicle; clean or refuel the heavy vehicle. The list in the regulations of what amounts to work for the purposes of the law is pretty broad and comprehensive.

Peter and Margi are very supportive of this kind of regulation and see fatigue management and proper supervision and care for their drivers’ safety as an important part of their role within Kalari. The problem for them has been in the interpretation and enforcement of the regulations. At the end of last year one of their drivers was pulled up by an officer from Queensland Transport and he was asked to present his work diary. It is part of the management policy of Kalari that drivers record work activities beyond those listed specifically in the regulation, because those managers are of the belief that managing their drivers means being aware of all the things in their day that might cause them to be fatigued when they get behind the wheel of their truck.

When their drivers are hauling loads of explosives, who could blame them for being super cautious and going beyond the minimum required when it comes to recording activities in the work diary? One section of the regulations talk about work, including performing another task relating to the operation of a fatigue regulated heavy vehicle. It goes on to list some examples. Kalari chooses to interpret that section very broadly as part of fully managing fatigue in their drivers. It means that their drivers record things like—and I will paraphrase from an email I got from Margi—travel in a company vehicle for about 30 minutes from where they are staying out to a mine site before they start their shift, arrival at the mine site, before they get into a heavy vehicle, and attendance at a start-up meeting, which can be up to one hour long. Kalari has taken the view that those sorts of things should be recorded in the work diary.

The problem is that the Kalari driver who was pulled over last year was warned that he was in breach of the regulations for having those sorts of things in his work diary and that the entry in his work diary actually amounted to an infringement of the regulations. Queensland Transport informed Kalari it was an offence under section 105. This was understandably very distressing to the driver, who after all needs to stay on the road to earn his living, and Kalari want to know why he and they should be under threat of penalties for going beyond the minimum requirements of the regulations when they judge that to be part of fulfilling their duty of care to their drivers and other motorists.

The message from Peter and Margi was that, as we move towards uniform national regulation of things like fatigue management, those regulations should be seen as minimum standards, and transport operators should be encouraged to go beyond those minimum standards when it comes to managing their drivers. It is also important that the eventual national laws are interpreted consistently and enforced consistently from state to state or place to place around Australia.

I hope that this point of difference between Kalari and Queensland Transport can be worked out quite easily, and I will certainly be helping Kalari to have those discussions with Queensland Transport, but I guess it is a message to us that governments need to do everything we can to remove the complexity that is currently in the regulation of this important industry. That is what this bill does in its small way, and I commend it to the House.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to follow the member for Capricornia in relation to what she was talking about in her contribution about the safety of drivers, particularly interstate owner-drivers. It is something I know the Transport Workers Union and Tony Sheldon have been campaigning on for a long, long time. They have been particularly concerned about the pressure, from not so much the owners of the trucking companies but the suppliers, on owner-drivers in particular to meet the sorts of time lines that they are often expected to meet.

Sometimes, looking at the sorts of trips they take and the times that are set out there, it is simply impossible for a driver to get adequate rest. The member for Capricornia also raised these issues in an example from her electorate. These are important issues that we need to make sure we address. Two weeks ago I was at a ceremony at Ourimbah, commemorating workers who had passed away in the past year. Unfortunately, the largest group was truck drivers. It is an occupational hazard and one that we need to be working on. People should be able to go to work in safety. We need to always be mindful of what we expect truck drivers to do. I commend the Transport Workers Union, who for many years have put a lot of pressure on in relation to these issues and they are slowly making some progress. Tony Sheldon should be commended for that campaign.

The Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill 2010, which I rise to support today, will ensure that heavy vehicle owners who operate under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme are not unfairly levied with higher registration charge increases next financial year compared with vehicle owners who are registered in state or territory systems. The bill will ensure that from 1 July 2010 heavy vehicle owners of trucks and trailers registered under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme will pay a registration increase of only 4.2 per cent instead of the 9.7 per cent that was planned.

The bill proposes a minor technical amendment to delete subsection 5(6) of the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985. The Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985 imposes registration charges for heavy vehicles registered under the Australian government’s Federal Interstate Registration Scheme to recover the cost of road usage by heavy vehicles. Subsection 5(6) of the act specifies that any regulation made for the purpose of section 5—amount of charge—must not take effect earlier than the first day after the end of the disallowance period.

The effect of subsection 5(6) is that it prevents amended regulations that would lower the annual registration charges adjustment from a 9.7 per cent increase in registration charges to a 4.2 per cent increase from coming into effect on 1 July 2010. Instead, the adjusted lower charge would come into effect after 15 parliamentary sitting days from when the new regulations are made, which would not be until late September 2010. This would affect over 1,000 vehicle owners who would be charged the higher 9.7 per cent registration increase determined automatically under the current regulations rather than the proposed 4.2 per cent increase, because the adjusted charge would not come into effect until late September. There is no administrative option available to deal with this issue. The act does not provide a refund power that would enable vehicle owners charged the 9.7 per cent increase to have the difference returned to them.

Deleting subsection 5(6) will not in any way remove parliamentary scrutiny. The provisions of part 5 of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 that facilitate scrutiny by parliament will still apply to amendments to the regulations. Those provisions would still operate to disallow an amendment to the regulations that came into effect on 1 July 2010.

The bill will help implement the agreements by COAG that heavy vehicle charges should be adjusted annually to maintain cost recovery. In February 2008 the Australian Transport Council adopted the 2007 Heavy Vehicle Charge Determination, which ensures that the road user charge and the heavy vehicle registration charge achieve cost recovery from heavy vehicle industries for their fair share of the infrastructure and maintenance costs incurred by governments in Australia.

In 2009, an agreed automatic adjustment formula was included in the Commonwealth Interstate Road Transport Charge Regulation 2009 for application to the 20,500 heavy vehicles registered under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme. The automatic annual adjustment to heavy vehicle registration charges applies from 1 July each year. Adjustments to the heavy vehicle registration charge depends heavily on changes in the level of spending on roads and bridges and on changes in road usage by heavy vehicles.

Road expenditure across all levels of government has increased significantly in recent years. At the same time there has been substantial growth in the number of higher productivity heavy vehicles using the road network. The effect of these factors in the current automatic annual adjustment formula results in a registration charge increase of 9.7 per cent and in a potential national over-recovery of $116 million from heavy vehicle owners and operators in 2010-11. All transport ministers agreed to address this over-recovery at their meeting of 30 April 2010 by amending their respective charges legislation to ensure that the formula neither under- nor overcharges the trucking industry.

They also agreed that the industry should benefit from this low adjustment from 1 July 2010. State and territory governments will implement the adjusted 4.2 per cent registration charge increase from 1 July 2010. The adjusted 4.2 per cent figure has been calculated by the National Transport Commission following appropriate adjustments to the current charges formula to address any over-recovery resulting from changes in the heavy vehicle fleet mix. The National Transport Commission undertook public consultation on the proposed charges adjustment, consistent with requirements under the relevant legislation. It would be fair to say that the industry acknowledges it needs to pay its fair share for road usage and that the 4.2 per cent adjustment is a preferable outcome for it rather than the adjustment of 9.7 per cent. The legislative action will leave up to $800 per vehicle in the pockets of operators at a time when our economy is recovering from the worst global recession in 75 years.

Heavy vehicle registration fees are adjusted annually in accordance with a formula contained in the regulation we are now seeking to replace. The new regulation, with an amended formula, will make sure the trucking industry continues to pay its fair share of the costs associated with maintaining and upgrading the nation’s road network, and not a cent more. The existing formula underestimated the growth in the number of B-doubles that has occurred since it was first developed.

As well as restoring the fair share principle, the reforms implemented by the Rudd government in 2008 slashed registration charges for the owners of smaller trucks, which constitute a fifth of the nation’s almost 375,000 heavy vehicles. It is worth noting that even after the subsequent annual increases the owners of these trucks are still paying less today than they were in 2007. In the years ahead, all operators in the trucking industry will benefit from our decision to more than double the federal road budget, an investment that will deliver safer, less congested highways and major arterial roads. The principle of cost recovery has been broadly agreed by all governments and industry, and the charges aim to recover, not over-recover or under-recover, the heavy vehicle industry’s share of aggregated government road expenditure.

I mentioned earlier that many thousands of heavy vehicles pass through my electorate on the New South Wales Central Coast, where we have a major highway—the F3. It is important that we keep these trucks moving as efficiently as possible. On many occasions I have been to the truck stop just off Sparks Road to talk to truck drivers about their experiences and how they are coping with the costs that they have in keeping their rigs on the road. This sort of legislation is important to make sure that they pay their fair share, but not more than that.

The government also recognises the need for balance between road and rail freight. Like so many of our other major highways and national roads, the F3 is shared by commuting motorists in their private or company vehicles and the large heavy vehicles that we are talking about today in this bill. There have been many incidents on our major road link, and most recently we again heard the collection of frustrating stories from motorists trying to get home to the Central Coast in peak hour but stuck on the freeway because of an accident involving a heavy vehicle. On the last occasion they were stuck for more than nine hours.

The government has committed funding to improve the Sydney to Brisbane rail link. Improving rail links on this major freight corridor will make rail more competitive for moving freight and it will take some of the pressure off our major roads. The government has already spent $15 million to accelerate planning and design work on its $840 million investment on a new dedicated freight line between North Strathfield and Gosford. A dedicated freight line will mean a number of things: more room for passenger trains on the existing line and more freight services on the dedicated line, bringing with it increased capacity and therefore more competition with road freight. Of course, if there is less road freight because there are more rail freight services it means there will be less heavy vehicle traffic on major links like the F3.

In the meantime, governments have been spending more on roads. More and heavier vehicles have been using roads. The charges need to reflect these factors. This government is working successfully through COAG with all states and territories to deliver national streamlined heavy vehicle regulation that will provide an even, certain and transparent playing field for the heavy vehicle industry. We need to be sure that this extends to all areas of industry operations, including registration charges. The passage of this bill is necessary to ensure that federally registered vehicles will not be differently and unfairly charged compared to vehicles registered under state or territory law.

The bill will ensure that heavy vehicle owners who operate under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme are charged with a lower registration charge—4.2 per cent—from 1 July 2010 and this has been made possible thanks to all of the transport ministers agreeing to address the potential over-recovery at their meeting of 30 April 2010. As mentioned, they have amended their respective charges legislation to ensure the formula neither undercharges nor overcharges the trucking industry. It is great to see that all states and territories working together with the federal authorities have been able to achieve this outcome. I commend the bill to the House.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill 2010. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985, which imposes registration charges for heavy vehicles registered under the Australian government’s Federal Interstate Registration Scheme, by deleting subsection 5(6). Subsection 5(6) prevents regulations from coming into effect earlier than the first day after the end of the disallowance period. Deleting this provision will enable subsequent regulation amendments that reduce the 2010-11 annual automatic charge adjustment from 9.7 per cent to 4.2 per cent to take effect from 1 July 2010.

I thank members for participating in this debate. In particular I thank the Leader of the Nationals for his observations. Unfortunately, in the process of his observations he left it necessary for me to make some substantial corrections. He claimed that the New South Wales and Queensland state governments have let truckies down by mishandling fatigue laws and have not provided enough rest stops. That is true. The model fatigue legislation was agreed to by transport ministers at a meeting in February 2007, which was chaired by the then minister for transport, Mark Vaile. However, the Howard government, which sponsored those laws, put no money into rest stops. Once again the Leader of the Nationals has tried to rewrite history and airbrush the neglect and failings of the Howard government from our memory.

The Leader of the National Party’s empty rhetoric is again exposed when it comes to road safety. The coalition opposed our $70 million heavy vehicle safety and productivity package—$70 million more than was spent by the Howard government over 12 years. They opposed our additional $150 million to improve safety at rail level crossings as part of the economic stimulus package. They opposed our additional $150 million to the black spots program to fix dangerous sections of the road network. The Rudd government has doubled road funding under the Nation Building Program to improve the road network and make up for 12 years of underinvestment by the former government. The story continues. The opposition had promised 500 rest stops over a 10-year period. Those 500 rest stops, we are now told, have been discontinued as part of cost-saving measures announced last week.

So I thank members for participating in this debate. Heavy vehicles should pay their fair share of road infrastructure and maintenance costs incurred by governments. This is a principle that has widespread support including from industry and from unions, otherwise they get an unfair advantage over other transport businesses.

Transport ministers agreed in February 2008 that heavy vehicle charges should be adjusted annually to maintain cost recovery and to keep the size of adjustment adjustments manageable. Under the current charging formula contained in the regulations, increased road spending and substantial growth in the number of higher productivity vehicles would result in an annual adjustment to heavy vehicle charges of 9.7 per cent. However, this over-recovers by $116 million. Transport ministers agreed to address this by implementing an adjusted annual increase of 4.2 per cent from 1 July 2010. This adjusted increase will be contained in new regulations to be made shortly.

However, subsection 5(6) of the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act prevents this lower charge from coming into effect until the end of the parliamentary disallowance period, which is late September. This affects over a thousand heavy vehicle operators who would continue to be charged the higher rate. The bill will delete subsection 5(6). This will enable the regulation to lower the charges to take effect from 1 July 2010. The bill does not remove the scrutiny of parliament; an amended regulation that comes into effect on 1 July can still be disallowed. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.