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

As I came from the transport sector before coming to this place, no-one should be surprised that I am standing to defend the rights of our subcontractors when it comes to the road safety Remuneration Tribunal. This government are absolutely committed to road safety. We understand how vitally important it is. However, on 18 December 2015 the tribunal issued its first remuneration order, the contractor driver minimum payments road safety remuneration order of 2016. The order will commence on 4 April 2016 and will cover approximately 31 per cent of the nation's fleet, taking into consideration 62,000 Australian contractors of our 200,000-strong fleet.

It is an independent tribunal and the government has not been able to revoke or otherwise change the orders it has made. The order affects independent contractors working either in the supermarket or long distance road transport sectors. My concern is that the tribunal only made available its calculator to the hirers and drivers to calculate their new remuneration rates taking into account the specific variables that apply to their contracts on 3 March, one month prior to the order taking effect. The tribunal has had this information for three months. It is unreasonable for the tribunal to expect road contractors to change their whole business model inside 30 days.

On 9 March 2016, the Australian Industry Group and other driver associations— (Time expired)