Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hope the minister is listening. In the other house the minister said in his second reading speech that the bill recognises that owner-drivers, like outworkers, have particular vulnerabilities. To lead up to how they have these particular vulnerabilities I would like to point out a very few pertinent facts that seem to have been missed through the whole debate from those opposite. We always referred to these people as ‘subcontractors’—before the government started making promises at the last election to their mates at the top end of town. I will still refer to them as subcontractors.

The majority of subcontractors perform work for one employer. In performing work for that one employer, they are directed as to the time they commence work, where they go and where they load and unload. The company also directs them as to the time they will finish, when they and their truck will be available to perform transport duties and when they can have some time off. If they want to have a holiday, in many circumstances the transport company requires that they go out and find drivers. So their trucks are locked into the transport company. In the majority of cases the trucks of the subcontractors are painted in the company’s livery or they carry the company’s stickers on the sides of their doors. The majority of subcontractors who are dependent upon these employers wear the uniform of the company. There is this great myth being generated from the government side of this chamber that subcontractors can walk into a trucking yard and just demand what they are going to be paid, when they will make themselves and their truck available and when they will work. I can assure you, Mr Temporary Chairman, with the greatest of respect, that that could not be further from the truth.

If we want to talk about independents and sham arrangements, I suggest we do an investigation into who the heck the Independent Contractors of Australia are. As I said in my speech in the second reading debate a couple of days ago, when they were quizzed as to how many members they represent in the transport industry, they could not tell us. Mr Ken Phillips had no idea. All you do is pay $5 and make an application then they ring you up—they were his words—and have a little chat and you are in. And these people turn up purporting to represent the transport industry.

While I am on that I would like to make this comment—and I will be interested to hear the minister’s response the states of New South Wales and Victoria have been granted exemptions to have state legislation to protect them, deliver safe sustainable rates and give them the opportunity to have access to a dispute settlement procedure that does not keep a certain group of bottom feeders actively engaged. It gives them the opportunity to sort out problems they have on their worksite. I take this opportunity to read to the chamber a letter from the National President of the Transport Workers Union, Mr James McGiveron. I am disappointed that I did not have the opportunity to do this when we had the committee hearings. Mr McGiveron, who is the National President of the Transport Workers Union and the state secretary of the Western Australian branch of the Transport Workers Union, says:

Under no circumstances could anyone truthfully describe the vast majority of owner-drivers in Western Australia as ‘independent contractors’.

The TWU in WA has approximately 2000 owner-driver members and only a mere handful of them could be put under that heading.

Most owner-drivers in WA are ‘dependent’ upon a single prime contractor in the same way as they are in NSW and Victoria—in fact as they are in all states and territories. Our submission has fully canvassed the extensive nature of this dependence and there is ample evidence of it for all to see.

The industry in WA, owner-drivers and their families and the TWU anticipate the imminent tabling of the Road Freight Transport Industry (Contracts and Disputes) Bill. This Bill seeks to address the very vulnerabilities expressed by the Minister in his recent press releases ... To override its benefits, (which have the full support—

I repeat ‘full support’—

of the transport industry in WA) through the Independent Contractors Act would cut from under the feet of owner-drivers and the broader industry agreed solutions for fair, sustainable and therefore, safe minimum standards and derail the constructive basis upon which the industry has been tackling the problems facing owner-drivers.

We ask the Committee to recommend an amendment that will permit the imminent industry agreed WA provisions to have full operation.

I would love to hear the government’s explanation for that. It is a shame we do not have the ability to speak to Minister Andrews, but Minister Abetz is representing Minister Andrews in this chamber. Minister, we have subcontractors in the transport industry in New South Wales and Victoria performing tasks that mirror what is performed by Western Australian subcontractors in the transport industry, and for that matter in South Australia, the ACT, Queensland, the Northern Territory and your good state of Tasmania. I assume that fuel is very close to the same price around Australia, bar Queensland. There are still truck payments, insurance payments, repairs and maintenance, truck purchases and the like. For the life of me, Minister, I cannot understand why Minister Andrews can accept New South Wales and Victorian legislation to protect owner-drivers in those states—legislation that was put together by both sides of industry, those representing the employers and those representing the employees, and government. In Western Australia it was a hand-in-hand operation.

I can go further, Minister, and give you some more insight into my thoughts and those of transport operators in Western Australia. Back in 2000 we were looking at a major shutdown of the industry. There was a dispute—I do not have it in front of me, Minister, but I can provide it to you. I think the cost to the economy of the port dispute was about $30 million. We were heading for a shutdown of the long-distance operations in and out of Western Australia. You can understand that, in the great state of Western Australia, if it is not going by road once it leaves Geraldton we rely on ships. But we do not have ships running regularly into our northern ports so you can appreciate that everything in and out of these mining centres and agricultural centres is by road.

But that shutdown was avoided at the last minute by good-faith negotiations between the Transport Workers Union representing these 2,000-odd owner-drivers and the Transport Forum of Western Australia, which is not a left-wing radical mob, I can assure you. They are the peak transport industry representative body in WA and they saw the problems that were being confronted too. They were getting absolutely squeezed by their markets—certainly, major mining companies were guilty of that. They wanted a resolution because they could not attract the men and women to the industry to carry on the transport tasks through the state of Western Australia.

I kept very close to that issue, as you can appreciate. It was wonderful to see both sides of industry, supported by the Gallop Labor government, saying: we have a responsibility not only to make sure we have a safe and sustainable transport industry but to provide a safe road system to other road users. Plus, in Western Australia, as around the rest of the country with the drought and all that, we have centres not in the major cities that are really struggling, and they rely on a safe and efficient transport system. Minister, I will give you the opportunity—I look forward to it—to explain to me: what the heck is the difference between contractors in New South Wales and Victoria and their counterparts in every other state and territory of this fine nation?