John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would just like to have a brief talk on this whole road user charge. To support what my friend Senator Macdonald has just said, New South Wales really is becoming a farce. We have seen the extra cost of fuel in New South Wales; that is just one of the reasons why up to 500 people a week move from New South Wales to Queensland. Yet what did we see at the last federal election? Where New South Wales used to have 50 federal seats, we got reduced to 49 seats. We had the seat of Gwydir, the seat of the former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, taken from us, and another seat formed in Queensland—the new seat of Flynn—so that Queensland went up from 27 federal seats to 28. This is typical of what is happening in New South Wales with the state Labor government, which, as Senator Macdonald said—and as everyone around here must agree—is in complete disarray, in complete meltdown mode and is driving people out of the state.

I take your attention back to Labor’s history on fuel excise. Back in 1983, when the Hawke-Keating government was elected, the federal excise was around 6.3c a litre. Of course, they were quick to introduce indexation on fuel. Putting fuel tax up is one of the Labor Party’s traditional policies and they are sticking with it. When they left in 1996, thanks be to that, it was 34c a litre. The Hawke-Keating government took fuel excise from 6.3c a litre to 34c a litre. Mr Keating would say there were no new taxes or increases in taxes but, after the election, he would say, ‘Throw another 5c on fuel while we are at it.’ Now we have Mr Rudd increasing the road user charge on our transport industry—from 19.5c to around 21c. I must say that I am a little disappointed in the representatives from the transport industry. Although I have not been in this chamber for long, the word I have had from my friends is that during the coalition’s era any suggestion of increasing the road user charge would have been a terrible idea and would face huge objection. The industry now seems to say, ‘All right, we are going to pay our way; we will accept the increase to 21c.’ I am disappointed in that.

I go back to the election promise of Mr Rudd: ‘We will put downward pressure on grocery prices.’ Where I live in country New South Wales, there are no rail lines, no rail network. Everything comes in by road. Increasing the tax on our transport industry to lead to lower grocery prices? I have yet to work that one out. It is another cost so that country communities will have to pay more for their freight. The businesses will pass the cost on to the consumer, and the ordinary Joe Blow on the street will pay for it. That is what we are facing here. Of course, indexation is the thing that the Labor Party are good at. They are trying to do it now with our transport industry—not with the CPI but some sort of cost increase each year that spits out of a computer according to how much it cost to maintain our road system. This is more cost on the very people, the truckies, who shift our exports, who keep our nation alive and who actually drive the nation.

That is what this is about today. I can assure you that the coalition will be flatly refusing any suggestion of any indexation. That is why our amendments will be there: to see that that will not be introduced. I sincerely hope that Senator Xenophon, Senator Fielding and the Greens have a good close look at this and see what we are doing to our nation, especially those who live outside the cities, those who do not have public transport and those who require fuel to transport their wheat, wool, cattle, sheep and exports. These are vital products and export dollars this nation needs. To tax them more is simply disgraceful.

We make no bones about it. Having spent a lot of time in trucks over the years myself, I know that more rest areas are required. We have these stringent regulations now where if a truckie goes past their allocated hours in their work diaries—as there are now, instead of logbooks—they face severe fines, but what a situation it is when the time is expiring in their work diary but they cannot find a rest stop or anywhere to park the truck. This is a problem especially if it is raining and you cannot just pull up on the side of the road for fear of bogging the truck and being stranded there. We will certainly be pushing for that in our amendments. We will also be pushing for some consistent driver rules throughout the states. We saw back on 29 September, from memory, new driver regulations brought in in several states around Australia. It was a crazy situation. In Queensland, if you were working within 200 kilometres of your home base, you did not have to fill in a work diary. But in Victoria if you were within 100 kilometres you did not have to fill in a work diary. If it was 101 kilometres you did, but in Queensland it was 201 kilometres. In New South Wales, the state of red tape—well known for it under the changing premiers of Carr, Iemma and now Rees—as soon as you left home, nought kilometres from home, you had to fill in a work diary. The little delivery trucks around Sydney, delivering the milk, had to spend half a day filling in paperwork. They have put it on ice for 12 months, but these are the crazy differential regulations that drivers have to face around the nation.

There are a lot of other laws. There is the 84-hour rule instead of the previous 144-hour rule. After driving for 84 hours in a week—and of course going by the logbook rules—the driver has to stop for 24 hours. I know of situations where friends of mine in the livestock-carrying industry might have to go off to Charters Towers or somewhere to cart cattle to the abattoirs, and they will get up there and then they have got to turn the truck off for 24 hours. The truck driver just sits around in the sleeper cab or wherever. Wouldn’t it be better if there were more consistency in relation to a little bit of flexibility? Perhaps they could stop for 12 hours, have a good night’s sleep in the truck, load up the next day and still get on with their work. Then after 144 hours they could take their 24 hours off. The situation is crazy. It is restricting our productivity and it is costing the nation a lot of money. We will be moving these amendments today so that the government cannot have this indexation be automatic.

As I said, I have been through the history of the Labor Party’s indexation on fuel and fuel costs. We know full well the National Party’s stand. I remember former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson demanding the fuel rebate to the transport industry several years ago to relieve the cost to that industry and to help this nation be competitive against many of our overseas competitors, such as America, who have a lot less fuel tax. That is our history; we know it. We will be here to keep them honest today, and I urge the crossbenchers to have a good close look at this. This is vital legislation. As I said, the industry has conceded the 21c. So be it; they are prepared to pay their way. We will remember that later on when we are in government, and hopefully that will not be far away. That is where we stand and that is about all I have to say.