Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We abolished it. And Labor could not introduce it quickly enough in the first months of their government, Senator Macdonald. The last time that the recommendation came before the government was in 2006. And that is all it was, just a recommendation from the Transport Commission. They are just doing their job. They work off their formula to determine what ought to be the links between registrations, the road user charge and what the heavy transport vehicles are affecting. The point is: it is just a recommendation. In 2006 that recommendation came to the coalition government and we rejected it. The industry made pleas to the government not to introduce it at that time, and we did not.

So governments have to take responsibility. I can imagine the minister standing up defending this and saying it is not a tax, it is not an increase and it is directly linked to the effect that the vehicles will have on the roads. But the point is if you are in government, you have a responsibility. You have seen the economic circumstances change dramatically since the first time you introduced this and you ought to make the decision that you are assigned to do—one that arises in so many other portfolios: if it does not fit you do not accept it. You do not accept every recommendation that comes up to you from the Public Service. Senator Conroy, you know that! Every minister knows that, but they seem captive to recommendations. That is certainly so in this particular case. So I think it is interesting to note that particular point.

This is a government that came in with huge expectations in regard to fixing fuel costs. What did we get? The now abandoned Fuelwatch scheme, which was defeated, mercifully, in the Senate. But we are still getting an increase in fuel, through this legislation, for owner-drivers. What did we get before? The grocery watch scheme. They promised so much that they would fix grocery prices. What are we getting here? With the increases in costs and charges, there will be—and there is no way around it—a cascading effect right up to grocery store shelves. That always happens; costs are passed on. It all has to be passed on. A lot of these drivers cannot absorb the costs. They will pass them on. So there is an inflationary effect; it may be small or it may be large, but there is an effect. As far as truck drivers are concerned, those two commitments, those two promises, before the election have not been met, and the blame game commitment has not been met as to this particular industry.

This is a disgraceful piece of legislation when one considers one particular aspect. One aspect of this legislation has the worst effect. It is to do with indexation. As my colleague said before, the former coalition government abolished indexation. The government are going to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table, to abolish the indexation that they embedded in this legislation, because they have not got the numbers in the chamber—and that is a good thing. I believe they may even move their own amendment to abolish it. The point is they would not do it before. They have put it in there and they have stuck by it, even after the Senate committee inquiry found out the effect that it would have. The effect is that effectively every year the rate would be around seven per cent. They were attempting to index fuel costs on owner-drivers by seven per cent. That is an enormous amount. That is the formula they were working off. But I believe, in the face of support by the Independents for our amendment, the government have—and I will not say they ‘have seen reason’—been bludgeoned into taking the indexation factor out of this legislation.

But the problems with and flaws in the bill do not stop there, and we will be moving amendments to fix them. Hopefully, they will be accepted. Take for example the rest stop situation that Senator Macdonald, who has carriage of this bill for the opposition, mentioned. Back in February 2006, the states and the territories agreed that they would build rest areas across Australia to a national standard by the end of 2008. That was a very ambitious commitment by them, ambitious in that it was calculated that some 900 rest stops would have to be built to that national standard in that time. The fact is they have not even made a healthy start on them. It is a commitment that they have abandoned. What’s more, this government is not holding them to that commitment. That is the problem and that is the gripe of the industry and of, in particular, the Australian Trucking Association. It was concerned about the lack of progress by the state and federal governments in meeting the heavy-vehicle rest areas commitment. According to the Senate committee report, its officer, Mr Bill McKinley, the National Manager, Government Relations and Communications, for the Australian Trucking Association, said this:

… there are only a few weeks left—

I dare say that was said tongue in cheek—

… and unless there is an enormous flurry of rest area construction in the next six weeks, we estimate they will be 900 rest areas short. … This is a critical issue for the trucking industry. When we held our safety summit earlier this year it was the principal issue raised by ordinary trucking operators at the summit.

The federal government ought to go back to the states and territories and hold them to some degree—in fact, to any degree—to that commitment. To that end we will be moving an amendment, and we will be sticking by this amendment, as to any future increases in the road user charges. The net figure must be linked to the building of rest stops. The amendment says ‘an average of at least 50 additional heavy-vehicle rest areas’ must ‘have been constructed each year on the National Land Transport Network, as defined by’ AusLink legislation. It says ‘the type of rest areas constructed, their spacing and amenities’ must be ‘consistent with the goal that rest areas in the National Land Transport Network will comply by 2019’. The point is we are linking any future increases in the road user charges to the establishment of a base number of rest stops. This is critical for the safety of the owner-drivers and for the safety of the public generally.

The other issue of concern to the opposition is the harmonisation of state and territory transport regulations. Again commitments made by the state governments have never been met, nor are the state governments being held to account by the new federal government. These are serious issues that go to the heart of safety on our roads for the drivers and for the public. But there seems to be no interest, no care, no commitment by the federal government to enforce a national regulation scheme. The state governments have committed to this but, as usual for the state governments, there is no progress at all. So the opposition will be making amendments to the legislation to enforce these commitments.

This bill—probably as much as any, if not exclusively—really highlights the Australian public’s disappointment in the Rudd government. They trusted them on the commitments that they made prior to the election. But the high expectations the Australian public had of the Rudd government were pretty much dashed in the first month, when the government rushed into a decision to increase the cost of charges on owner-drivers. These are family people who would be severely affected by the increase and, now that the economy has changed for the worse, it will probably be worse for them than it was back in February. With inflation, they will be affected more by the increases in these costs and charges.

The federal government has failed to enforce the commitments of the states with regard to rest stops and the harmonisation of regulations. Of course, the telling part of this legislation is the federal government’s attempt to reintroduce indexation on fuel. That has become a sacred cow for them. The Hawke-Keating government introduced indexation. The Liberal Party, in government, abolished it. The Rudd Labor government, in its first months, reintroduced it. If they can get away with it here, where else will they want to reintroduce it? I would say that they would not mind reintroducing it on the current fuel excise tax. If they could get away with it, they would. It is obvious. They believe they can get away with it here. They have stuck to their guns for close on 12 months with this indexation clause. They will lose it on the floor of the Senate, but the point is that this has become an icon for the Labor Party. This has probably become an icon within Treasury, for all we know. The indexation of fuel, whether it is wrapped up in road user charges, fuel excise or any other form, will be objected to vigorously and voted against by this side of the chamber—as we will do on this doomed attempt. The amendments are very critical for the opposition and we will be sticking by them and holding the government to account on them.