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

Yes, and big business too. There are some very decent employers who do honestly want to improve the safety of not only truck drivers but other road users. Unfortunately, there is also the other end of the scale. At the other end of the scale there is the ratbag element. In trucking terms they call it the cowboy element. Do not be fooled by the cowboy element; cowboys were also heroes of mine when I was growing up. There is a ratbag element, but you do not expect the main employer group of the road transport industry to have a ratbag attitude towards the rates of pay of long-distance truck drivers and the safety of those truck drivers and other road users. Unfortunately, in this country they do. I am going to have a crack at them, because that is what they need.

I am talking about the Australian Trucking Association, and I would welcome any conversations with them. They do not want to accept that safety on the roads for truck drivers and other road users is directly linked to rates of pay. I will simplify it for the Australian Trucking Association. It is a well-known fact that if long-distance truck drivers are remunerated correctly the roads are safer not only for them but, just as importantly, for other road users. As an ex long-distance road train operator from Western Australia, running through to the Northern Territory, I can tell you that there is nothing worse than a truck driver who is under the pump, whether it be financially or for whatever reason, who is being pushed to the maximum and beyond by an unscrupulous employer. If an employer is fair dinkum about the health and safety of not only his employees but also other road users, he will never hesitate to pay his truck drivers properly, whether those truck drivers are employees or owner-drivers.

Safe truckies are what we want out there. We do not want a busload of schoolchildren coming down a highway when there is a truck driver who is not being paid correctly, who is not adhering to fatigue management and who is under the pump to get that freight to the other side of the country or to another town because his employer is screwing his wages down. I do not know how the Australian Trucking Association can barefacedly tell the Australian public that there is no correlation between safe rates of pay and hours driven. I say what a load of bull! It is disgraceful that they even have the audacity to say that they represent the transport industry. The likes of the Transport Workers Union will take the fight up to them, as will members on this side of the chamber. I urge members on that side of the chamber to take that fight up. If your daughter or son is heading for schoolies in a car, I am sure you will hope and pray that every truck driver coming down that highway is well rested and well remunerated so that there is no need to drive ridiculous hours at ridiculous speeds.

I will go back to my reason for the link to the Fair Work Bill. As part of it, back in July 2008, Julia Gillard, our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, together with Anthony Albanese, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, and of course Dr Craig Emerson, the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy, jointly announced that the National Transport Commission, the NTC, would investigate and report on driver remuneration and payment methods in the Australian trucking industry and make recommendations for reform. That was all done. The ministers’ media release stated:

The trucking industry prides itself on being highly competitive and efficient. However, the industry’s strength can also be its weakness, with truck drivers often finding themselves in a weak bargaining position and unable to maintain safe work practices.

The results of the NTC inquiry, referred to as the safe payments inquiry, were reported by the National Transport Commission in October 2008, just recently. In brief, the inquiry, conducted by the Hon. Lance Wright QC and Professor Michael Quinlan, of the University of New South Wales, found:

This Review finds that the overwhelming weight of evidence indicates that commercial/industrial practices affecting road transport play a direct and significant role in causing hazardous practices. There is solid survey evidence linking payment levels and systems to crashes—

as I have said.

The sad part is the Australian Trucking Association’s response to the safe payments inquiry. They said:

… the consensus view of the ATA is that the most effective and appropriate way to further improve the industry’s on-road safety performance is to implement and enforce the impending Driving Hours and Fatigue Management effectively and that establishing a “Safe Rates” regime is unnecessary and would be ineffective and unsustainable.

It is with a heavy heart that I have to read that. I cannot believe that that tripe is being peddled by those who claim to be the major employer representative for the road transport industry. Can you imagine if the likes of Qantas and Virgin had that same attitude to pilots? There would be uproar—absolute uproar. We would not put up with it. But in the trucking industry it is quite all right. Is it a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’? I really do not know, but it does absolutely disturb me that they would muddy the waters like that.

As I said earlier, this is an exciting week for workers because we are able to overturn the Work Choices legislation to implement fairness and decency in the workplace. I could go on and talk about this for hours, but time is against me. But I also want to take this last minute to stress that we cannot go along with the rhetoric that all employers are baddies. I never, ever have said that. I could never agree with those opposite, or wherever, who might think that all employees are baddies. There are a lot of decent, hardworking Australians, whether they be employees, small business people, big business people or whatever. They all deserve a fair suck of the sav. They did not get that fair suck of the sav when the ratbag element could manipulate the Work Choices legislation.