Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

What he said, Senator, was:

Under the carbon tax, drivers will be forced to do longer hours, sweat their trucks further, have less maintenance, and that means more deaths.

Whether Senator Collins likes it or not, that is what a current trade union boss has said. So we know, courtesy of the national secretary of the Transport Workers Union, that if you genuinely wish to reduce road deaths then you would repeal the carbon tax. But, the carbon tax having been foisted on the road transport sector, the Transport Workers Union clearly flexed its muscle and demanded this legislation as their price to go quiet on the carbon tax, as they unconscionably have.

The carbon tax, which was going to cost truckies' lives according to Mr Sheldon, all of a sudden is no longer an issue, because the Transport Workers Union has been bought off with a separate, expensive tribunal—a tribunal which can issue road safety remuneration orders with respect to remuneration and related conditions on its own initiative if it is in relation to a matter identified in its work program or, at its discretion, on application from an industry participant or an industrial association with respect to something that is, or is capable of being, included in the tribunal's work plan. The road safety remuneration orders will—get a load of this!—override a Fair Work Australia award or agreement if the order is more beneficial than the Fair Work Australia document—either award or agreement. What a huge vote of no confidence in Ms Gillard's Fair Work Australia regime. The regime that was going to cover all workers and deliver justice for all workers is, all of a sudden, not good enough. We now need another body to override the decisions and determinations of Fair Work Australia to get a better outcome for the Transport Workers Union, who have been so very badly dudded in relation to the carbon tax. This, of course, is all being done in the name of reducing road fatalities involving the road transport sector.

But according to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, during the 12 months to the end of June 2011, 185 people died from crashes involving articulated and heavy rigid trucks, a figure that, I am sure, is sobering for all of us. For articulated trucks, that actually represented a decrease by an average of 3.5 per cent per year over the three years to June 2011. For heavy rigid trucks, it was a decrease by an average of 14.7 per cent per year over the three years to June 2011. So we are actually seeing a reduction in road fatalities involving the road transport sector in raw figures and percentage terms, in circumstances when the road freight task of this nation has been increasing exponentially. As we have been getting even more and more trucks on our roads, one would anticipate on the law of averages that the accident rate and, as a result, the fatality rate might increase. But no: as the freight task has grown and there are ever more trucks on the road before, the rate of fatalities has in fact decreased.

Interestingly, it is clear that the attempt to link road safety and remuneration rates and conditions for truck drivers assumes that the overwhelming majority of road accidents are actually the fault of the heavy vehicle driver. That is false and does a great disservice to those truck drivers. NatRoad makes the point that research by the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority concludes that the heavy vehicle driver is at fault in only 31 per cent of fatal crashes involving a heavy vehicle. They go on to say that it cannot be expected that driver remuneration will have any bearing on the remaining 69 per cent of fatal heavy vehicle crashes. The bill, even if it does all it alleges it will do, will do nothing to address the causes of the other 69 per cent of crashes. That in itself exposes the myth and the cynical use of road safety for this particular piece of legislation. That is because well over two-thirds of the crashes and fatalities of which we speak—indeed, 69 per cent—are not related to the truck or the heavy rigid vehicle in any way, shape or form. Yet somehow, miraculously, if we are to pass this legislation then we will get rid of these very unfortunate and regrettable fatalities. There is no logical basis to link remuneration with road safety. Indeed, we have seen an ever decreasing rate of fatalities involving trucks as the road haulage task has been ever increasing.

Let's turn to the issue of red tape. The heavy vehicle industry is already subject to numerous regulations and legislation relating to driver safety, at both a state and a national level. These include independent contractor legislation, workplace health and safety legislation and the soon-to-be-implemented national heavy vehicle regulator. NatRoad points out:

There are existing laws that apply to wages, conditions, contracting arrangements, road use, vehicle standards, fatigue, speed, mass, dimension, loading, substance abuse, record keeping as well as general workplace health and safety obligations.

This bill will add further complexity to an already bureaucratic area. In New South Wales, for example, the bill will be the fourth layer of regulation for driver fatigue.

Senator Sterle interjecting—

It looks as though Senator Sterle, yet again, is suffering from fatigue, although he is not driving anything anywhere, least of all his own career.