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

It is always a pleasure to follow Senator Edwards—and I say that tongue in cheek, Mr Deputy President. I just think we have to clarify a couple of silly statements from Senator Edwards. We are 'coming for the farmers'—what a ridiculous statement. The minister has made that very, very clear. You know that that is a mistruth, Senator Edwards, so just keep stirring up the scare campaign.

But can I go to another point where Senator Edwards, in his stumbling five minutes—I do not know what it was, actually; it was something to do with grapes—actually attacked the good persona of the National Secretary of the Transport Workers' Union, Tony Sheldon, when he said, 'Where is Tony Sheldon?' Let me just remind those opposite where Tony Sheldon and thousands of Australian truck drivers were, along with this side of the federal political sphere, probably about 18 months ago when we were introducing, through the other House, through Minister Shorten, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Let us have a little walk back through history, shall we, when in this place none other than the good Senators Gallacher, Feeney and Furner and I stood up here for hours and batted. There were 30 years of my previous life, and a lot longer for the good Senator Gallacher, to bring a safe, sustainable rate to Australia's truck industry, where our truckies could go out, leave home, kiss the kids goodbye, wave goodbye to the wife, head off up north or across the Nullarbor or wherever it might be, knowing that they could have a rate that would bring them home safely, a rate that would give them the—