Glenn Lazarus (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016. I am voting to abolish the RSRT and the order for two reasons: firstly, owner-drivers need the right to run their businesses their own way; secondly, owner-drivers are being forced to charge higher freight rates, which is pricing them out of the market and sending them broke.

I have spoken to a lot of owner truck drivers over the last couple of weeks and they are very worried about their future. Two weeks ago I was at a trucking rally or convoy in Brisbane. A young man came up to me and said, 'I do know what I am going to do. I only purchased this truck a week ago and now they are telling me they do not need my services on Monday.' I am hoping that young man is listening because, hopefully, in the very near future this will only be a nightmare and he can get on with his work and get on with what he loves doing and what he is passionate about—driving trucks.

I believe that truck drivers—owner truck drivers, in particular—are the very fabric of this country. If they stop this country stops. I am absolutely horrified about what this tribunal has handed down, in the way of an order. It, quite clearly, is not a level playing field. All this does is benefit the big end of town and the TWU. Owner truck drivers will get so desperate that they will have to sell their trucks at a minimal price. Then, they will have to sell their houses, because they will have to pay off their debts and, then, they will be looking for work. The first place they will go—because all they know is driving trucks—is to the big transport companies. If you want to become a truck driver for one of those big companies you have to be a member of the TWU. That is exactly what they know and that is exactly what they want. We are indebted to the trucking industry. In my state of Queensland, which is a vast wide-ranging state, owner truck drivers transport goods and services around the state without question, and they do it because they love doing it.

I have met a lot of truck drivers. Two of the more interesting ones—I cannot remember their last names but they were Angelo and Leanne from Brisbane—had a dream that at some stage they would own a truck and they would see this wonderful country that we live in via that truck and by transporting goods and chattels around this country. The dream came true. They did end up buying a truck and they are absolutely loving what they are doing. But their world was rocked, on 4 April, when an order came in to say that they would have to charge higher rates than the bigger transport companies have to. So business dried up. They were in a state of disrepair. They did not know what they were going to do or where they were going to go. In fact, at the rally a couple of weeks ago there were quite a few men and women in tears, sick with worry about what the future holds.

I am sure the RSRT was set up with good intent. Only last year I voted to keep it established. I have apologised to the people of Australia and have admitted that I was wrong.