Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If there was any doubt about the link between wages and safety, there was a report from the National Transport Commission:

There is solid survey evidence linking payment levels and systems to crashes, speeding, driving while fatigued and drug use. This evidence has been accepted and indeed confirmed by government inquiries, coronial inquests, courts and industrial tribunal hearings in Australia over a number of years. The association between remuneration and safety applies to both employed and owner/drivers.

Last night in the Senate, the government voted down the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Their sense of accomplishment and excitement over this achievement reminded me of the gleeful nature of the way in which Mr Peter Reith announced the sacking of waterfront workers back in 1998. Both of these moves by conservative governments—by LNP governments—were wrong. Just as it was wrong for the Howard government back in 1998 to buy in so publicly on a waterfront dispute, with their own clear agenda to get rid of the MUA, it is equally wrong for the Turnbull government to have beaten up road safety and the lives of Australian drivers in this debate. It is not as clear-cut as the government would have us believe. It is not owner-drivers versus the rest. It is not—