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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The 38th report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights also talks about the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016. The haste with which the government got rid of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal simply defies any kind of logic. The Turnbull government tried to paint a picture of truck drivers, owner-operators who they referred to as mums and dads, suddenly going broke and they claimed, without any information at all in this place, that they had been inundated with concern from owner-operators. They seem to completely miss the point of the Road Safety Remuneration Act.

At the time, I recall the shameful way in which the Turnbull government, with the support of some of the crossbenchers, managed to repeal the act put in place by Labor. It is shameful that members of the Turnbull government thought it was something to cheer about. Certainly I will not ever forget standing in this place talking about the deaths on our roads, the deaths of truck drivers, the loss of breadwinners to families and the deaths of innocent people caught up in truck accidents, and a senator from Turnbull government stood up and called a point of order, and proceeded to make a joke about someone's hair.

For the Turnbull government in this place to think it was okay to applaud and cheer when this act was repealed is quite disgraceful. The facts are that many, many reports have actually linked remuneration and road safety, and there is no doubt that there is a link between road safety and remuneration. There is no question about that. Indeed, the Human Rights Committee report raised this as an issue. Certainly it is an issue. I have met with people who have been caught up in accidents—Western Australian people, people in the electorate of Forrest who lost husbands and brothers because of trucking accidents. These were people whose partners were not necessarily driving trucks, nevertheless they were caught up in accidents. I recall meeting with one woman who lost her husband. He had stopped on the side of the road to help someone who had got a flat tyre. As he was helping that person, a truck hit her husband and unfortunately he died. So motivated was she, obviously by the death of her husband, that she attended the coronial inquest in Perth and without any real information, she came to the conclusion that fatigue, pressure on drivers and so on were to blame for the accident that ended in tragedy with the death of her husband. She has become a really strong advocate in this area.

It is a shame that members of the Turnbull government, particularly Western Australian members, did not sit down with her and talk about this. In their usual fashion, unfortunately, the Turnbull government made it all about trade unions because that is their fallback position—when all else fails, you fail a trade union. Of course the Transport Workers Union advocated for safety on our roads. Of course they did that—that is their job as a trade union in the same way that many unions advocate health and safety. Of course the Transport Workers Union advocated strongly for safety on our roads—and I am absolutely grateful that they did that.

I know that Tony Sheldon, an official of the Transport Workers Union, has advocated long and hard for safety on our roads. Nobody could doubt Mr Sheldon's bona fides in relation to road safety. It is a disgrace, and the human rights committee does report on that. They say in their report that, despite the government saying there was overwhelming evidence that the remuneration tribunal was going to send owner-operators broke, the committee points out: they did not provide any evidence of that. Of course they did not, because there is no evidence of that. There is clear evidence that remuneration and working long hours do lead to fatigue.

I know my colleague Senator Sterle, a long-time truck driver—and a proud truck driver and a proud member of the Transport Workers Union—has told me horror stories of the very long hours and the pressure put on truck drivers to breach the standards which are put in place. Those pressures come from the big suppliers like Coles and Woolworths. We need to have a strategy that covers the entire chain, not just owner-drivers.

Owner-drivers are one small part, but the point the Turnbull government missed here is that thousands and thousands of owner-drivers are members of the Transport Workers Union and indeed did not agree with this action taken by the Turnbull government. Of course they took the action to be political. They turned trucking safety into a political opportunity. Not only had Labor said that we would sit down and be willing to talk to the government about how we could look at what decisions had come out of the Remuneration Tribunal; so did the Transport Workers Union. So it was not as if there was this wall of opposition where no-one was prepared to try and resolve issues that people raised; there was—there was absolute willingness to sit down.

Indeed the government had a very long lead time to determine there was a problem but they did nothing. They saw what they thought was a political opportunity. Suddenly, we had photos of various ministers in front of trucks. Suddenly, they discovered mum and dads and, all of this against a backdrop of shocking road fatalities caused by trucks.

There has been something like 25 deaths just this year involving trucks. For the Turnbull government, with glee, laughter and great cheering in this place, to repeal the Road Safety Remuneration Act is something that falls on their conscience. It is something that I will hold them responsible for, because they have not put anything else in place. They have just got rid of it, which is usually what they do, and somehow tried to beat it up as the Transport Workers Union's quest for membership. That is absolute rubbish.

So what if a trade union wants people to join? It is not illegal in this country—I am sure they would like to make joining a trade union illegal, because they do not like trade unions. Of course the Transport Workers Union, like any union, wants people to join, and people need to be free to join trade unions. There is nothing wrong with that, but you ask those opposite: it was somehow all trumped up by the Transport Workers Union. It was not.

I am very pleased to say that the human rights committee in in its report does refer to the fact that there are many reports which link remuneration and road safety. It also calls into question what evidence the government had that this was somehow going to shut down the trucking industry. That was a disgraceful comment to make when there are deaths on our roads caused by trucks.

We had a solution in place when every party to this act was willing to sit down and work through a solution. But, no: it was a cheap political trick by those opposite to stand in front of trucks and somehow think that that was going win them votes. It is not going to win them votes, because the widows and widowers whom I have spoken to know who is responsible and will absolutely not be supporting the Turnbull government's actions in this regard. It is shameful that they thought it was something to cheer about. They should be ashamed of the actions they took, and trucks will be worse off for it.