Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I cannot help but take issue with some of the statements made by Senator Lines in her contribution to this debate. It is disappointing that we would hear them in the way we have. We think back to the days when Prime Minister Gillard was responsible for the introduction of the tribunal. Even at that time, as I recall, the Transport Workers Union, Mr Sheldon and others indicated that the tribunal would be stronger, if it had industry representation, but then Prime Minister Gillard was not interested in that.

Then we move forward to the comments made by my colleague Senator Lines in the last few minutes about the willingness of people to sit down and negotiate. If my information is correct, it is the case that the government and the Labor Party—and indeed the TWU—were willing to sit down with the tribunal prior to it bringing in its order on 4 April; however, in fact, it was the tribunal that said, 'No, we will not speak to these other parties' before they brought in the regrettable ordinances that they did.

The question that I have, obviously, given the fact that the information available to me—and Senator Lazarus, I know, has an interest in this space as well, as others do. We all have an interest in road safety, particularly, as it relates to trucks—in my own case, of course, with livestock transport, with which I have been associated for more years than I care to mention.

More than 85 per cent of deaths on the road involving trucks were not the fault of the driver. Those listening to Senator Lines this evening would be invited to think that that other 15 per cent of deaths on the road apparently caused by driver error, or whatever, would be due to owner-driver I have seen no statistics at all to suggest that owner-drivers are largely responsible for deaths on roads involving trucks and employed drivers are not. It is reprehensible that somebody would come into this place this evening to make the case that we have to make everybody employed drivers on the basis that it is owner-drivers who cause road deaths.

Take the situation of the 35,000-odd owner-drivers who were to be or were affected. I am sure the likes of Senator Sterle, who was himself an owner-driver, and Senator Gallacher, with all their experience with the union, would know very well that if you are an owner-driver and you have mortgaged your home and your assets and probably those of your family to be able to buy a rig to run that particular operation it is highly unlikely that you are going to put yourself or your assets at greater risk than an employed driver would.

It was suggested by Senator Lines that this was just simply a gripe about unions. Well let's see what happened after 4 April. This case was presented in public, and I have never seen it refuted. Prior to 4 April an owner-driver in an agricultural area could go to a farmer—perhaps to Senator Nash's farm to her husband David—load some sheep on board and take them to the local market. It would have cost that farmer, Mr Nash, about $150 to use an owner-driver. Do know what the effect would have been after 4 April? In that analogy, if that farmer had used that same owner-driver, the fee would have gone up from about $150 to $750. But the amazing thing is, if Farmer Nash had rung a company which had employed drivers to go to the farm to pick up the livestock and take them to the market, do you know what the fee charged by that company would have been? $150. If anyone can tell me how the difference between charging $750 for an owner-driver and $150 for an employed driver in that analogy contributes to road safety, they would be a better person than I am, because there is no logic.

Senator Lines says there was no effect on owner-drivers. I was one of those—and I know Senator Nash was also one—who went out to the area north of the city early in the morning to meet with drivers. I drove into the city with one of the drivers, Mr Ian Haig, from Wagga. What I learnt from him was absolutely incredible. I said to him, 'How do we improve road safety?' He said, 'There already is a heavy vehicle regulator.' There was a heavy vehicle regulator when then Prime Minister Gillard bowed to the unions at that time to introduce the road safety tribunal. It already existed. I said to him, 'Where are the faults? Where are the errors? What can we learn?' It was interesting. The first thing he said to me was that we outsource our vehicle servicing these days, but industry tells us that as soon as a truck comes back from being serviced they have to check themselves to make sure that all of the work has been undertaken correctly. I say: what nonsense! I would say: we will license heavy vehicle servicing companies and we will hold them to account to ensure that when they release a truck after it has been serviced that, indeed, all of that work has been undertaken. That company should be at risk of being delicensed if they do not do that work adequately. In fact, the inspectors in the heavy vehicle space should be called to go to those servicing facilities—not the same ones all the time; they should do it on a random basis so that you do not form friendships—to crawl over those trucks, so that when the trucks go back onto the road we all know that they are safe.

For the first three or four minutes spent out there near the racecourse at the showgrounds in the morning—Senator Gallacher would know this very well, of course—this gentleman, as he was preparing to leave, had a board, and he was drawing lines. He had a ruler and he was turning pages. I said, 'What the billyo are you doing?' He said, 'I am filling in the log.' I said, 'To go from the racecourse to Parliament House?' He said, 'Yes.' I said, 'When does the log get checked?' He said, 'At some time in the future. There will be inspectors. If I have used a blue pen rather than a black pen then I could be up for a severe fine.'

In today's world we have kids in restaurants who take our orders on an iPad, and that order is immediately conveyed to the kitchen to provide our meal. Is someone telling me that we should not be using an electronic log that the driver fills in? With GPS and all the wi-fi that exists, it can be sent to two sources: firstly back to the trucking company and, secondly, to a central heavy vehicle regulator database. If that driver has been driving for too long, for too many hours or without a break that could surely be red-flagged both at the company and at the regulator immediately. What in heaven's name are we doing with 13th century technology when we have 21st century technology?

The question of safety does not relate to whether it is an owner-driver or an employed driver. That is simple nonsense—absolute nonsense. If the objective of the tribunal was to get rid of owner-drivers so that they would all become employed drivers, or they would go bankrupt, which some of them already had—and, regrettably, we learnt of at least one suicide as a result of the events that took place on 4 April—we must stop that. We must say that the greater good for the heavy vehicle industry is road safety. If driver fatigue is an issue—and it is—then the solution that I have mentioned here today is one that solves it.

Back in the 2000 I wrote a document to be presented to the heavy vehicle regulating industry at that time. At the time I owned my own trucking fleet. We moved bulk fuels—600,000 litres a day, six days a week—so I suppose I did know little bit about it. At that time I was so concerned that I put in place measures that could become electronic. I remember presenting that document to the industry and saying that this was how we could stop those drivers driving for too long a period across the Nullarbor or between our major cities. Why have we not learnt? But I tell you this one thing: it would be very, very difficult to prove to anybody that because someone is an owner-driver they are a greater risk to the wider community than someone who is an employed driver. Is that what we want in this country? Do we want to have six or eight major trucking companies where everybody will be an employed driver? There would be no owner-drivers; there would be no small business; there would be no competition—and we all know what would happen to happen to prices.

And that, in fact, was endorsed by the fleet manager of Toll, who wrote a very good article in The Fin Review the very day we had the issue about which Senator Lines has spoken. He made the point about how important it is to have an owner-drivers in our fleet, to have that level of competition, to have that opportunity for all in this industry to be able to contribute to greater safety on the roads. But I do have to say to you it is not a question about whether everyone is a unionised driver; it is a question about choice. It is a question about the opportunity for small business people in Australia to survive, thrive and expand.