Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the couple of minutes that are available to me I want to put on the record—and it's a very sombre duty—that during the 12 months until the end of December 2020, 170 people died in crashes involving heavy trucks. This includes 104 deaths in crashes involving articulated trucks and 68 deaths involving heavy rigid trucks.

I want to put to the Senate a simple proposition. There is probably no other industry in Australia, certainly none that I'm aware of, that incurs this level of death—and the injuries are not stated here today—and the level of death is through the roof. I don't know how as a government, a state government, a territory government or a council that we can put up with the fact that we're seeing 170 people die at work. That's where they're dying, at work, on the road, and we're not having an outpouring of a call for action.

There have been 170 workplace deaths in the 12 months to the end of 2020. It's a disgrace. The federal parliament should move on it, as should every other parliament in Australia.