Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise. It happens when you get spivs that interrupt on something they know nothing about.

I'll tell you about another scam, and you've only got to go to SEEK.com to see it. One of the worst offenders in Queensland, QLS Logistics, is advertising on SEEK. They say: 'Come and drive our trucks; be prepared to work six days a week; you can work 10, 12 or 14 hours a day, no worries'—as long as you've got an ABN. This is sham contracting. They'll pay you as a subcontractor. Do you know why? It's because they're not going to pay you penalty rates, superannuation, holiday pay and sick leave and they're not going to give you rostered days off. This is what's going on. I report it to Fair Work Australia. I give it to the Fair Work Ombudsman. They came back to me. Like I said, they're underresourced.

I've got examples here of some of the shams and I'll share some of them with you. If anyone wants to interrupt and challenge me, feel free. This is from the Fair Work Ombudsman on underpayments in the transport area. One company had $132,000 in underpayments, another had a baby amount of $35,000, another had $60,200 and another one had $251,000. These are just single employers! How do you—I nearly said the fun word! How do you actually rip off your truck drivers to the tune of $251,000? Don't go away—others include $43,000 and $286,000 in underpayments. This is from the Fair Work Ombudsman, not Sterle making it up. This is what's going on out there, ladies and gentlemen.

Everyone thinks it's all rainbows and unicorns out there in the trucking industry. It is far from rainbows and unicorns. Wouldn't you mob go into a spin if your cucumbers weren't on the shelves at Coles next to the bread for your watercress and cucumber sandwiches! Wouldn't you spin out then!

Wouldn't you spin out if your latte or your chai or whatever you drink wasn't in the store at Coles or Woolies because the poor truckies hadn't got it there!

Senator Bragg interjecting—

Senator Bragg, put it in writing. I'd love to hear from you even more. In fact, I challenge you, mate: prove me wrong. We'll take it outside. We'll take 38 steps to the right of here, where no-one's protected by parliamentary privilege. I know, mate, because I'm the one doing it; I'm the one talking to truckies.

I'll give you another one while you're all thinking it's rainbows and unicorns out there: Toll Fast. Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher, how many companies were they before they all became Toll? I'm talking about back when you and I were organisers and you rose to the dizzy heights of state secretary and I ended up getting side shifted over to being a senator—just joking! How many times have we seen the big companies win? These are the ones that win. I'm reliably told by my good mate Richie Olsen that there is a massive blue going around Australia. Toll Fast have about 500 owner-drivers. These are couriers who've got their own one-tonne and two-tonne vehicles running around. One of their biggest clients is Officeworks. Toll Group had that problem with the internet—they got raided and all that sort of stuff—and their 500 owner-drivers around the nation have not been paid in six months. It's six months late. They haven't got their pay. I know for a fact that around Australia the union is blueing this with Toll. They're one of the two biggest transport companies in Australia. How the heck can they look anyone in the eye knowing that they have not paid their people for six months? How does anyone do that? You wouldn't get away with that in the Wild West. This is what's going on. People are fighting a major transport company—government contracts and all sorts of stuff—for their underpayments and against wrong classifications. If the big boys can do it—and normally I don't have a problem with the big boys, because we have the opportunity to get it sorted out—how the hell do the little ones not think that they can get away with it?

What irks me even more as I talk to transport operators and talk to the good trucking companies all through Australia—and there are many good trucking companies—is that they're being screwed the living daylights out of the top of the supply chain. This is where all the pain comes down from these corporate captains, these magnificent corporate citizens. And I'm not just going to Coles and Woolies; I'm throwing the mining companies in there too, like BlueScope Steel. They're all as bad as each other, the whole damn lot of them, because they exonerate themselves from any employer-employee relationship; they just contract it out. I tell you what, if you're worried about Uber, wait until that gets into the trucking industry. And Amazon said it's prepared to lose money for 10 years to disrupt what's going on here in Australia. So while you're out there with your talking notes and prepared speeches—I don't have a prepared speech—and what the minister's told you to say about these wonderful things that you're doing, cast your mind back to what I've said. Walk outside and ask people in the street how it's going for them.

I'm the first one to put my hand up to say we need to support young people getting into industry. You don't even put money into training for the transport industry. This is one industry that cannot attract kids. When you hear all the horror stories about how they're treated, the lack of toilets and the poor facilities, no wonder no-one wants to go into it. (Time expired)