Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

These contributions where senators are able to actually make a statement about matters of import are really very important parts of the way the chamber functions. Today, I'm really pleased to be able to put on the record a small indication of something that happened here in the building just last week. It was a pretty big thing, because it involved people coming to fight for fairness. It was a delegation from the Transport Workers' Union, who came in to make sure that this parliament understands what's actually going on in the transport sector. I acknowledge many of my colleagues, including Senator Jana Stewart, who have been very active in the Transport Workers' Union prior to coming to this place. They're a vital part—unions are a vital part—of making sure that the voices of those who are so busy working, whether they're driving trucks as owner-drivers, business owners who own large companies or drivers who are now feeling very, very under the burden of the gig economy and the insecurity that is embedded in that, are heard. All of those people were represented in the room.

I did say that I felt privileged; that was because there were so many amazing workers there who were speaking for the people who they know and who they work with. The TWU has certainly been at the forefront in the fight against what they call the 'Amazon' model, which is leading to the continued exploitation of workers in the gig economy and in the road transport industry. We all drive on the roads. I recall—and I'm sure, Deputy President, you've probably spent a few hours on this—doing some driving instruction in the car. It's 120 hours in New South Wales; I have three children and you can do the maths! There were a lot of interesting conversations over the course of that. Now they're out on the roads, I do think that they're safe drivers but I need everybody on the road to be able to operate the vehicle that they're driving safely. That doesn't happen when people are under incredible pressure.

The transport industry, sadly, is the most dangerous industry in Australia. It became much more dangerous when the previous government gutted the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Thanks to the action of the coalition, working with dodgy operators, they gutted workers pay and conditions. That terrible decision has actually cost lives. Government policy impacts on how we live, and when you don't look after the wages and when you don't look after the conditions of people who are on our roads, driving for a living—when you allow their conditions to be eroded and risks to be built in—we are all at a disadvantage. Since the removal of the tribunal there have been over 1,000 truck crash deaths. The surveys I was able to see show a shocking pressure—a pressure cooker—which many transport workers are trying to eke out a living under. One in four drivers has been involved in a crash while at work. Fifty-five per cent of owner-drivers have delayed repairs because they cannot afford them. One in five is pressured to speed illegally to meet deadlines. One in four is pressured to drive past their legal hours and to skip needed rest breaks. And 52 per cent of drivers have experienced wage theft. Those are alarming statistics and they impacted on how I feel about driving on the roads since I heard them and was reminded of them.

What's going on in the sector is a fundamentally unsustainable model. It's imperative on the sector, both the owners and the workers, to find a way forward together that makes it safer for all of us and our families on the road. We certainly need to do more to protect workers, who are the ones who are moving this country and ensuring that our supply chains are as intact as they can be when they've been so profoundly impacted and disrupted. We should not allow a system to continue that puts the lives of truckers at risk. We should not allow a system to continue that forces them out of the industry by increasingly intolerable conditions.

Now, as the Labor Party and the party of government, we support the move for the business to become much more tech savvy and more agile, and for workers to have more flexibility about where and when they work. That's all good. But we do not support a system whose secret source is simply worker exploitation and using loopholes in labour-hire laws to make sure that workers do not even make the minimum wage. That is not the country that I want to stand up and represent. That is not the country that my immigrant parents came to and grew a great life in. Fair wages—a fair day's pay for a fair day's work—are absolutely fundamental. A business model that is as brutal as that cannot be allowed to stand.

Amazon Flex and other models who try to emulate it rely on three key practices: undercutting workers' conditions, outsourcing to labour hire and using other insecure work models so they can pretend that they are not responsible for what's going on down the food chain. It's completely untenable that those who are driving the system, making profits from the system and taking those profits offshore without paying tax get to put Australian lives at risk. That cannot continue.

FedEx is trying to bring in a model like this, where owner drivers are to be paid to deliver 93 parcels in a 10-hour shift or one every six minutes. Give me a break. That is a truly impossible expectation for anyone, and that's while they're being paid less than the minimum wage. It is more work for less money. That is not how you grow a country. That is not how you enhance the lives of Australians. That is not how you grow our economy. The more we shrink the money that goes to our workers, the worse it is, particularly in local economies in regional areas of this country.

At a meeting last week, we saw really incredible leadership by honest business owners who have a lot of experience in this field. They stood shoulder to shoulder with workers, calling for safe rates and an end to this race-to-the-bottom model of doing business that is being imported into this country, brought into Australia to totally remove our proper sense of what fairness is, to exploit the most vulnerable.

Now, under the previous government, business and unions were treated like oil and water, like they couldn't work together. But I was here in this building with great business leaders and workers standing together shoulder to shoulder, saying, 'This model has to change.' We cannot allow the lie that was perpetuated in the time of the previous government's nine long years of decay. We cannot allow the lie that business and unions can't work together and that unions do not deserve their place in the public conversation. Unions are vital. When you're working every hour that god sends, you need somebody who's doing the job of standing up for you. That's what unions do and that's what they were doing here last week. The myth has to be broken and it will be broken in the way that this government responds to it.

I want to put on the record a couple of the quotes that I took down as I was listening. A business owner said, 'I'm here to support reform that allows good business—safe business—to prosper and grow.' Why would anyone stand in the way of that? When good businesses prosper and grow, jobs grow. People's lives are enhanced.

This is from Arthur. With 1,500 employees, he might know a little bit about this sector! 'There needs to be a positive change to sustainable ways, to primacy of safety. The supply chain is incredibly disrupted and it's not viable. We are not in the position,' he said, 'in Australia to allow practices in the USA, Asia and some places in Europe to proliferate here. The damage will be devastating. Workers, owner-drivers, employers, unions: we share concerns.'

I share their concerns. I applaud them for their efforts in coming here and raising these issues, and I want those on the opposite side not to stand in the way of the necessary reform for Australians' safety on our roads.