Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to stand up here and talk about Labor's latest IR tranche. But Mr Deputy President, I'm going to direct my remarks to you, because there might be a little bit of a kerfuffle on the other side here. This may come as a shock to a lot of senators, but I don't take any interest in a lot of the senators' backgrounds, unfortunately—I should. I judge them by their performance in this chamber. But I want to let the world in on a small secret that is not well known in here: I actually was a small-business person. My wife and I had our own little trucking empire, if can I put it that way. So, I know as well as anyone out there the costs, the pressures, the dramas and the stress that come with running your own business. I know that.

But I do—through you, Mr Deputy President—take a bit of personal umbrage at Senator Henderson's attack about small business and what we're doing to small business with the new IR tranche. For those opposite, there happens to be a road transport section. I would encourage those opposite, before they start throwing wild assertions that we don't care about small business, to do the following. Up in room 2S3 at the moment there are quite a few small-business people, and I'd encourage Senator Henderson and other senators on that side to go up there and meet them. Five of them are owner-drivers. They would love to put the position of all the work they have done to get this bill to where it is. There are also probably about half a dozen gig workers—through you, Mr Deputy President, to Senator Henderson—and you might want to go up there and hear of their trials and their tribulations, before you start casting aspersions and challenging us that we don't look after owner-drivers.

My life's work has been standing up for owner-drivers in the road transport industry. I come from that magnificent industry. I had my own vehicles, as I said. I know what it's all about. I welcome the opportunity to debate anyone in any state of Australia—and I'm throwing this out to anyone on that side—with a trucking audience, the small-business trucking audience, and bring it on. Have a fight with me. Defend why you will not vote to support these new laws that go to the heart of protecting small businesses in the road transport industry—owner-drivers.

And who else is against this? It is not the trucking industry—the whole road transport industry in Australia, all the associations, the owner-drivers, the states, the Australian Trucking Association, the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation, the National Road Freighters Association, and the Transport Workers Union. They are all united to defend, support and get this legislation through the lower house and then into the Senate. And if you want to defend and stick shoulder to shoulder with those industry associations that aren't from trucking—like the Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia, those poor devils who are doing it so hard at the Minerals Council of Australia, and the National Farmers Federation—well, get in there. You stick with them. You run their argument. Their argument, very clearly, is this: they do not want to see any opportunity where they have to be forced to pay safe, sustainable and viable rates of pay to our trucking industry and our owner-drivers. I dare you—I'll travel anywhere in Australia, bring all your ACCI mates with you, have the fight. Let's fill the room with truckie owner-drivers. Let's fill the room with road transport employers. Because they're on our side, too. Employers—small, medium, huge—are all saying the same thing. Uber are saying the same thing. But if you want to latch yourself to those four or five greedy employer organisations who dare not see anyone else share in our Commonwealth in Australia, more disgrace to you.

I said this on a number of occasions. I've said it in trucking magazines. I've said it all over Australia: come and debate me. I will turn up. You can bring the army of your mates from the other organisations who want to screw us down. After 46 years in the road transport industry and about the road transport industry, as a third-generation road-train operator around Australia, I've had a gutful of it, and so have all these other road transport operators. They're upstairs. If you don't believe me, while you sit there with your heads real low, take 30 steps out this door over here, turn right and then take another 10 steps. Push the '2' button on the elevator—up you go—and walk another 50 metres down to 2S3. Why don't you ask the people that are doing it? Because you're more worried about the Liberal donors like the ACCI and the BCA and the AIG all these horrible people who want to screw our trucking rates.