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

I did want to talk a little bit about the Voice, but I can't listen to Senator Chandler read from a script and make statements that have absolutely no body to them and let her get away unchallenged. This is for the people up there in the gallery too. Senator Chandler unintelligently and, quite frankly, uneducatedly referred to the so-called war between Russia and Ukraine as if it were just some passing thing. I don't know what that lot over there do during the off times when they're not here. Quite frankly, I don't care. I know what I do. I talk to truck drivers around this nation day in, day out. I talk to small, medium and large trucking companies day in, day out. I talk to companies which have 30,000 employees and I talk to owner-drivers. The war between Russia and Ukraine, Senator Chandler, has put up the cost of fuel. I don't know quite what all the machinations are, but about six months before the war—when you mob were still in government—diesel was sitting at around $1.50 a litre. How do I know that? Because I spent a lot of time fuelling trucks because I drive them for charity.

I come from a trucking background. I'm not like most of you who went through university and say, 'In the playground I had a premonition one day that I wanted to be a senator or a member of parliament.' I actually came here with dirt under my fingernails. And I continue in the great cause of driving road trains from Perth to Kununurra and places in-between to raise money for charity. I know the cost of diesel, Senator Chandler, from pulling my mate's truck up at a bowser in Port Hedland or in Kununurra and looking at the price, and it's now $2.50 a litre in the Kimberley. Yet you make a throwaway line about the so-called war between Russia and Ukraine so-called pushing up the cost. Senator Chandler, you might not know, but it's pushing up the cost of transport because truckies have to actually cover their costs when they deliver the goods that you and me and the rest of us in this building rely upon.

Here we go again, Senator Chandler. I'm sorry that you came through university with the premonition that one day you might be the Leader of the Opposition or the Leader of the Liberal Party in the Senate. I come from the real world. Someone has to pay for those costs.