Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's speech, and I want to continue talking about the importance of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which the government has seen fit, with the assistance of some of the crossbenchers, to just abolish without a thought given to the importance of road safety in this country, to the thousands of lives that have been lost on our roads or to anything except their desire to get rid of this tribunal.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Lines, just a moment. Senators, could you exit the chamber quietly and, if you are not exiting the chamber, could you take your seats.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Despite the fact the government have had three years to look at the tribunal, they have left this to the very last minute. In fact, it was not even on the Notice Paper. It is something that they see as some kind of vote winner. There is no doubt that the government has put politics into the issue of road safety, and it is just too easy for the government to dismiss the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal by claiming it is some kind of pay-off to unions, just as they did in the early childhood sector, in the aged-care sector and with cleaners employed by contractors who work in Commonwealth-owned buildings, including the cleaners who work in this very building, the Parliament House of Australia. They just dismiss good legislation out of hand because somehow unions have agitated for change. It suits their anti-union agenda. But, just as they were wrong on cleaners, wrong on aged-care workers and wrong on early childhood educators, they are wrong on this. They are wrong to have abolished the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

Yes, the union has pushed this. Members of the Transport Workers Union, including owner-driver members, have fought long and hard to improve safety on our roads, particularly for truck drivers, because that makes our roads safe for everyone. I have pages and pages of road accidents—including, very sadly, fatalities—involving trucks: families who have lost loved ones—mums, dads or children—families who have lost their livelihoods, and individuals who have sustained horrific injuries. Last year I met two women from the electorate of Forrest. One had lost her husband in a horrific truck accident, yet the government gave no thought to women like her who have lost their husbands. She is not bitter. She is not blaming the truck drivers, but she became a strong advocate for change, and I can imagine how disappointed and how incredibly sad she will be tonight when she hears that the Turnbull government has abolished the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Of her own volition, after attending the coronial inquest into her husband's death, she has become an activist—a leading advocate on the need for change and the need to make truck driving much safer, which will ultimately improve roads for everybody.

Women like her are what the Transport Workers Union is talking about when it talks about road safety. There is no doubt that the transport industry is highly competitive and, as in any highly competitive industry, everyone is pushing to cut corners and reduce costs. But the difference with the transport industry is that cutting corners and reducing costs leads to deaths, and that is what the Transport Workers Union wanted to fix. That is what Labor sought to do with the introduction of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. We put a tribunal in place that would finally take wages out of competition to set fair wages and make the industry viable for everyone into the future. But instead, tonight and last week, all the government did was to play politics with road safety.

Labor made it clear we were willing to sit down with the government and work through the issues—to hear from the Transport Workers Union, from owner-drivers and from employees to find a solution. But the government did not want to do that, because it is desperate for votes, and it played politics with this issue. There is no doubt about it: it played politics.

Debate interrupted.