Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight on adjournment to discuss the important issue of safe rates for the transport industry. The last couple of years have highlighted in particular just how important the transport industry and our nation's truck drivers are. Being a truck driver is a highly dangerous industry. In fact, road transport is Australia's deadliest industry. There are long hours and dangers of fatigue, weather and other road users acting inconsiderately or dangerously. But we owe it to those in the transport industry to do everything we can to keep them safe at work so that they can return home to their families after they deliver the goods we require. We owe it to the community to ensure their safety on the road as well. Safety on the roads is every road user's business.

This is why I was horrified when the previous government rolled back the independent body that ensured safe rates were paid in the industry. The government were warned at the time by drivers, by the Transport Workers Union, by employers and by Labor's members and senators how dangerous this move was and how it would negatively impact safety. Since that independent body was abolished there has been a total of 1,098 truck crash deaths, with 27 of those in my home state of Tasmania. That's just shocking. And the majority of these deaths are not the truck drivers themselves—this is what people need to understand—but other road users.

In August 2021 the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, chaired by former truckie Senator Sterle, handed down its report Without trucks Australia stops: the development of a viable, safe, sustainable and efficient road transport industry. Sadly, the former Liberal government didn't even bother to produce a response to that report. There have been another 169 truck crash deaths on Australia's roads since the release of that report. We're facing a very dangerous time in the road transport industry, and the power balance in the industry was completely upset by the removal of an independent rate setting body.

While many people think of the big freight companies when they think about trucking, the industry is largely made up of small players. The committee found:

Overwhelmingly, the industry's some 51000 businesses are numerically dominated by small businesses, 'of which 53 per cent are non-employing owner drivers and 45 per cent are small businesses with 19 or fewer employees'.

However, these small firms are being placed under ever-increasing pressure.

I met with employers, drivers and the Transport Workers Union when they in parliament last week, and I took great pleasure in signing yet again the safe rates pledge. On the weekend there was a truck convoy with drivers and their trucks outside this place standing up for safe rates and safety on our roads. While I was meeting with the drivers, the employers and the TWU I heard how the gig economy companies are undercutting the industry, paying drivers well below minimum rates and making road transport unsustainable and unsafe. Continual shrinking margins for transport companies and their employee drivers, owner drivers and small fleet operators increases the pressure on drivers to take risks to make up the difference. Drivers working in freight, construction and oil and gas face constant pressure to cut corners on safety and to drive to exhaustion. And what's the result? The result is an industry-wide race to the bottom that is crushing the sustainability of road transport. In these circumstances drivers are more likely to drive fatigued, cut back on safety and maintenance, overload or speed.

I thank the drivers, the union representatives and the industry representatives for meeting with me during the week of action at Parliament House. It's clear we urgently need to lift standards in road safety, and the industry-wide problems need an industry-wide solution. The Senate inquiry which brought together road transport's fractured players shows what is possible when the parliament works constructively with industry to achieve solutions. The Without trucks Australia stops final report's 10 recommendations are part of the solution. Central to the report's recommendations is the establishment of an independent industry led body to create enforceable and fair standards for all road transport workers. Regulations of this kind would stop the rampant undercutting in road transport in its tracks, creating an effective safety net across the industry to protect transport operators and workers.