Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The key to solving the industry's safety crisis is to look vertically through the transport supply chain and focus on the role of powerful and influential clients. That is why it is so important to bring industry, clients and the workforce together, through the union, to discuss this issue constructively.

Road safety is a major issue. It is a big issue particularly in country areas. Roads are the workplace of so many people in my electorate. Look at the tragic media reports of so many people who have lost their lives in road incidents involving truck drivers. The Calder Highway, unfortunately, has a number of black spots. Earlier this year, in March, a 33-year-old man was taken to hospital after a truck he was driving collided with a semitrailer. In Singleton, a couple in their 80s were killed in a crash after they collided head-on with a truck. In September 2012, a victim who was only 19 collided with a truck near Bendigo at Marong, an area that is increasingly populated with more and more homes. This creates a conflict between residential drivers and commercial truck drivers. An elderly woman died after her car collided with a truck just north of Bendigo; this woman died just near Elmore. These are some of the many tragic stories that feature in our newspapers too regularly and too often. This is why it is so important that there is action.

Our roads are workplaces for thousands of truck drivers and TWU members and, like all workers, they deserve the right to go home at the end of the day. That is why it is so important our government work with industry and its members. (Time expired)

See this speech in context