Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's been another day, and another trucking company has gone to the wall. Unfortunately yesterday another transport group went belly up—47 trucks. This is a pattern which is happening more and more, and these regional transport companies are doing it really, really tough. What has Labor done to respond to this? They've put in place a truckies tax, put in place high energy costs and slashed road and infrastructure funding. This is placing such a burden on our transport companies. At 10 past nine this morning I took a call from Peter Rodney. Peter has a trucking company in Wagga Wagga, in my hometown. It also has depots in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. He said:

Mate, I can see this country stopping unless someone in these government departments don't get off and keep people back to work or stop giving people money and get them to go to work to get their money.

Well, I can tell you. I'll make a prediction: over the next 10 years transport will be one third of what it is today.

And they just don't come to work or they apply for things and they just don't turn up.

They're filling out paperwork, so they can say "oh, we can go back to the government, we'll just get more money sitting around and doing nothing".

That sounds rather cynical, but, unfortunately, it's the truth. Mr Rodney wants to have more workload. His company is a doer. They've got 138 prime movers. They operate all over the eastern states, particularly. However, over the last 10 years they've continued to downsize, and that trend has been exacerbated in the last three years under the Labor government, unfortunately. In addition to reducing their fleet size because of staff shortages, they've had to reduce their customer base to ensure they're able to continue providing quality service delivery. The work within the sector exists, but staff do not. They've got so many trucks just backed up to the fence in their depots.

As I said, it's a situation that has occurred more and more over the past three years. Big Rigs, the trusted voice of the transport industry, had this to say on 1 May in the article 'Record insolvencies in transport sector, but there are lifelines':

Mounting financial pressure is pushing more Australian transport and logistics operators to the brink, as insolvencies in the sector accelerate, says a leading business recovery and insolvency firm.

Jirsch Sutherland said a combination of rising costs, labour shortages, regulatory burdens and falling asset values is driving more businesses to restructure or wind down.

The latest ASIC data reveals a sharp upward trend in insolvencies within Australia's transport, postal and warehousing sector. They rose from 196 in 2021-2022 to 347 in 2022-2023—

Bear in mind Labor took over in May 2022—

and 495 in 2023-2024—a 153 per cent increase in just two years.

As of April 6 this year, 535 insolvencies had already been recorded, representing a 173 per cent increase compared to 2021-2022 and putting the industry on track for another record year—

but that's not the record year they would like. Ian Hyman, the CEO of Hymans Valuers and Auctioneers, said:

Government regulation is getting worse: industry collective bargaining, unrestrained union behaviour, abolition of employee restraint clauses and a myriad of other government-related controls create roadblocks to efficient and well managed operations. It's all going to make life even harder—

particularly in regional Australia.

The nation stops without trucking, because trucks deliver all of the food and all of the goods. They are the lifeblood of our areas, particularly in regional Australia. When you take into account the road infrastructure funding cutbacks, the fuel prices and all of the things that are unfortunately being inflicted upon this sector, it doesn't bode well for the trucking industry or for regional Australia. You've got companies that are family owned and companies that have been generationally owned—they've been there for decades—going to the wall, and it's on Labor's watch. Something has to give. Peter Rodney wants more work, he wants more staff and he wants to see light at the end of the tunnel, but, unfortunately, all he sees is roadblocks that are being put there by the Labor government. Shame.

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