Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was speaking to this road safety remuneration legislation previously, I addressed some of the issues raised by the member for Flynn, who spoke before me. He is a Queenslander like me and he raised two major issues in his speech. He thought that, firstly, there was inadequate road funding by this government, particularly for Queensland, and, secondly, he cast doubt on and in fact denied the linkage between road safety and rates and remuneration in the road transport industry. I will deal with both of those in the context of this speech.

I took the opportunity during the break to get hold of the budget investing in regional Australia. This is not a document prepared by the Queensland branch of the ALP. This was actually prepared in relation to the budget and it is a document that he and any LNP members in Queensland can access and it is dated 10 May 2011. It makes the point that this government will invest $6 billion over 11 years, with $5.6 billion conditional on the passage of the MRRT legislation. The point I made to the member for Flynn was that this government has doubled the road funding and increased by 10 times the rail funding to $36 billion. Also, in my home state of Queensland we have doubled road, rail and port funding to $8.5 billion. That is an incredible increase compared to the previous government's record. We saw the manifestation of that with the opposition of those opposite to the Ipswich Motorway, linking Ipswich and Brisbane, across three elections, and now their LNP candidate in the state seat of Bundamba is saying that it is a waste of money to build the motorway.

While the member for Flynn talked about roads, I make the point that the member for Flynn, who was saying that we should increase road funding in Queensland, where he and I both live, actually voted against the road funding increase that we will provide with passage of the MRRT legislation. In fact, I had a look at what the 2011-12 budget committed funding for across a number of years and it is interesting to note that so many of those particular road projects are in Queensland—the Blacksoil Interchange in my electorate, supported by the Council of South-East Queensland Mayors but opposed by those opposite; the Townsville ring-road; the Peak Downs Highway; the upgraded intersection of the Bruce and Capricorn highways. Then I came across another one, the Gladstone Port Access Road, in the electorate of Flynn. I would like all those persons who might be listening to this to note that the member for Flynn did not support that and neither did any of his LNP comrades and colleagues who voted against that. The funding for the Mackay ring-road study—$9.5 million, in Queensland—and the Scone level crossing study—$1.8 million, in New South Wales—was brought forward in that budget as well.

Queensland will benefit to the tune of $2 billion in that regard under the regional infrastructure funding that we are providing as a result of the passage of the minerals resource rent tax. But those opposite, particularly LNP members, have voted against that particular funding for Queensland. All of the projects that I have listed are ones that the member for Flynn has voted against, and all his colleagues and comrades from the LNP in Queensland voted against them. They voted against every single one of those. So they should not come into this place and say that we should put more money into road, rail and ports and then sit over there and vote no again and again. Former US senator Robert Kennedy said that about 20 per cent of people would oppose everything all the time. The trouble with those opposite is that they oppose everything all the time—and they have opposed every single road funding project that I know of in South-East Queensland. Also, when it came to flood recovery—and we have rebuilt over 9,000 kilometres of the 10,000 kilometres of road that were affected in Queensland—they actually opposed the funding and the flood levy to help rebuild Queensland. So it is rank inconsistency, if not hypocrisy, for those opposite to ask us to spend more money on roads when they have opposed the very funding which will make a difference.

The second point I want to make is that the member for Flynn should consult with his colleague and comrade the member for Hinkler, who was actually the chair of a committee that looked into the issue of the linkages between safety and the rates and structure of remuneration in the road industry. I will give the title of the report and suggest that the member for Hinkler go and have a chat with the member for Flynn. The report was called Beyond the midnight oil: managing fatigue in transportand it was prepared by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts in 2000, 12 years ago. As I said, it was chaired by the Hon. Paul Neville, the member for Hinkler. Then there was the Quinlan inquiry in 2001 and there was the Mutual Responsibility for Road Safety case in 2006. We had the Wright-Quinlan inquiry in 2008, the National Transport Commission Review report in 2008 and the Safe Rates Advisory Group report in 2010. So if we have the experts all telling us the same thing and the many inquiries, coronial findings, reports and investigations across decades telling us there is a linkage between road safety issues and the rates and structure of remuneration in the transport industry, it beggars belief that those opposite should come into this place and say there is no linkage. Unsafe roads result in accidents, deaths and injury—and it is not to be sniffed at and sneezed at and laughed at and it is not to be belittled, because it is a tragedy. Three hundred and thirty Australians die every year in truck crashes in this country, 5,300 Australians are injured every year in truck crashes and the trucking fatality rate is 10 times the national fatality average by industry. Those truck related deaths and injuries are a cost to taxpayers of about $2.7 billion. This is a major issue.

I want to applaud the work done by Tony Sheldon of the Transport Workers Union of Australia, its Queensland state secretary, Peter Biagini, and all the people in the Queensland branch of the TWU because in a big state like Queensland this is a particularly important issue. There was a survey done by the TWU, conducted in 2011, and I think it is worth putting in Hansard its stark findings. Forty-eight per cent of drivers reported almost one day a week in unpaid waiting time, 56 per cent of owner-drivers had to forgo vehicle maintenance because of the economic pressure of the need to work to keep up with the high cost of repairs, 27 per cent of the people surveyed felt that they had to drive too fast, too quickly, and nearly 40 per cent felt pressured to drive longer than they were legally permitted to do so. Many said that came directly or indirectly from the person that was paying the remuneration and from the paying client.

So this is an important issue and we are morally bound to make our roads safer. It is the key to making sure that Australians are cared for. Road transport is really the responsibility of all of us. It is the responsibility not just of the industry but of all the states and territories, as well as the national government. This legislation is a world first and it is high time that we did this, and the fact that those opposite cannot bring themselves to support it is a shame and a tragedy and a disgrace. The bill will establish a new road safety remuneration tribunal. It is about safety and fairness in the industry. It will be empowered to make inquiries. It will be empowered to negotiate, mediate or conciliate. It will have the power to make determinations called road safety remuneration orders, which are in addition to any rights that people might have through collective agreements, through industrial instruments, through contracts of employment and, in the case of the self-employed, independent contracting arrangements. Those orders can be made by the tribunal on application or the tribunal can initiate the orders itself. It will be empowered to help resolve disputes in the industry among all those people involved—the drivers, the hirers, the participants—and, as I said, it can do it by mediation or conciliation or, indeed, by private arbitration if agreed between the parties. It will establish a compliance regime, and it will make a difference.

I think this is an important piece of legislation. Prior to the last redistribution in Queensland I had the privilege of representing the Lockyer Valley. I attended the Lights on the Hill memorial—a day when truck drivers came in their thousands, with their families, to Gatton to remember those people who were killed and those people who lost their loved ones, as well as the importance of road safety. I saw important people like Kathy White, who was one of the founders. I saw what this meant to those people, and I saw how important the trucking industry is. Each year they place on the walls the names of the drivers in the industry who have passed away. We take pride in this industry. This industry delivers its produce from the farming sectors of our economy to the markets, at places like Rocklea, and to the ports. It delivers not just food but also clothing to retail outlets. This industry involves sacrifices by men and women and by families who do not get to see their loved ones.

This legislation will make a difference. It is supported by all parts of the sector. And the only major political institutions, economic institutions and societal institutions that will not support this legislation are the coalition parties that sit opposite. I find it extraordinary that they will not listen to the sector and will not support the trucking families and partners—and the whole industry—in the way we need to through this legislation.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we are talking about the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill 2011. I have listened with interest to contributions from all sides of the parliament about the measures contained in these bills. It is interesting that what was presented to this parliament as a transport matter has now morphed its way into being an issue of concern for the employment minister. I think in some respects that highlights what is actually happening with this bill.

This legislation has been discussed in terms of its claimed contribution to road safety—to the care of motorists and families using Australia's roads and to the too-high work accident statistics relating to drivers of heavy vehicles. That is the starting position, but what sits behind that is a proposition to create a new tribunal that plonks itself fairly and squarely between truck drivers and their customers, and that includes independent contractors. There are even claims to have it extended to the courier industry and a range of other areas. So in effect it is becoming an award structure for a sector that really has not sought to have such a constraint on the way in which it does business and the way in which owner-drivers, in particular, offer their services and the terms they negotiate with their clients and customers.

But these bills seek to change that. The bills seek to create a road safety remuneration tribunal that will set rates under broad powers to investigate and establish those rates and conditions for any segment of the heavy vehicle industry. Under that broad distinction, this legislation covers road transport, the distribution industry, a number of long-distance operators, the cash-in-transit industry, the waste management industry, transport owner-drivers and independent contractors. And, as I mentioned, more recently there has been a push to get into the courier space. For those who are interested, this measure will not cover everyone in that space, but it aims to cover many—about 80 per cent of employee drivers and about 60 per cent of owner-operators—reflecting the reach of the corporations power under which this measure is being instigated and also the fact that it deals with interstate activities and does not seek to deal with intrastate activities. That is important, because intrastate transport arrangements already have, in a number of jurisdictions, something equivalent to a tribunal operating in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, as I understand it.

So we already have something happening at a state level. Now there is a proposition that started as a road safety measure and that has morphed into an employment issue, to apply to some of the traffic across Australian roads. It is interesting that this body will comprise industry members and members of Fair Work Australia but will actually have powers beyond those that Fair Work Australia has available to it. It will have the power to prepare a work plan with a view to making road safety remuneration orders, RSROs, and then setting those orders to deal with remuneration and related conditions. The tribunal can do that on its own initiative or when it is urged to do so by industry participants and industry associations. So this is a very powerful body. This is a body that injects itself into the commerce, the transactions and the supply of transport services between businesses and that seeks to say that it knows best—and it does so in the name of claiming to create safer roads and safer work conditions for drivers.

It is interesting to listen to members opposite. They seem to airbrush out any of the criticism of these bills—and there has been quite a lot of criticism. This is not, as the member for Blair characterised it, a measure that is 'universally endorsed'. That is quite far from the point. In fact, a number of concerns have been raised through the committee inquiry process that led the dissenting report to conclude that there is no compelling evidence, that no causal link has been established between this measure, the tribunal it seeks to establish, the powers that that tribunal would exercise and the consequences for road safety—either for other road users or for truck drivers in particular.

The coalition members on that committee, having heard and considered all of the evidence, said that they were unconvinced that safe rates will lead to an improvement in road safety outcomes. The coalition members, to their credit, pointed to and were fully supportive of the need for a multifaceted approach to reduce accident rates in the transport industry. It was interesting that the member for Blair in his contribution talked about road investment as an example whereby if the road infrastructure continues to be improved then we would hope to see improvements in road safety, and therefore significant reductions in fatalities of general road users and truck drivers in particular.

That evidence of a causal link that has been claimed and asserted over and over again is not available. It is not presented. In fact, many would say it is counterintuitive, because all of the powers that are available to make sure inappropriate demands are not placed on truck drivers are already there. There are mechanisms under state laws and, in some cases, federal laws to take action where drivers are forced to do things they should not do in the name of road safety that breach the constraints that are imposed on them that deal with safety requirements, antifatigue measures and rest measures, the pace at which their vehicles can travel and the duration of their driving sessions. Recently, we have seen some high-profile examples with Lennons Transport, and Scott's in South Australia, as evidence of the toolkit that is available now.

This legislation is really about implementing a Transport Workers Union agenda to impose their influence, their demands and their requirements on a sector where independent contractors and self-employed people are at present freer to negotiate the terms and conditions of the services they supply to their customers. This is about union control. This is about undermining independent contracting and self-employed as a legitimate business structure with responsibilities not only to their own business but to their customers and the requirements to uphold the legal obligations on them currently passed by state and federal law. That is what this bill is actually about.

If you look through the material that has been presented, you will see the hesitation from many substantial industry players in the way they have reacted to the unsubstantiated assertions that this legislation will improve road safety—for example, the submissions from the Australian Logistics Council and the Australian Industry Group. They pointed out that they do not believe there is a link between road safety remuneration rates, and it certainly has not been proven. A similar opinion was presented by the Independent Contractors Association and the National Road Transport Operators Association (NatRoad), as well as the Toll Group, who are quite active in this space.

It is right that the government can cherry-pick particular advocates who say this is a good thing and it is not surprising that some of those interests that are being drawn from to provide evidence that this will somehow be good for the industry have their own interests at heart. I have talked about the TWU and their interest is understandable. They want more union members, more control, more influence and more capacity to exercise power and to pursue their agenda within the sector. That is understandable and for a union that is quite a legitimate ambition. That does not mean it is good public policy. Some other, larger transport groups have been cited as being supportive of it.

It has been known for decades that some of the larger transport companies undertake discussions and negotiations with the TWU to get peace and tranquillity in their workforce on certain terms and conditions, only then to happily and, in some cases, actively see those same terms and conditions pushed throughout the sector so that they are at no commercial disadvantage but can benefit from the industrial peace that they have negotiated. One would argue that that is a cunning business strategy, but that does not mean it is good public policy. It pushes up cost structures. The argument being put is that it is about the remuneration available to truck drivers.

My friend and colleague the member for Flinders made the point about the increasing cost burden that will be imposed on this sector as a result of the carbon tax. There are great burdens on operating transport vehicles at a time when customers and, in some cases, big customers are disinclined to pay more for the service. That does not mean you set to one side the restrictions currently on transport operators. That does not mean you can all of a sudden ignore questions of fatigue, slotting of rest breaks or speed. They are not put to one side; they continue to be there. It is wrong of the government to just reject the link between the increased cost burdens that it is imposing on transport operators and come into this chamber and claim that this is somehow a remuneration issue without taking into account the impacts on the cost of operating these businesses.

There is also an issue about the independent contractor being able to offer his or her skills and services at a price that they are happy to negotiate with their customers. There is a legitimate concern within the sector with regard to this tribunal setting what it claims will be a minimum price. That will actually set a benchmark price and there will be no capacity for people to negotiate and offer other advantages for contracting with them because a new norm will be set, a new default payment rate—one that does not take account of those other measures that I talked about that have a direct and clear evidence based link with road safety and heavy vehicle use.

The other thing that is worth reflecting on is if there is a toolkit that ensures transport operators are not being forced, cajoled or encouraged to do things they should not do, and there is contractual relationship between them and their customer, I remain bewildered to this day why the government do not provide protections in relation to the contract itself. I have described a range of state and federal laws that apply that limit and guide behaviour and conduct to ensure heavy transport driving is safer. But in terms of the contract itself, the government continually refuse to pick up a policy that the coalition have been advocating—that is, extending the unfair contract terms protections. Such protections are available to consumers and we believe those protections should be extended to small business. If a small business is confronted with a 'take it or leave it' standard contract from a big customer who is completely disinclined to adjust or adapt, or hear from the small business about their concerns, then there is an avenue for redress through extending the unfair contract terms protections that are available for consumers

Why doesn't the government deal with that? If it claims there is an imbalance in the contractual relationship between a big business and an owner-driver, for instance, why not tackle that contractual relationship rather than contrive this area of injecting more union control into the commercial relationships between people in this country?

This also draws out the issue that, as I understand it, 50 per cent of all vehicle accidents involving heavy transport vehicles are the fault of someone else, so you can see how spurious that argument is when you look at the crash record. As you look at what is happening across the country and at the statistics dealing with heavy transport accidents, bear in mind that there are at least three jurisdictions that have something that looks like, sounds like, walks like and squawks like this tribunal. If that is the answer, why are we seeing some of the trends we are seeing in heavy vehicle accidents? Why are we also not dealing with the simple fact that half of all those heavy vehicle accidents are not caused or instigated by the heavy vehicle driver but by someone else?

These are the facts. The idea being asserted here is that this will make our roads safer, yet no conclusive evidence has been presented to back up that case. There are other remedies available to address the mischief, the problems and the issues that the bill seeks to address, but those other remedies do not empower the Transport Workers Union and the union movement more generally to inject themselves further into the Australian economy. Those other remedies do not have the problem of undermining a legitimate business model, that being an independent contractor or a self-employed owner-driver, a very important part of the small business community which has faced hostility at every turn from this government despite assurances from the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Mr Shorten, when he was Assistant Treasurer, that the government would take no action to make life more difficult for independent contractors. This measure does. It is another broken promise and it is something that goes against the assurances that have been given.

Finally, when we are talking about making our roads safer, that is an ambition we all share. But, as the coalition pointed out, not only for those using roads and those drivers and the families of people who want to see loved ones come home, a multifaceted approach is required to reduce the accident rate, not some sham tribunal that injects unionism— (Time expired)

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill 2011. I do so as the parliamentary secretary who has responsibility for the Gillard government's road safety initiatives.

Every year, some 1,300 Australians are dying on our roads. Every year, some 30,000 people are hospitalised as a result of road trauma. And, whilst we are seeing a reduction in the number of fatalities on our roads, we are actually seeing an increase in the number of those who are seriously injured. We have the balance right in terms of getting the road toll down, but we are certainly seeing a large increase in serious injuries. Every day, around 90 Australians have their lives drastically changed by a serious injury sustained in a crash. I have repeated these figures many, many times.

The statistics for heavy vehicles are no more comforting. During the last 12 months, there were over 200 deaths across Australia involving trucks; almost 50 deaths involving trucks in my home state of Victoria. Heavy vehicles make up around three per cent of the total vehicle fleet, yet they are involved in almost 20 per cent of all road fatalities. Members in this House should understand that heavy vehicles are over-represented in crashes on our roads, something that those opposite should think long and hard about when they are voting on these bills. I also acknowledge the fact that many of these truck crashes do not just involve the truck driver but result in other drivers, pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists being killed.

These statistics paint a very grim picture, one that the Gillard government is continuing to address. Although the latest road death statistics show that the numbers are continuing to fall, the Australian government is continuing to look at new ways to get the number of these fatalities down. I have no doubt that the majority of members and senators have been affected by the impacts of road trauma. Road trauma takes a very heavy toll on every state and territory, every city and every rural town across every corner of this country.

The Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 being debated today highlights the Australian government's ongoing commitment to tackling road safety. With this bill we seek to remove incentives for drivers to drive unsafely. This new road safety remuneration system aims to remove those financial incentives that see truck drivers driving while tired or speeding in order not to lose money. Excessive speed is a major contributing factor in around 15 per cent of truck crashes, and fatigue is a major contributing factor in 14 per cent of truck crashes, and that cannot be ignored. Speed and fatigue take a huge toll on our roads.

Without action and with a growing road transport industry, the number of road crashes involving trucks will continue to rise. Over the last decade, the number of kilometres travelled by commercial heavy vehicles increased by more than 20 per cent. There are more truck drivers on the road, driving longer hours and longer distances with even tighter deadlines.

This bill establishes a new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which aims to promote safety and fairness across our road system. With this bill we will see a system where truck drivers are paid more fairly and where truck drivers are not encouraged to speed or drive when tired to simply cover their costs. This tribunal is set to take a good look at the practices that exist within our road transport system and, where necessary, determine minimum pay rates and conditions for drivers. The tribunal will consist of experts across the road transport industry, along with members of Fair Work Australia.

If this tribunal finds that there are specific issues within the industry, it will make a determination to tackle these issues. These determinations will be known as road safety remuneration orders and will complement existing workplace rights.

Of significant importance is the fact that the bill allows for the tribunal to resolve disputes between drivers and their hirers or employers, along with others involved in the supply chain. This will be done through mediation, conciliation or private arbitration.

This tribunal will be looking for issues giving rise to incentives for unsafe road transport practices. The tribunal is also equipped to make safe remuneration approvals in relation to remuneration and related conditions in a road transport collective agreement. We have extended enforcement powers to the Fair Work Ombudsman to ensure that road safety remuneration orders, safe remuneration approvals and other determinations made by the tribunal are met.

The establishment of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal complements the hard work of my parliamentary colleague Minister Albanese over recent years with the establishment of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, which will become operational on 1 January next year.

The bill is one of a number of ways in which the Australian government is acting to address road trauma. Last May, other transport ministers endorsed the National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020. The strategy aims to cut the road toll by at least 30 per cent by 2020. It is not just the Australian government's plan to reduce road trauma but the plan of every jurisdiction across the country. The Australian government believes death and serious injury should not be accepted as an inevitable cost of road travel. This strategy is based on the Safe System approach—safe roads, safe speeds, safe vehicles and safe people. The Australian government has already tackled some of the actions outlined in the strategy. Last year I announced a new Australian government fleet purchasing policy which mandates that all light passenger vehicles purchased by the Australian government must have a five-star ANCAP safety rating from 1 July 2011. Having safer vehicles on our roads is a vital first step.

The National Road Safety Strategy looks at a broad range of steps to reduce our road toll. Many of these steps seek to reduce the number of road crashes involving heavy vehicles and complement the measures in this bill. Some of those steps include the implementation of antilock braking systems and load proportioning brake systems for heavy vehicles; considering increasing heavy vehicle cabin strength; electronic stability control and lane departure warning systems for heavy vehicles; increasing the effective application of chain of responsibility legislation to prosecute heavy vehicle speeding offences; and harmonising legislation to assist cross-border enforcement.

Governments are also looking to improve driver licensing arrangements for heavy vehicle drivers, including options for the adoption of competency based standards. Governments have agreed to look at other measures to improve fatigue management in the future such as the development of telematics as a regulatory tool for heavy vehicle speeding and electronic work diaries instead of paper based diaries for truck drivers.

Other initiatives already acted upon by this government include the investment of more money in road infrastructure than under any other government in our history. We have doubled the roads budget to a record $28 billion over six years—the greatest investment in the nation's highways and roads since the creation of the national highway network. This has included building more truck stops and rest areas. Under the Gillard Labor government's $70 million Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program we have already seen the delivery of 34 new and 59 refurbished rest stops; nine new and 18 refurbished parking areas; five new and 16 refurbished decoupling bays; 15 bridge strengthening projects, and 14 warning sign projects. This is the first ever federal program dedicated to rectifying the unacceptable lack of safe, modern roadside facilities along the nation's highways.

In our time in office we have also seen more funding for black spots and more funding for Roads to Recovery—fixing many country roads that more and more trucks are travelling on. And there is more money in national highway investment like the duplication of the Western Highway from Ballarat to Stawell, which is notorious for heavy vehicle trauma. All of these things demonstrate the government's commitment to road safety.

The Australian government is also contributing to international efforts on road safety. Last year in Parliament House, I and my parliamentary colleague the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs officially launched the Decade of Action for Road Safety. With this launch we announced that the government will provide $6.2 million to the World Bank's Global Road Safety Facility to improve road safety across the world. The Australian government was one of the co-sponsors of the resolution proclaiming the Decade of Action for Road Safety by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010. We will continue working with our international counterparts to address road safety issues over the coming decade.

This bill is yet another step in the Australian government's determination to bring down the toll on our nation's roads. It is unacceptable that, while only three per cent of our nation's vehicle fleet are heavy vehicles, heavy vehicles are involved in 20 per cent of road deaths. It is unacceptable that over 200 deaths each year are the result of crashes involving heavy vehicles—with speed or fatigue being a major factor in a large proportion of these.

The government are putting measures in place to deal with these issues. We have agreed to a new National Road Safety Strategy, we are a co-sponsor of and contributor to the Decade of Action for Road Safety, and we have taken the lead in the establishment of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator. And now, with this bill, we are establishing the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Members have a decision with this bill—to either support the implementation of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal to improve the level of safety in our road system or do nothing. The Gillard government are acting on this issue because we must.

I thank my parliamentary colleagues who have put so much work into this bill and into the work behind it over previous years. I also recognise the many road user groups, unions and industry leaders who have taken the time to work through this reform with government. Members on this side are supporting this bill and the related bill because we know that we must act to improve safety on our roads. I appeal to those opposite to do the same. I appeal in particular to those National Party members in this House—the members for the electorates of Riverina, Parkes, Gippsland, Dawson, Cowper and Wide Bay. The number of fatalities involving heavy vehicles is greatest in your electorates. More people die in crashes involving heavy vehicles in your electorates than any others. Your leader has said that if he could pass a law that could deliver safer roads then he would do it. That is exactly what these bills do and they should be supported. I commend the bills to the House.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I strongly oppose the Road Safety Remuneration Bill. It is a veiled attempt by the Labor Party to give more power to its union mates; it is an attempt cloaked in a pretend effort to improve safety for Australians on the roads. It is typical of the modern Labor Party and how low and contemptible they have become that they would use the deaths of people on roads, the wives and husbands and families of people who have died on roads, as part of a political campaign to increase the power and reach of trade unions in this country, with all the benefits that has for the Australian Labor Party. It is one of the worst pieces of legislation we are likely to see from the Labor Party in this parliament, which is saying something.

We heard the Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Transport and member for Ballarat using all those catchcry Labor words such as 'safe' and 'fair', suggesting that if you are opposed to this legislation then you are for cancer. It is the typical Labor way—you cannot oppose anything that they put 'safe' or 'fair' in front of because when they do that they are automatically morally superior to anyone else in this place who argues that legislation is bad and is not going to achieve anything it has set out to do. There is not once skerrick of proof in the bill or the supporting evidence or the submissions to any of the inquiries that paying someone more will increase the safety of people on the roads.

How do we know that this is a power grab for the trade union movement? Because the legislation has been given to the minister for trade union mates. It started with the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. If it was a genuine attempt at road safety, you would say that would be a reasonable ministry to be looking after this bill

But then, very shortly after, just before the bill appeared in the House, it was handed to the new minister for union power and mates. The new minister for union power and mates will use lots of words and talk about how he is the worker's friend, how this is all about ensuring that the worker is protected and how Australian roads are being made safer for the public. But, as so often with the modern Australian Labor Party, this bill is really about protecting the vested interests they stand for in this place. They do not stand for the Australian worker; they stand for vested interests. They are about ensuring that they continue to get political benefit out of the workers who pay their union fees.

How do we know that? We need look no further than the member for Dobell and what he did with a corporate credit card from the trade union movement. The HSU represents workers who push trolleys around hospitals. Those workers pay their levies to ensure they have some industrial protection. Instead, expenses of over $100,000 were incurred in very questionable ways—details of which have yet to be revealed by an investigation which seems to be taking as long as the Second World War. This is the modern Labor Party and what they stand for. They are all about vested interests. Here is the member for Throsby—another one who stands for vested interests.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker: I understand that leniency is often given in debates on legislation, but how can this, by any stretch, be relevant to the legislation before the House?

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will continue to listen closely to the member for Mayo's contribution.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Throsby is certainly irrelevant. There is no doubt about that. This bill is irrelevant to the safety of Australians on the roads. This bill is not about the safety of Australians on the roads; this bill is about dragging independent contractors—small business people, entrepreneurs—into the employment net so that these people opposite can drag them into union membership and increase the amount they can get out of contributions. It is a revolving slush fund. That is what this bill is about.

There is no evidence at all, anywhere, that this bill is about increasing the safety of Australians on the roads. All we have heard from those opposite is rhetoric—that this is about safety and fairness. One question this legislation raises is: why do we need a separate set of employment arrangements outside of the Fair Work Act? If the Fair Work Act is so good and is working so well, why do we need another law? We have heard for years, ever since the Howard government pursued very sound reforms to address the thuggery and intimidation which went on for so long in the building industry, that we did not need two laws—we only needed one set of industrial laws in this country. But now, somehow, we need two sets of laws. We need another set of laws for the transport industry to address safety. If the Fair Work Act is such a failure, why not just amend it?

There is a perverse aspect of this bill and its relationship with the Fair Work Act. If a truck company is appropriately paying its workers under the relevant award but this new body finds the truck company should be paying more, that implies that the Fair Work provisions have led to the workers being underpaid—by the Labor Party's own law. By the Labor Party's own standard, this is a farce. It is a farce because this bill is not about safety; it is about union power. It is about giving Mr Sheldon and his mates at the TWU access to more people. With more people on the books, you have more people to pay contributions and more people to pay for the union credit cards—and we have seen what they pay for.

The way the lowest paid workers in our society have been represented and treated is a disgrace. Those opposite are about vested interests. They are not about higher wages. They are not about a high road for Australian workers. They are about looking after their mates and looking after the vested interests. They cloak it in spin. They cloak it in the spin of safety and they cloak it in the spin of fairness.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the member for Mayo should confine himself to the legislation.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly am speaking about the legislation, Madam Deputy Speaker. To bring people who have lost loved ones on the roads into the galleries of this parliament and use them in a political campaign is low-rent at best. There is not a word about safety in this document. There is not a word about the link between high pay and safer roads. We know—and the coalition has pursued this for many years—that, to increase safety on roads, you need to increase infrastructure funding to improve the Australian road network. That is an ongoing task and it is something I agree with members opposite about. It is an ongoing task, particularly in rural areas where large transport firms operate more regularly. In fact there have been, sadly, many terrible road deaths in my own electorate on the freeway which connects Melbourne with Adelaide—not all of them have involved heavy transport, but many of them have. It is an ongoing battle. It is an ongoing issue which needs to be given a lot of attention—and, I must say, state governments across the country have given it a lot of attention. There remain many roads, however, which need to be improved and there are additional measures we can look at to improve road safety. Shifting more freight off roads and onto rail is a good idea. It is something we should be pursuing and giving consideration to.

But this bill is not about that. This bill is about attacking entrepreneurs in our society—those who seek to become small businesses and not employees. We know the Labor Party have never liked independent contractors. They voted against the legislation in the mid-2000s which defined independent contractors and gave them their own set of laws. This bill is about is dragging those people into the employment net so they are accessible for union membership. We saw Mr Sheldon and his mates last year in the Qantas dispute; we saw their behaviour in relation to a great Australian company. They went on TV day after day bringing industrial mayhem down on that company, trying to drag it down. They will run around and sign these people up, not to increase their safety—no, no, no—but to increase the numbers and the power within the Australian Labor Party. That is what this bill is actually all about. We know of no better example of that—no further proof is needed—than the transfer of this bill from the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport to the 'minister for big union mates'. That is what happened the week before this bill was introduced into the parliament. That is exactly what has been sought—

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In addition to your admonition of the honourable member before, which he has ignored, he is also required to refer to honourable members by their correct title.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is correct. Thank you. I am sure the member for Mayo will continue to adhere to the standing orders.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has had a difficult couple of weeks and that he has been kept in the portfolio—

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mayo will continue with the debate.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This legislation, in addition to being just another attempt at—

Mr Bowen interjecting—

You are indeed on the frontbench, minister. You are in a portfolio that we all know you love so much. You are very happy with what you are doing in that portfolio. Madam Deputy Speaker, I have been diverted and I apologise for taking the interjection. This bill will continue to add to the red tape burden that this government is so readily engaged in across so many areas. It is an attempt by the government to undermine its own Fair Work Act, as I have already discussed, and it is adding another area of regulation to the employment relationship, which presumably the Fair Work Act was about fixing. We heard much from the Prime Minister, when she was the Minister for Workplace Relations, about how it was such great legislation and about how it was a return to fairness—that word again—in the country. Of course, it is so good that the government needs a separate jurisdiction to deal with the issue before us.

We also know that not everyone supports this legislation. Many in the road transport industry are raising genuine concerns about it. They are similar concerns to what I have raised, which is that this legislation is not about safety, it is about union power. We also know that Anna Bligh and the Labor government in Queensland do not support it. How do we know that? They put in a submission to the House of Representatives inquiry into this legislation a few weeks ago, just prior to the Queensland election being called. The Queensland Labor government does not support it. The road industry does not support it. Who does support it? Aha! The TWU. And that, of course, is what this is all about. This legislation is not about the sad circumstances that thousands of families across Australia are subjected to with the loss of their loved ones. It would be an awful experience to lose a loved one in any sort of accident. But to use these people as part of a political campaign says it all, I think, about where the modern Labor Party is at. This bill should be opposed because it is not about safety; it is not about fairness. It is about this government's vested interests. It is about what always drives this government. The government is not about higher wages in the future. It is not about creating circumstances for people to get on with their own economic freedom and to create the chances they want to take. The government is about looking after the vested interests of its chosen few, its A-class workers, its shareholders. This is exactly what this bill is about.

This legislation is a payment for the years and years of union support with funding, donations and numbers at ALP conferences; it is to ensure that the government continues to get that support. To use people's misery and deaths to do so is a disgrace, and it is the reason that this bill should be opposed. It will not help those people. It will not ensure that Australians are safer on the roads. All it will do is empower the government's union mates even further. It is a terrible piece of legislation. I urge the government to withdraw it. I urge the parliament to oppose it.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not surprising that the member for Mayo is opposing this bill. As he mentioned previously in his contribution, he is against fairness for building workers and he is against fairness for truck drivers. Indeed, we know that he is one of the champions of Work Choices. So, in fact, one could say that he is against fairness for working people. We do know that Tony Abbott is desperately trying to bury Work Choices. He says it is dead, but the member for Mayo is one of the people who is desperately trying to resurrect it, giving it mouth-to-mouth and getting it back out there so that Work Choices will be reintroduced and the unfairness associated with that legislation will be brought on all people. It is not surprising that once again the Liberal Party is rejecting fairness for working people around this country. So, for very good reasons, I urge the opposition to support this important piece of legislation.

Unlike the member for Mayo, I am very, very pleased to rise today to support the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011. I think it is incredibly important that we try and remove the economic incentive that encourages truck drivers to be involved in unsafe work practices on our roads. Safety on our roads is not just the transport industry's business; it is everybody's interest. The workplace health and safety standards for truck drivers are not, as I said, just the industry's business. When we see collisions on our roads between trucks and other road users, more often than not it is a family car that receives the brunt of the force of that collision. Needless to say, the majority of injuries and fatalities are sustained by the passengers in those cars. Everyone in this House agrees that any death on our road is an absolute tragedy. So it is important that the opposition gets behind this bill to ensure that the number of deaths that have occurred in recent years does not continue.

We know, from studies, that over 250 people on average lose their lives and that over 1,000 people suffer serious injuries as a result of accidents involving trucks on our roads. Truck drivers should not have to accept speeding, overloading their trucks, driving excessive hours or cutting back on vehicle maintenance as part of their job description. The abundance of unsafe work practices and workplace health and safety breaches are part of the transport industry culture and pose serious risks to drivers' safety and to the safety of everyone else. We cannot simply sit idly by and watch the number of road fatalities trickle through the Australian Bureau of Statistics data each year without ensuring that we are doing everything possible to prevent these accidents from happening.

This side of the House is committed to improving work practices in the transport industry and to reducing the cost in lives that is currently so sadly occurring. It has taken a Labor government to take this issue seriously. It is this Labor government that is committed to improving safety outcomes for truck drivers while also ensuring the long-term viability of the road transport industry

Through the National Road Strategy 2011-20 we are focused on addressing problem areas such as speeding, fatigue and dangerous work practices in the trucking industry. Part of that is through setting up the new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which this legislation introduces.

Australian truck drivers work hard to make a living, and the government wants to support measures that ensure pay and related conditions encourage them to drive safely, manage their hours and maintain their vehicles. We have begun improving working conditions for truck drivers through the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, which we set up to improve safety and productivity outcomes for the heavy vehicle industry through funding projects over the last four years. That funding has gone towards projects for rest areas, parking and decoupling bays, enhancing roads and technology trials. It is the first Commonwealth program dedicated to this kind of reform, but we recognise that there is more work to be done.

It is this Labor government that has continued to push the agenda for road safety through the implementation of further measures that will improve driver working conditions and reduce the number of deaths and injuries we see each year. It is this government that is committed to getting to the crux of the issue by focusing on the causes of incidents involving road transport vehicles that see thousands of innocent Australians caught in the crossfire.

The government recognises the good work of the Transport Workers Union. We heard the member for Mayo make comments about this, but the Transport Workers Union does stand up for its workers and it does a very good job. I commend its longstanding safe rates campaign, which called for improvement to transport industry rates of pay and driving practices to improve safety for all people on the road. That led to the 2008 report from the National Transport Commission, which examined payment methods and the impact they had on safety, and the chain of responsibility obligations that could be applied in developing legislation.

It is interesting to hear the opposition continue to say that there is no evidence to link rates of pay and economic incentives with work health and safety practices on our roads. I urge the opposition to have a look at some of the evidence. The Transport Commission review did find a link between rates of pay and safety outcomes for truck drivers. If the rate of pay is not substantial enough it creates an incentive for truck drivers to drive longer for more pay, which means factors like speeding, fatigue and the use of illicit substances, as well as other unsafe practices, come into play.

In response to the National Transport Commission's report, the minister consulted with industry stakeholders and developed models for possible reform in the industry, building on the recommendations in the NTC report. As part of the process, a Safe Rates Advisory Group was established by the government to provide expert industry advice on policy options for national reform. The Safe Rates Advisory Group then developed a directions paper and made recommendations that a tribunal be established to deal with safety and pay issues for both employee and owner drivers, as set out in the National Transport Commission's review.

So, unlike what the opposition would have us believe, this legislation has been through extensive consultation and review. We now have before us a good piece of legislation. While those on the other side continue to do what they do best—say 'no'—we are working with stakeholders to look at better outcomes. Once again, I urge the opposition to get on board with this and not just say no.

The bills before the House seek to complement existing legislation to promote safety and fairness in the road transport industry so that truck drivers are paid reasonably for the work they do and to remove any economic incentives for drivers to take unacceptable risks on our roads. The introduction of the legislation will fulfil the recommendations made by the Safe Rates Advisory Group in its directions paper, which say clearly that the economic incentives for truck drivers to practise poor workplace health and safety need to be broken.

The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal will work by looking into sectors, issues and practices within the road transport industry and, where appropriate, determine mandatory minimum rates of pay and related conditions for employed and self-employed drivers. If the tribunal determines that a sector of the industry has poor safety outcomes as a result of low remuneration, the tribunal will be able to make a road safety remuneration order to improve on-road safety outcomes for drivers operating in that sector. In addition, the tribunal will be empowered to grant safe remuneration approvals in relation to the remuneration and remuneration related conditions contained in a road transport collective agreement between a hirer and self-employed or independent contractor drivers with whom the hirer proposes to contract.

Other functions of the bill will be to empower the tribunal to resolve disputes between drivers, their hirers or employers and participants in the road transport industry supply chain by mediation, conciliation or private arbitration, and to establish a compliance regime for the enforcement of orders, safe remuneration approvals and any orders arising out of the arbitration of a dispute.

This is an important piece of legislation, which a lot of my constituents have very much welcomed. In my electorate there are a lot of truck drivers and independent contractors and other people who have recognised that they have to work around the clock to ensure they get the pay to make ends meet. They work longer and longer hours, and often do not have the time to look after their equipment or have the time they need in a whole range of areas that they have identified are important. In fact, Daniel, a driver in my electorate, said to me that he believes this bill will definitely stop fatalities and draw into the industry people who want to drive, because there is more money in it. This point—that we need to ensure that people are getting paid appropriately and are not taking risks—is an important one.

We have seen today that the opposition is again saying no to another sensible bill on which there has been consultation and work with stakeholders. The opposition seems to deny that there is a link between remuneration and the improvement of safety on our roads. This is despite evidence to the contrary; reports looking at the economic incentives have been coming out regularly. Of course the opposition would not want facts in any debate. It does not want facts, it does not want information, it does not want studies and it does not want consultation. All it wants to do is say no. It just wants to leave the existing systems in place.

I heard the member for Mayo talk about infrastructure and I have to say that I was quite surprised by him saying that he supports increasing money in infrastructure, because while the opposition were in government they spent years neglecting our infrastructure right around this country. I know in my own electorate it took an election of a Labor government to start investing in infrastructure. It is interesting that their argument is, 'Don't do anything about this; just put more money in infrastructure,' when it was not their track record to put any money into infrastructure. It has actually been this government that has. I take it from the member for Mayo that he is actually applauding us in that endeavour, and I hope he does support us in the future. I know the opposition did not agree with Infrastructure Australia. That was obviously an important body that was, once again, all about economic infrastructure and investment in infrastructure after consultation. Hopefully, this is a sign from the member for Mayo that he is going to get on board with our infrastructure spending. This might mean that he will support our mining tax as well. Obviously that is important in raising funds for good economic infrastructure. I am not sure, but maybe he was flagging that.

Certainly we are not going to just stand by and allow road fatalities to continue happening. I am not under any illusion that this bill will remove all fatalities from our roads. This is always going to be a fact of life in Australia. But we should not leave any stone unturned. We should ensure that we are doing everything possible to make sure we do not have any deaths that could have been prevented. This is a very important piece of legislation. As I said, it has been through significant consultation. It has gone through a commission. It has gone through a working group. It has gone through discussions with stakeholders and a whole range of people. We are now in a position to implement it. Once again, I call on the opposition to put their obstructionist politicking aside and actually get on board and say yes to something. This would be a very important piece of legislation to say yes to.

In conclusion, improving road safety and workplace health and safety is a responsibility of those elected to parliament and we should not shirk away from it. We often hear people in the opposition talk about health and safety as perhaps not something that this House should be focusing on. I note that certainly when it comes to the harmonisation of health and safety we see scare campaigns put up by the opposition saying, 'Volunteers will be going to jail now.' That was in an actual letter that was sent out to my constituents. This opposition will go so far. Of course, that is not true. Volunteers will not be subject to onerous responsibilities under the health and safety legislation but, once again, this opposition does not stop at running these scare campaigns. But we on this side of the House think it is important to have a safe and healthy workplace. We do not believe that anyone, any worker in this country, does not deserve to go to work and be safe and come home alive and uninjured. Establishing this tribunal is an important step to ensure that there are safe working conditions for our truckies. It will not only protect our truck drivers but also serve to protect every road user. Once again, I call on the opposition to support this legislation. I commend the bills to the House.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill 2011. These bills before the House will create the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which will have a variety of powers in regard to the road transport industry, including road transport and distribution industries, long distance operations, the cash-in-transit industry, the waste management industry and other road transport drivers, including independent contractors. I note that this is a rather broad definition, capturing both employees and independent contractors in industries that were not contemplated during the consultation period. The bills before the House will cover all employed and self-employed drivers who operate in the road transport industry and will establish a new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal with the power to inquire into sectors, issues and practices within the road transport industry. The tribunal will also be given broad powers to set pay rates and conditions for sectors within the road transport industry.

The coalition is dedicated to ensuring that roads are safer for all Australians, from local residents to freight drivers. The Howard government introduced a variety of programs to provide safer road networks, such as AusLink, the first ever national transport plan and the Roads to Recovery program. It is interesting to note that the Roads to Recovery program was first scheduled to expire in 2005 but was extended due to its success. It is great to see that it is still going strong today, with funding allocations planned for up to 2013-14.

When we look at the bills before us, however, we see there are several issues of concern. The government has introduced this legislation to address concerns regarding the road safety transport bill. However, when we look at the provisions it is apparent that there is much more of a focus on industrial relations. The legislation has come about based on the assumption that there is a link between pay rates and road safety outcomes, and this is an issue of contention.

Before I discuss this very important issue, there are three other issues that are of concern as well, namely that the legislation adds another layer of red tape to the heavy vehicle industry, removes the independence of independent contractors and overlaps with other legislation which is currently in force or being developed. I will address each of these issues in further detail. Firstly, with respect to the issue of the extra layer of red tape imposed by this bill, red tape is always a blight on any industry or business. We therefore must move to reduce as much of it as possible, wherever it is possible to do so and not create any more. In relation to the heavy vehicle industry we must make it a priority to put appropriate regulations in place to ensure safety on our roads but these should not be onerous. It is only fair to note that the industry has developed its own codes of conduct, providing an operational framework for organisations to assist in regulating the actions of road transport drivers.

There are currently many regulations and pieces of legislation that the heavy vehicle industry is subjected to at a national and at a state level. To name just some of these, there is the independent contractor legislation, the workplace health and safety legislation and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, NHVR, which is due to commence on 1 January next year. When the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator commences, it will standardise several previously conflicting legislative requirements. Successive governments have spent a great deal of time and effort to develop this regulator, with significant consultation and negotiation taking place. The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator will make companies directly responsible for the behaviour of their drivers when such behaviour is deemed unsafe. This will be done through the national chain of responsibility provisions.

The NHVR is just one example of regulation that covers the industry. However, this bill will add more bureaucracy and therefore more red tape. The heavy vehicle industry will therefore be less flexible because of this bill, with efficiency gains also likely to be limited. There may also be the stifling of innovation, with the advent of road safety remuneration orders to reflect the standards in force at a particular time, whereas the current provisions allow for adaptability and flexibility.

Secondly, the bill will most likely erode the position of independent contractors as independent contractors, who are currently outside the jurisdiction of the Fair Work Act. They will also now be covered by this legislation. A new class of employment relationship will be created that is neither employer-employee nor a hirer-independent contractor. This will in effect reduce the autonomy of owner-drivers by removing their independence and will leave independent contractors in the road transport industry being treated differently to those independent contractors in other industries. Unfortunately, there are a small number of dangerous drivers who already break existing laws. However, this is being used as reason to make owner-drivers become subject to this legislation's provisions, which are similar in nature to those in the Fair Work Act. This point has also been put by the Independent contractors' association.

I said earlier that I had concerns about the government's assumptions that there is a link between remuneration and road safety outcomes, and that this bill will improve road safety. In their submissions to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications, the Australian Industry Group made it clear that it had those same concerns. Along with the Australian Logistics Council, AiG does not believe there is definitive proof that there is a link between road safety and remuneration rates. There is a significant body of evidence to support the statement that excessive speed is the major cause of many road accidents. It clearly is not the only issue. Road design and condition, driver skill level, vehicle condition including maintenance, as well as drugs and alcohol can all be contributing factors to an accident.

In its submission AiG suggested that a variety of in-vehicle safety technologies can assist with the management of driving behaviours, which cause accidents, such as speeding. Measures such as compliance with speed limiter regulations along with vehicle monitoring systems that utilise telematics may also assist with improved road safety outcomes. AiG summarised this issue by stating:

Improvements in safety will only be achieved if safety hazards are appropriately identified, controlled and, where possible, eliminated.

I also add that there have been concerns in regard to the scope of the tribunal's orders. The tribunal can make an order with respect to a person in the supply chain, as well as to remuneration and other related conditions. The Civil Contractors Federation has said that civil contractors under this bill may incur a responsibility to a third party whom they do not directly hire or over whom they have no direct control. Of course, this is a huge concern.

You have only to look at the number of heavy vehicles going up and down the M1 in my electorate of McPherson to realise the key role the road transport industry has in maintaining other industries and businesses across Australia. Thousands of people travel this stretch of road daily, including heavy vehicles. But at numerous locations the M1 can resemble a car park due to the heavy congestion. Further, it can be quite dangerous for both residential and business users, who are forced to compete in the frequent traffic deadlock.

Although the government claims that remuneration can solve the issue of road safety in the industry, one has only to look at the M1 to see that the solution is more difficult than the government suggests. We need to provide a multifaceted approach that takes into account the many factors that may contribute to safety concerns. Firstly, we need to provide proper transport infrastructure for road users.

A few weeks ago I wrote to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport to ask him to do just that in my electorate. I have asked him to provide information on the status of the M1 upgrade between Nerang and Tugun, the time frame for the approval of the project proposal report and when the works are expected to begin and be completed. Also, I have asked for the time frames for any further upgrades through to Tugun. I have now received a response advising that the upgrade of the M1 from Worongary to Mudgeeraba has been approved, with construction anticipated to commence later this year and to take about 18 months to complete. By the time this part of the upgrade is complete, it will be early to mid 2014, some seven years after the money to upgrade the section of the M1 from Nerang to Tugun was committed. That is about half of the section of road that was committed for the upgrade, so it is a long time. Until that time, we on the Gold Coast will continue to experience extensive delays. Those delays push people that should be using the M1 off onto residential areas, which can contribute to significant road safety issues in that part of the road and in the community.

Secondly, we need to look into implementing education and awareness programs for road transport drivers, as well as implementing new technologies in the industry. Any decent safety scheme provides for some form of education and awareness, and this should be obvious, not an option. Further, advances in technology provide today's businesses and industries with avenues that were not available to previous generations. If we can harness those technologies in the road transport industry, it will be for the better.

Before concluding, I do wish to voice my discontent that I speak before we have had proper consideration of this legislation. I believe that there should be further consultation and the community should be very widely involved. I am concerned that Labor is trying to push these changes through before the community in particular has had the opportunity to properly consider their implications and before due consideration has been given to the industry and to the very many concerns that they have with this bill.

I believe that this is nothing more than a thinly disguised wages claim. The Gillard government and the TWU are making this wages claim by making the very loose connection between remuneration and road safety. This is an assumption that is yet to be definitively proven. I share AiG's argument that if we are to improve road safety there must be a holistic approach by government. To improve road safety, we must focus on having better roads, on implementing education and awareness programs and on looking at ways to use new technologies to improve road safety. Increasing remuneration is not the answer.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and cognate legislation, and I commend the government for introducing it. Road safety affects us all, and anything we can do to improve it should be adopted. Road transport contributes around 1.7 per cent of Australia's GDP and employs almost a quarter of a million Australians. It is a significant industry beyond any doubt. Unfortunately, it also has the highest incidence of fatal injuries of any industry, with 25 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2008-09, which is 10 times higher than the average for all industry. The cost to the economy of these losses has been calculated at about $2.7 billion a year, but this should not primarily be an economic argument. We have to remember that, for truck drivers, the roads are a workplace. The inside of their cabin is a workplace. It is a space that is shared by all of us, and we all have a common interest, every time we get in a car or go out on the road on our bikes or walk across the road, to make sure that whoever is driving that very large truck potentially coming the other way is well rested and enjoys a safe and healthy workplace.

I heard some comments from the opposition about this being a thinly disguised wage claim and the threats that this might provide to people who genuinely want to be independent contractors. A basic principle that underpins this seems to have escaped some of the contributions to the debate—that is, when you have supply chains that are able to move from principal to contractor and down to the person who ultimately does the work, unless you have in place an approach that regulates the whole of that supply chain then you will find that it is the person at the end who almost always suffers. They are the one who is faced with the prospect of not getting work next time. They are the one who is told by the supermarket, 'We want you to wait outside here for three or four hours before you pick up your load'—and that is unpaid time. That means by the time they pick up their load they are potentially fatigued more than is fair. In this context I note and support the long-running campaign by the Transport Workers Union for safe rates in the road transport industry. I have met with them recently and met drivers who are going to be affected by this legislation. I have since signed a pledge to make our roads safer by supporting this bill, and today I honour that commitment.

Despite what has been said, this bill is the result of a lengthy and drawn-out process. There was a parliamentary inquiry into the issue of fatigue in transport in 2000. In addition, the National Transport Commission examined and reported on this topic in 2008. The Safe Rates Advisory Group was then established by DEEWR. In 2010 there was a paper entitled Safe Rates Safe Roads, and 45 submissions were received. A regulatory impact statement was then prepared by DEEWR. There is strong evidence that we need the measures in this bill. I will run through some of that evidence.

A survey conducted in 2011 by the Transport Workers Union illustrated the dangerous on-road behaviours that drivers are currently forced to engage in as a result of the economic pressures they are put under every day. The survey results show that 48 per cent of drivers report almost one day a week in unpaid waiting time. For delivery drivers it is more than 10 hours a week. This represents 300 to 500 hours per year worked without pay. Fifty-six per cent of owner-drivers have had to forgo vehicle maintenance because of economic pressure, the need to keep working or the high cost of repairs; 27 per cent felt they had to drive too fast; and nearly 40 per cent feel pressured to drive longer than legally allowed. Many say that the pressure comes directly or indirectly from the client. There are many other examples of evidence from over 20 years of commissions of inquiry and coroners reports explicitly linking rates of pay and safety. The 2008 report by the Hon. Lance Wright QC and Professor Michael Quinlan stated:

There is solid survey evidence linking payment levels and systems to crashes, speeding, driving while fatigued and drug use.

The 1991 federal Department of Transport and Communications report Long-distance truck drivers: on-road performance and economic rewardsaid:

Any deviation from a fixed salary tends to encourage practices designed to increase economic reward which are not synergetic with reducing exposure to risk.

Sworn testimony from Associate Professor Michael Belzer, of the University of Michigan, before the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission Mutual Responsibility for Road Safety case in 2006 said:

Every 10% more that drivers earn in pay rate is associated with an 18.7% lower probability of crash, and for every 10% more paid days off the probability of driver crashes declines 6.3%.

I note in this context that the vast majority of industry associations and leaders are in favour of this bill, including the Victorian Transport Association, the Australian Industrial Road Transport Industrial Organisation, various small fleet operators and various large fleet operators as well.

There is also evidence to suggest that pressure coming from higher up the supply chain is contributing to some of these unsafe practices. Almost a quarter of the drivers surveyed by the TWU believe pressure was coming from beyond the transport community. It is well known that we have a duopoly in the supermarket market and these two big retailers are responsible for one-third of all freight movements in this country. They aggressively leverage their economic power to increase their profits in many areas and I have no doubt that this occurs with road transport as well. Even large companies such as Heinz have noted this, with their chief financial officer recently stating that this is a very difficult environment. The reality is that, with two key customers, the environment for grocery manufacturers has become inhospitable. If large corporations such as Heinz are feeling this pressure, then truck drivers and their employers will be feeling it far more.

I believe, and the Greens believe, that there is enough evidence to support external intervention in the transport market. The only conclusion, other than allowing the continuation of horrendous practices, is that we must establish an effective and enforceable framework for maintaining safe rates and conditions. In our opinion this bill provides such a framework. It gives effect to four key principles: the universal application of a safe rates system to all supply chain participants, including client accountability for safe performance, planning and safe rates; safe rates and related conditions for long- and short-haul employees and owner-drivers determined by an independent tribunal; the capacity to make binding determinations and resolve disputes amongst supply chain participants; and an appropriate and adequate enforcement regime. All these principles are to be supported and I commend the bills to the House.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Gippsland for allowing me to jump the queue, as it were, and speak ahead of him. This Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011, its associated amendments and the cognate bill we are debating, in their original form, I thought were about road safety. It now appears that the Road Safety Remuneration Bill is about industrial relations. Once that got out amongst the trucking industry in my electorate, I got a whole wave of comments and emails from industry, from saleyards, from boards and from the trucking industry. They have genuine concerns—and I hope the minister is prepared to listen to these genuine concerns of the industry.

I am not convinced—and I know that many in the industry are not convinced—that you can link, as this bill attempts to do, road safety to the rates of pay that drivers get. It is about safety. Truck drivers operate under very strict rules in terms of the time limits that they can operate those trucks. They have got times and they have to log those times in their logbooks and show when they have rest breaks. They are very much obliged by law to comply with the maximum time they can have as one shift before they have got to have a rest break. These logbooks are audited by the Road Transport Authority. Even on the haul between Brisbane and Sydney there are cameras above the New England Highway just south of my own electorate that record the trucks as they come through and can photograph or capture on film the drivers and the times they passed through that checkpoint. So there is also an electronic checkpoint being used, and rightly so, to make sure truck drivers comply with maximum driver hours in a day. This is designed to make sure that they do not go beyond that, because it is about road safety, not about the remuneration they receive.

I was interested to receive from the Queensland government—a government of this government's flavour—submission 022, received 2 February 2012. It was directed to the inquiry secretary. It said:

I am advised that these matters were addressed in the Queensland Government submission to the Directions Paper in the following terms—

and this is what is important, and it was addressed to the Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications. This is how they have responded:

Queensland did not support any of the models proposed in the Directions Paper but argued that safety in the road transport industry is multi-factorial and should be addressed with a number of intervention strategies.

They went on to say:

Queensland does not believe that the setting of specific rates or methods of payment by the proposed Tribunal under the legislation is likely, in itself, to encourage employers, employees and owner-drivers to adopt a broad range of safe work practices.

It goes on further:

Queensland does not support moving the setting of rates of pay away from the industrial arena and into transport arena and recommended that economic modelling be undertaken to determine the effects of initiatives that aim to address road safety through economic regulatory measures, such as a system of safe payments.

So what they are saying is that they do need more work. They are not walking away from the need to make sure that our roads and transport operate safely. It is most interesting that the Queensland government said in its submission to the inquiry:

Queensland did not support any of the models proposed ... Queensland does not believe that the setting of specific rates or methods of payment by the proposed Tribunal under the legislation is likely, in itself, to encourage employers, employees and owner-drivers to adopt a broad range of safe work practices.

If the government thinks that, if it passes, this bill will improve safety on the road, they are deluding themselves. I do not walk away from this, nor do any of my colleagues on this side of the House, nor would anyone in this place. We want to reduce as much as possible the loss of life as a result of road accidents across this country.

I have roads in my electorate right now, particularly with coal seam gas opening up in the Surat Basin, where trucks are running almost nose to tail. It is just like coming along the Ipswich Highway on a Friday afternoon once you are west of the Toowoomba Range going into my electorate. The volume of heavy traffic across the Warrego Highway is unprecedented. The Warrego Highway was never built for that volume of traffic, nor for the loads being carried. When these roads were built they started off as narrow bitumen roads and they have been extended out. They were built for 10-ton trucks, for single-axle semitrailers. Now they are carrying massive loads to Roma with AB-triples and further east with B-doubles. Some of the loads of mining equipment are astounding. There are great trucks of two and three connected together and carrying mining equipment on a road built for a 10-ton truck. Upgrading our highways is where there has to be an investment in road safety. In my own constituency, the Warrego Highway is a great example.

When it comes to drivers having to comply with the length of time they can drive before they must take a rest, the Warrego Highway, where it was a 110 kilometre highway, has now been reduced in some areas to 80 kilometres per hour. That is certainly going to slow down the trip for the truck operator. Why is it now 80 or 90 kilometres an hour? Because of the rough surface, where it is not as safe as other parts of the highway where the speed limit is 100 or 110 kilometres per hour. That means a driver will be slowed in moving towards an end point. That means, as a result of the legislation which requires him to work maximum hours because of driver fatigue, he might have to pull up and not complete the trip—because of the roughness of the road.

I am interested in investment in road infrastructure. I guess governments of all political persuasions have had to deal with this issue. I am not one to say that every government has been perfect in this area. We have a massive country and a large network of roads. When this government came to power they imposed on the trucking industry an additional tax on fuel excise which was going to be used—this was the sales point—to establish rest stops for trucks across Australia. I wrote to the minister after they had been in government almost three years. My question to the minister was submitted on 23 February 2011. I asked the minister:

... how many rest stops have been built in the Maranoa electorate as a result of the $70 million four year Heavy Vehicle Safety Package, and on which highways, local roads and main roads are they located?

My electorate covers almost the full length of the Warrego west of Toowoomba, two-thirds of the Landsborough Highway and a large slice of the Capricorn Highway—all major roads—a link to the north into the resources areas and into the outback areas of my electorate. We also have a road link between Darwin and Townsville used by the Defence Force to bring heavy equipment to the south or transport it north. The answer to my question was:

Two new heavy vehicle rest areas have been built and one existing bridge will be upgraded under the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program in the Maranoa electorate.

I drive a lot on my roads. I have not been able to do a great deal of driving because of flooding in the last couple of years, as much as I would like to. I am still looking for those two rest areas but I would have thought that with a large electorate such as Maranoa, which is heavily dependent on the transport sector, we would have seen at least half a dozen. The trucking industry is paying the extra tax. They have said they are prepared to pay it if the truck stops are built.

The trucks coming out of the channel country at the back of my electorate with three trailers, type 2 road trains, are burning something like a litre every 600 metres and they are paying their tax every 600 metres for these truck stops. They will often do 12 hours before they hit the bitumen, and they are looking for truck stops

I was out there at the end of last year talking to one of these truck operators. He was trying to comply with the logbook requirements while driving on these roads. He said that it was virtually impossible and that to do so you had to take another driver with you. And who pays that cost? The producer. In this case, he was bringing cattle in from the channel country out of Western Queensland, getting them to rail and then bringing them further in. This government and future governments must invest in upgrading our roads, because that is where we can substantially improve road safety on the roads in the electorate that I represent in this place. And I am sure it is the case in other parts of Australia.

I also got a letter from the saleyards organisations. They are concerned about what it might mean for the saleyards. The beef industry is a very big industry in my electorate. Across Queensland, in fact, the beef industry is the second largest industry by export value, just behind the coal industry. Cattle are nearly always moved on roads, as the member for Herbert would know. They wrote to me and said that their members, while never stepping away from their responsibility regarding heavy vehicle driver fatigue laws, are deeply concerned about this proposal. What they are concerned about is that trucks coming into saleyards might have to now employ a manager to make timeslots for when these trucks can arrive and unload, adding further costs for those in the trucking industry and for producers. It would also complicate something that is already working now and impose further costs on the saleyards. My own home town of Roma has the largest store stock cattle selling centre in Australia. This is not just the member for Maranoa speaking: the saleyards people have genuine concerns. This concern came from the President of the Australian Livestock Markets Association. And it was unsolicited, such is their concern. They want their voice to be heard in this parliament.

In conclusion on the Warrego Highway, I ask the minister for transport—who is responsible at the end of the day for road construction and upgrades—whether the funding mentioned in the answer to my question for the upgrade of the bridge over the Maranoa River at Mitchell will be provided and when. Is it going to be reengineered as a result of the flooding that we had recently, which did substantial damage to the bridge over the Maranoa River? I believe that the design that they may have had will be inadequate. They now have to upgrade it and have it at a higher level than the flood level that saw the old one go underwater. I think that is what they had the plans for. I say to the minister: I would like to know the answer to that question as well. (Time expired)

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have all seen horrific images of fatal motor vehicle accidents, the twisted and torn remains of cars, the spray of shattered glass that marks the sites and that look of shock, anguish and disbelief on people's faces. Every death that occurs on the roads is not just the tragic loss of one person's life. Rather, it spreads ripples right through the community. It is children who grow up without a parent; it is family birthday celebrations without an aunt or an uncle; it is the distinctive laugh of a friend no longer heard at Friday night drinks. That is why the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill 2011 are so important. These bills address the heartbreaking loss and tragedy of the road toll and its far-reaching cost to the nation.

Workplace health and safety reform has been a core part of the work of this government. No matter what job you do, when you go to work you should expect to come home at the end of the day. The men and women who are our valued transport workers deserve that peace of mind. And their families deserve it too. I am proud to represent in this place the Australian Labor Party, a party that was formed to represent the interests of working people 121 years ago. That is our heritage. It is a heritage that we do not shy away from. We will defend it at every turn. This legislation is 21st century Labor values in action, protecting the interests of workers on the road.

The statistics of the road toll are chilling. The road toll has declined substantially over recent decades but it is still the case that in an average week four people are killed and another 80 are seriously injured. Last year, 1,368 Australians lost their lives on the roads and many more were hospitalised. The road transport industry has the highest incidence of fatal injuries. In 2008-09, that industry had 25 deaths per 100,000 workers. That is an astonishingly high death toll for any industry. It is 10 times the average. According to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, that imposes a cost on the Australian economy of $2.7 billion a year.

Substantial work has been done on the relationship between remuneration and safety. In the case of R v Randall John Harm in 2005, Justice Graham found that the truck drivers had clearly intolerable pressure placed upon them to get produce to the markets or goods to their destination. In 2008, the National Transport Commission reviewed remuneration and safety in the Australian heavy vehicle industry. It found that commercial arrangements between parties about the transport of freight have a significant influence on road safety. Drivers often find themselves at the bottom of the contracting chain. They do not have the commercial ability to demand rates that would let them perform their work safely and legally. Owner-drivers are often forced to accept work at the going rate or end up with no work at all. Remuneration for owner-drivers tends to be low and working hours can be extraordinarily long.

A major issue for owner-drivers is unpaid queuing times—spending time that is not covered just sitting with the engine running waiting for their load to be loaded or unloaded. The National Road Transport Operators Association estimates that distribution centres regularly require drivers to wait up to 10 hours before loading or unloading. Many are not paid for the waiting time—they cannot even claim the waiting time as an official rest break—and that impacts on their income and it impacts on their fatigue management. That means that these drivers are losing 10 hours of driving time and that creates a perverse incentive for them to make up for lost time either by driving additional hours, speeding or contravening mandatory fatigue management systems.

A study funded by New South Wales WorkCover found that truck drivers were frequently forced to break driving regulations in order to make a living. It found that 60 per cent of drivers admitted to nodding off at the wheel over the last 12 months—60 per cent! Drivers in that study were working an average of 68 hours a week. Almost a third told the study—anonymously, though, of course—that they were breaking driving laws and doing more than 72 hours a week. Only 25 per cent of those drivers reported to be paid for waiting times. Almost 60 per cent of drivers were not paid for loading or unloading.

This bill ensures that we have safer roads not only for drivers but for all Australians. The economic and social cost of unsafe roads is massive for drivers, their families and the general community. The road transport industry know this. They know that their industry is one of the most dangerous in Australia. That is why the Gillard government is committed to introducing a safe remuneration system for drivers. I commend the minister at the table, Mr Shorten, for his hard work in making this happen.

This bill addresses the root causes of unsafe driving practices. It addresses the underlying economic factors that create an incentive for unsafe road practices or that inadvertently encourage them. It will establish the National Road Safety Remuneration System, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal and a separate education and compliance framework. The tribunal will include members from Fair Work Australia, along with independent work, health and safety experts. We have determined that a sector of the industry that has poor safety outcomes as a result of low remuneration will be able to make a road safety remuneration order to improve the on-road safety outcomes for drivers operating in that sector. This system is scheduled to commence on 1 July 2012.

Michael Belzer, in his paper to the Safe Rates Summit in 2011 titled 'The Economics of Safety: How Compensation Affects Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Safety', said the following:

Higher driver pay is associated with safer operations. Clearly the more drivers are paid, and the more they are paid for their non-driving time, the less likely they are to have crashes.

He went on to say:

If the fundamental exigencies of markets work at all, then cargo owners' need for lowest price will lead to a race to the bottom and safety will suffer. Because economic forces are involved, economic solutions must be considered.

I want to speak to some of the objections that have been made to this bill. The Australian Logistics Council is opposed to the measures in this bill. Their managing director, Michael Kilgariff, has said that rather than improving safety the bill merely adds another layer of regulation. He has claimed that it will impede industry efforts to improve safety. I acknowledge the work that the ALC has done in their Retail Logistics Supply Chain Code of Conduct. That is a code that covers safe scheduling, loading of vehicles, securing loads and driving plans. I very much appreciate the work that has been done by Michael Kilgariff and other members of his staff, such as Alicia Hewitt, but I do believe that this bill is an important step in contributing to safer roads.

Evidence demonstrates we need a different approach to get safer practices in the road transport industry. Michael Belzer, who I quoted before, has a 2006 study that demonstrates that every 10 per cent more that drivers earn in pay is associated with a 19 per cent reduction in the chance that they will have a crash. Every 10 per cent more paid days off reduces the probability of driver crashes by six per cent.

New South Wales Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch's findings into the deaths of drivers Anthony Forsythe, Barry Supple and Timothy John Walsh found:

As long as driver payments are based on a (low) rate per kilometre there will always be an incentive for drivers to maximise the hours they drive, not because they are greedy but simply to earn a decent wage.

A 2011 survey by the Transport Workers Union of Australia found that 48 per cent of drivers have almost one day a week in unpaid working time. It found 56 per cent of owner-drivers have to forgo vehicle maintenance because of the need to keep working; 27 per cent felt they had to drive too fast; and 40 per cent felt pressured to drive longer than legally allowed.

Andrew Villas, a former driver, testified to the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission:

When I was required to perform excessive hours I would sometimes experience a state of mind that I can only describe as hallucinations, which I considered to be due to sleep deprivation. I would see trees turning into machinery, which would lift my truck off the road. I saw myself run over motorcycles, cars and people ... I estimate that I had experiences like these roughly every second day. They were not an uncommon thing for me ...

If ever there were dangerous and unsafe working conditions they are the ones which Mr Villas has described. This government is not prepared to sit back and ignore such risks to transport workers, their families and the general public.

Many members and employees of the Transport Workers Union live in Fraser. They include ACT bus drivers, truckies and paramedics. I would like to especially thank Klaus Pinkas, the Secretary of the ACT sub-branch of the Transport Workers Union and his team. I know he has worked with community transport workers for fair and safe conditions. He has been a strong advocate for their rights and for their workplace needs. I would like to thank Klaus for the conversations that we have had about this bill and his hard work in making it happen.

One of the duties that I am pleased to have as the member for Fraser is to chair the ACT Black Spot Consultative Committee, a federally funded program, which each year spends $1 million making ACT roads safer. It is a terrific program, because we ensure that every dollar spent produces at least $2 of public benefits. We cannot fund the black spot remediation program unless the cost-benefit study comes back with at least a two-to-one return. So it is always a pleasure, as part of that committee, to be able to see federal government funds go where they are needed most, whether that is fixing up signage, line markings and frangible posts, or ensuring that roads are safer for motorcyclists and for bicyclists. All of the programs that we fund through the Black Spot Program go to making sure that the ACT's roads are safer.

As the Prime Minister has said, 'Australia's truck drivers work hard to make a living. But they should not have to die to make a living.' We on this side of the House have the interests of workers in everything we do. The Labor Party, as its name suggests, is the party of work. We are the party of workers. That is why we want transport workers to go to work, come home safely and receive fair pay for their day's work. And, for those who are opposing this bill, I have one question: would you let someone, a worker, near you, who might injure you, who had not slept for long enough? Would you, for example, let a surgeon operate on you who was beginning to hallucinate because they had been working for too long? Driving up to 62 tonnes of heavy vehicle is a position of equal responsibility and skill.

For the first time, under this bill, we will have a proper national approach that can examine all of the factors that contribute to the carnage in the industry, and the power to enforce solutions. This government is looking after those at the bottom of the contracting chain so they receive a fair day's pay to do their work safely and legally. There is too much death and too much injury on our roads and in the road transport industry. I sincerely hope that this bill can make a difference in bringing down the road toll. I commend the bills to the House.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak in relation to the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and cognate bill. I will note from the outset that the coalition has indicated it will be opposing the bills.

Before I raise my concerns about the bill itself, I want to make a couple of comments about what I consider to be a quite disappointing process that was undertaken in this place in the last sitting week. Debate started on this bill without waiting for the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications to table its report, and I think that is quite a serious insult to both the chair of the committee and all the members who served on that committee, because I know they have taken this matter very seriously. As a supplementary member of the committee for the purpose of the inquiry into this bill, I sat in on the public hearings and I want to thank all the committee members for the manner in which they conducted themselves during that hearing; I think it was handled very responsibly by the committee members. But I think that bringing on this debate in that last sitting week did reflect very poorly on the government. It goes to the core issue of trust, which is something that this government has trouble dealing with. If we cannot even trust the government to listen to the concerns of and evidence presented by submitters to the inquiry before the legislation is presented to the House, I am not sure why they would expect the people of Australia to trust them on any other issues either.

Moving to the substance of the debate, I would like to make a couple of observations and reinforce the comments that have been made by the Leader of the Nationals in relation to this issue. I do acknowledge that this is not a simple issue; it is a very complex debate and it does not lend itself to simple slogans. It also does not lend itself to some of the emotional arguments that have been put forward by those advocating on the other side of the issue in pretending that somehow they have an answer to this issue of road safety in the legislation that is before the House. I do take exception to some of the language that has been used and directed at members on this side, as if suggesting that any one of us does not strongly support the need to invest in road safety. I do not think there is a member in this chamber who is not concerned about the level of deaths and injuries in the heavy transport industry. And if it were possible with the stroke of a legislative pen to change all of that, to reduce the trauma on our roads, I would be the first to vote for it. But, on balance, I just do not believe they have made the case for the legislation that is before us here this evening.

As someone who has campaigned actively on road safety initiatives in my own electorate, in my role as the shadow parliamentary secretary for roads and regional transport and also as a local member advocating in particular for the need to upgrade the Princes Highway, it is an issue that I am very passionate about and I think there are members on both sides of the chamber who have a shared interest in this issue. In particular, members of the committee which inquired into this bill were deeply concerned about the level of deaths and injuries on our roads involving heavy vehicles. So, for the benefit of those opposite who have sought to lecture members on this side, I do not believe that either side of the House has a mortgage on compassion and empathy for those who have lost loved ones on our roads, and I think it does not reflect very well on those who have sought to score political points out of this debate.

There is a genuine, shared desire in this place to reduce the road toll, but I fear, as I said earlier, that this legislation is not the answer. It is unfortunate that it has been portrayed as some sort of Holy Grail or some sort of silver bullet for the issues we are faced with. I genuinely hope that, if this legislation does pass through the chamber here tonight and the reforms are introduced, that actually does lead to a reduction in accidents and fatalities, and I would be the first to congratulate the government if that were the case. I genuinely hope that it does achieve what they think it is going to achieve. I just fear that what it is actually going to do is to distract governments and industry from taking what I think is required: a more holistic approach to road safety.

So I am not suggesting there is not an issue with safety in the heavy transport industry, and I am not suggesting that fatigue management is not part of the problem. I just remain unconvinced that the government and those advocating for this legislation have been able to present a direct and causal relationship between pay rates and road safety. In essence what I am saying is: I am unconvinced that setting a minimum rate of pay will turn an unsafe truck driver into a safe truck driver.

In the context of this debate we need to be mindful of the scale of the problem, and those opposite have rightfully raised their concerns in relation to that. But, according to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, during the 12 months to the end of June 2011, 185 people died from crashes involving articulated and heavy rigid trucks. That is a tragic result. There is not a member in this place who does not have some concerns about the safety of the heavy vehicle drivers and other road users. But it needs to be noted that for articulated trucks this was a decrease on average of 3.5 per cent per year over the three years to June 2011, and for heavy rigid trucks a decrease by an average of 14.7 per cent per year over the same period. So it is unfair to suggest that there has not been some progress, and I give credit to governments in all jurisdictions which have been involved in introducing a range of other initiatives which are now in place and showing some positive results, even without this legislation that the government is determined to introduce. So, at a time when the freight task has actually grown in this country and there are more trucks than ever on our roads every day of the week, we have actually seen an improvement in those accident statistics. That is not again to suggest for a second that we should drop our guard or in any way seek to diminish the tragic fact that 185 people lost their lives during that period.

Everyone in this place, members of parliament in other jurisdictions, police officers, trucking company executives, unions and industry associations are working with good intentions to reduce the road toll in the heavy vehicle transport sector, but the key question is: will the legislation that we are debating tonight actually deliver the result that is being attributed to it? I fear that it will not. Others have noted and, given that the minister is in the chamber, I think it is appropriate for me also to note the fact that the minister for industrial relations now has carriage of the bill before the parliament, which I fear indicates where this issue is heading—that this is more about industrial relations than road safety. This is not in any way to ridicule the role of the Transport Workers Union in this issue. I was present when its members gave evidence to the committee and I have no doubt that they are genuine in their desire to reduce the road toll in their industry. It is not about seeking to ridicule the TWU in that regard. I think their submission was well constructed and their position was well argued at the public hearing, but I still think it lacked the critical evidence which directly linked so-called safe rates with road safety. There are reasons why members on this side have expressed their concern that this is more about industrial relations and a power grab by the TWU under the guise of road safety. Yes, I do accept that the TWU cares very deeply about road safety—but so do members on this side of the House. It is important that in this debate we be very rational and objective about that and not use emotional gimmicks to try and vilify one side as opposed to the other.

The bill establishes the new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which is to be given broad powers to investigate and set the pay rates I have referred to and conditions for any segment in the heavy vehicle industry. Other members have gone through how the tribunal operates and I am not going to spend much time looking at that this evening. The bill covers the broadly defined road transport industry, which includes the road transport and distribution industry, long distance operations, the cash in transit industry, the waste management industry and all road transport drivers, including independent contractors. The tribunal will have very broad responsibilities. It must prepare an annual work plan with a view to making a road safety remuneration order and, in doing so, must consult with the industry.

I do accept that members opposite have indicated there has been a lot of consultation in relation to this issue. It is not that anyone could suggest this has come out of a clear blue sky; this has been debated for many years. I am not one of those who are suggesting there has not been consultation, but I do still have a concern about the evidence that has been claimed to be irrefutable proof of the link between safe rates and road safety. I am still concerned that the link has not been established. The crux of the issues that we are dealing with is the setting of a safe rate. I had the opportunity to participate in the inquiry. I read all of the submissions to the inquiry and heard the evidence that was submitted to the committee and I also took the opportunity to meet with four of the biggest trucking transport operators and seek their feedback. It is unfortunate that we do not hear enough from people on the ground in an issue like this. We had about 27 submissions to this inquiry. I was given the opportunity to write to the transport companies in my electorate, and four of them contacted me very quickly afterwards and raised their concerns in relation to the issues that the bill presents. I really wish they had had the opportunity to present to the committee, but it was only a short inquiry and the hearings were held in Canberra. What they told me was very compelling evidence from people actually on the ground who are directly involved in the industry on a daily basis and who are working every day to keep their drivers safe on the road. They are not the cowboy operators who often get vilified on our current affairs type programs on television. They are people who have a long history in the industry and they have a very proud involvement in working with their employees to improve safety outcomes in the workplace. Two of the employers I am talking about received Australia Day honours for their work in the transport industry. They are very reputable people who are working very hard in our community and doing a great job. They told me that the biggest road safety issue of all was the road environment itself.

I fear that governments of all political persuasions—I am not suggesting it is governments of only one political persuasion—have conveniently focused their road safety endeavours more on the legislative and regulation side of the equation, on enforcement and advertising campaigns and things like double demerit points on long weekends, as their mechanism for tackling the road toll because it has saved them from having to spend all the money that is required to improve the safety of the road environment. I am not saying that those measures are not useful in themselves; but I believe that governments have used those tools to virtually blame the travelling public for the fact that we have such severe road trauma in our community and have dodged their responsibility to invest in the road environment to meet the demands of modern vehicles.

It was interesting that the first thing the road transport operators in my electorate raised with me was the safety of the road environment. They did not use the words 'holistic approach to road safety', but that is what they are talking about. They are talking about the complete picture rather than picking out one part of the jigsaw and pretending we have got an answer for it. What I have said to this government, to the previous Labor government in Victoria and to the current Victorian coalition government is that we need to build safer roads to meet the demands of the larger vehicles that are using our roads today—not just the heavy vehicles in the commercial sector but the large recreational vehicles which are on the road. In addition we need to invest more in the provision of decent rest areas and decent facilities for the travelling public and the heavy vehicle sector. It is very hard to expect a transport operator to just pull over and get a bad night's sleep on the side of the road. We have to provide decent facilities for them to actually get some rest when they are resting. The government could do a lot more work in that area. I congratulate the Leader of the Nationals for the work he has done in that area to promote those issues in the broader community.

Time is against me in going through all the issues that people from my electorate raised in relation to this legislation, but I would like to draw attention to one operator who made a submission to the inquiry, Mr Ross Ingram from Bonaccord Freightlines. In his submission he pointed out that governments need to take a long-term view, particularly in relation to roads and bridges, and not just have the piecemeal planning we have seen in the past. He made the point:

All future roads and bridges should be constructed to accommodate two trailer and one truck combinations.

He went on to highlight some of the areas that need to be upgraded on his regular route. But he also pointed out:

The Federal Government needs to plan more for the future of the Transport Industry - Setting high level strategic goals, using Education not litigation, and have a long term vision.

The final point he made was:

Industry needs one set of rules to comply with, not seven and it needs to be simple to understand, and written in language that is easy to interpret. Currently, what is law in one state for size of vans, weight distribution and log books, can be different in another state.

You really cannot beat feedback from people on the ground who are dealing with this issue on a daily basis. My local operators have also raised with me concerns about safety and the difficulty for them in attracting younger drivers to the profession. They told me that they are under pressure from the mining industry. They have a lot of older and more experienced drivers who are moving out of the industry and in regional areas they have an ageing workforce, which presents them with some long-term challenges.

The point I am making is that this is an extraordinarily complex issue. We cannot pretend that we have a silver bullet or Holy Grail that will suddenly turn around the accident and fatality rates in the heavy transport sector. My concern is that we already have a very heavily regulated heavy vehicle transport industry, and at the moment there are already extensive provisions in place to deal with transport operators who flout the laws. If anything, there is a concern among many transport operators and the drivers themselves that relatively minor breaches, perhaps a logbook omission or an innocent mistake, are penalised very heavily. That again puts pressure on them financially. So we cannot look at this as just a single issue of so-called safe rates and pretend that we will solve all the problems in terms of road accidents and trauma in the heavy vehicle sector.

I fear that this proposed legislation is going to add just another level of red tape to the heavy vehicle industry. This industry is already subject to numerous other regulations and legislation at both state and federal level, some of it quite inconsistent. The bill will add further complexity to what is an already bureaucratic area and will not achieve its goals in relation to road safety. Rather than making life more difficult for the heavy vehicle sector we need to be focusing on more consistent regulations across state borders, improving the safety of the road environment itself and enforcing the laws we already have to control some of these rogue operators who endanger themselves and other road users. I thank the House. (Time expired)

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to this legislation and to join my colleagues in supporting it. This is important legislation, it is good legislation and it is overdue legislation. The legislation will establish a new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, whose objects are to promote safety and fairness in the road transport industry. The tribunal will be empowered to inquire into sectors, issues and practices within the road transport industry and, where appropriate, determine mandatory minimum rates of pay and related conditions for employed and self-employed drivers. The tribunal will also be empowered to resolve disputes between drivers, their hirers or employers and participants in the road transport industry supply chain by mediation, conciliation or private arbitration.

The Road Safety Remuneration Bill is of course about much more than that. This bill is about fairness, ensuring truck transport drivers get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. It is about workplace safety and making the workplace for transport drivers safer. It is about corporate responsibility. Corporates have for too long abrogated their public responsibility by subcontracting out work, leaving the owner-drivers and the public to pick up the real costs. It is also about worker exploitation, using subcontracting as a means to exploit workers. The case for this legislation is best put in the opening paragraphs of the Transport Workers Union's 'Safe Rates' submission. I want to quote from those opening paragraphs, which state:

For too long, the Australian road transport industry has been Australia’s most dangerous industry. No other industry is responsible for 330 deaths in a year. No other industry injures 5,350 people per year at the rate of 31 per day.

Sadly, the crisis threatens to get worse. In the three years to March 2010, fatal crashes involving heavy rigid trucks increased by an average of 0.3% per year. In the year before the Wright/Quinlan Inquiry, the number of deaths in articulated heavy vehicle incidents increased by 5.4% when compared to the previous year ...

Each road death costs approximately $1.7 million. Each injury in an incident costs $408,000. When the non-monetised social cost of road deaths, injuries and illness, family breakdown, pain and suffering is included in the measurement of what road deaths and injuries cost the community, the damages bill is immeasurable ...

Of the 330 people killed each year in heavy vehicle crashes, around 16 per cent, or 52, are the drivers of the heavy vehicles. That is more than the fatalities in the construction industry and more than the fatalities in the manufacturing industry. For decades, different reports, inquiries and coronial findings have lead to the same conclusions: transport industry drivers are being pressured into taking unacceptable risks, including breaking the law, just so that they can make a living.

According to some estimates from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, average owner-driver income is approximately $29,000 a year, or less than half that which an employee driver would earn if working the same hours. Recent media reports in Adelaide have highlighted the extent to which drivers are taking drugs, breaking speed and weight limits and tampering with speed control devices on trucks. For owner-drivers, the cost of entering the industry can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars, with a B-double truck typically costing between $300,000 and $400,000.

Employing another driver is not affordable. An owner gets to know their vehicle, and they take care of it because repairs can be very costly. The return on the financial outlay requires the vehicle to be on the road most of the time and for the owner to be driving it. Those objecting to this legislation will argue that, firstly, it is not needed because the establishment of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator will resolve many of the current problems; secondly, consumers will end up paying more for goods; thirdly, voluntary schemes and codes are adequate; and, fourthly, higher remuneration will not lead to a reduction in fatalities and accidents. We have heard those arguments put not only by those in the industry who object to this legislation but by speaker after speaker from the coalition side objecting to this legislation. None of those objections withstands scrutiny; it is quite the opposite, as all the flawed arguments have been soundly rejected by research and analysis. I do not know how much more research and analysis the members opposite need to be given before they are convinced that those arguments simply do not stand up. We have been debating these issues for some 20 years. It is interesting to note that those who have objected most strongly to this legislation are the industry sectors that have the most to gain from the existing arrangements. But not all transport sectors oppose this legislation and I understand that the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation, the Australian Livestock Transporters Association, Australian Container Freight Services and private transport operator Linfox have all expressed support for measures in this bill.

The road transport industry employs 246,000 Australians and accounts for 1.7 per cent of Australia's GDP. It is a growing industry sector, with employment over the next five years expected to increase by almost another 13,000. But it is a sector which costs taxpayers $2.7 billion each year from truck related fatalities and injuries. We have heard members opposite talk about other factors which contribute to those fatalities and injuries. Quite rightly, they have referred to road conditions, rest-stop facilities, health and safety legislation, and even truck design, construction and maintenance, which all contribute to road fatalities and accidents. Whilst that may be true and whilst those factors also need to be simultaneously addressed, you cannot deny the fact that the current conditions which owner-drivers are subjected to are a significant cause of those fatalities and those injuries. Therefore, to say that we need to fix up all of the other matters before we look at this legislation is simply absurd. And the fact is that this government is looking at all of those other matters and has effectively doubled investment in infrastructure in this country. Much of that investment goes into road transport systems. We have introduced a heavy vehicle transport regulator and we are looking at having uniform laws across the country. Those matters are being addressed simultaneously, but you cannot ignore or put aside perhaps what is the most contributing cause to those injuries and fatalities: the very conditions which drivers are subjected to. In fact, the evidence that unreasonable demands and expectations placed on drivers by many of their clients—and I would refer to them not as clients but as employers—are a major cause of the associated fatalities and injuries is indisputable.

According to a Transport Workers Union of Australia survey, 48 per cent of drivers report almost one day a week in unpaid waiting time; 56 per cent of owner-drivers have had to forgo vehicle maintenance because of economic pressure, the need to keep working or the high cost of repairs; 27 per cent feel that they had to drive too fast; and 40 per cent feel pressured to drive longer than legally allowed. It is all right to say that they should not be doing any of those things and that it is their fault that they are, but they do those things because of the pressures they are under to meet delivery timetables and to ensure that they are on the road long enough to get a return for the time that they spend in their truck. Fatigue, substance abuse, speeding and poor vehicle maintenance standards all increase the risk of driver accidents. But let us not forget that those accidents are not only to themselves but to other road users. So this bill is about making roads safer as well. It is true that other factors may also contribute—like poor roads and driver error—but overwhelmingly the cause is linked to low-payment rates.

I want to refer to two other matters that are relevant to this legislation. Firstly, there is the impact on the personal health of drivers under the current scenario and the current arrangements o drivers being deprived of sleep, working long hours, taking stimulants and possibly other drugs, eating poorly and working under constant pressure and stress. The health impacts must come at a huge personal cost to the drivers and a huge cost to the nation.

The second matter I want to refer to is the effect on the families of those drivers. Families see drivers leaving home, not certain whether they are going to return, with the drivers being away for days on end and with the families being without the drivers for days on end. The drivers have very little social and family time because it all comes at a high financial cost. For them it is not a case of saying, 'I'll take a week or a fortnight off and go away on a holiday,' as every hour they take off costs them a considerable amount of money. Every hour that their truck is not on the road means that their ability to make monthly repayments to the finance company becomes even more difficult. So they simply cannot afford to have what most Australians take for granted, recreational time with their families. The price they have to pay is simply too high.

I want to finish with a personal account. I do so because other speakers have come into this place and said we need to talk to other sectors of the trucking industry and those who operate the trucks. A long-time family friend of mine, who has passed away, was an owner-driver for most of his working life. He drove interstate. He spent most of his time doing that. He would often talk to me about life as a truck driver and he confirmed to me everything that the Transport Workers Union is saying about the conditions to which drivers are subjected. He too had to work to very tough time lines. Sometimes he too had to wait 12 to 24 hours for the next load to be put on. Sometimes he too had to avoid doing repairs on his truck because he simply did not have the time for the truck to be off the road, let alone consider the cost that he would otherwise incur. He too saw his health suffer as a result of that. Everything that this legislation seeks to rectify he confirmed to me from his own real-life experiences as an owner-driver. Sadly for him, he did not live to retirement age because his poor health saw his life end early. For the sake of other owner-drivers, I strongly support this legislation and I commend it to the House.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and cognate bill. If you had listened to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and to a number of speakers from the other side of the chamber you would think that the bill before the House this evening is about one question and one question only: do we want to save lives on the road or do we not? Of course, if this bill were really about that simple question, then the decision for the House to make would be a very simple one, because everybody wants to save lives on the road. All sides of politics are united in wanting to make Australia's roads as safe as possible. As a number of speakers from all parties have pointed out in this debate, the issue affects not only those who work in the road transport sector driving heavy vehicles or other vehicles but everybody who uses the roads in Australia. That means, in essence, every Australian. So there is no question that the objective of improving road safety is one which is of paramount importance.

In this House we are not called upon to decide easy propositions. We are not called upon to say whether or not we are in favour of safer roads. We are called upon, as we consider this bill, to say whether we are persuaded that the measures in the bill will in fact assist in delivering safer roads. We are called upon to answer the question: are the measures in this bill effective for increasing road safety? If they are, and if no more cost-effective measures that deliver the same outcomes can be found, then of course it becomes a very easy decision for the House to make: we ought support the measures in this bill. But if that test is not satisfied it does not make sense to support this bill.

In the time available to me I will argue three points to the House. Firstly, notwithstanding its name, this is not a bill about road safety. This is a bill which establishes a complex new tribunal and gives it a broad range of powers, many of which may be exercised in circumstances where safety is not even considered by the tribunal. Secondly, I put to the House the proposition that the logic at the core of this bill—the logic that if you pay drivers more, if you mandate paying more to drivers, you will improve road safety—is not proven. The central proposition upon which this entire proposed legislative edifice rests is without substance. It is without foundation. It has not been proven.

Thirdly, I highlight the fact that there are other, better regulatory tools to deal with the objective of road safety, an objective in support of which all sides of politics are united and an objective which is of critical importance to those who work in the road transport sector and their families and to all users of the roads in Australia.

Let me turn therefore to the first proposition I am putting to the House this evening. Despite its name, this is not in essence a bill about road safety. Let us look at some of the provisions of this bill and see what it actually does. This bill establishes a new industrial tribunal with a very broad set of powers. The tribunal will have the power to make orders relating to remuneration and related conditions. It can do so, should it choose, entirely on its own initiative without the matter being initiated by drivers or employers or by large customers of drivers. Under section 27 of the bill those orders can deal with an extremely broad range of matters. They can deal with such matters as remuneration and employment conditions and with industry practices such as loading and unloading, waiting times, working hours, load limits, payment methods and payment periods. The terminology which the bill uses is to speak of a road safety remuneration order, but when you analyse the provisions of the bill you see that there is no requirement for such an order to have anything to do with road safety. For example, there is no requirement for the tribunal to be satisfied to any particular standard that the measures it is imposing will achieve a safety outcome. In other words, we have a tribunal that is vested with a very broad set of powers that it can exercise in relation to the road transport industry, very broadly defined. If the tribunal so chooses it could very well make orders that are predicated upon an argument in relation to safety, but there is no requirement on it to do that at all; it can make orders which it, in its discretion, considers appropriate. Of course, those orders can be made on the application of any parties, including unions and industrial associations, under section 32(2)(d) of the bill.

What we have is a proposed legislative apparatus under which a new tribunal is to be established. It will have very broad powers to set wages and other terms, not just of remuneration but on which a company engages a supplier, and to impose those terms, and it will be under no duty whatsoever to be satisfied in relation to safety. We are simply required to take it as an article of faith that the body will have regard to safety considerations. It goes without saying, because this is legislation introduced by a government which is very fond of administrative complexity and complex legal approaches, that a detailed regime has been established. A new tribunal has been created and given broad powers to make penalty orders. A president has been appointed and then there are to be two to four persons appointed to serve on the tribunal part time who have experience in workplace relations. We know what that means under this Gillard Labor government. We know what that is code for. And then there can be two to four persons with experience in the road transport industry. They are appointed for up to five years. There is a complex apparatus in this legislation to establish a new tribunal. We are told that it is to do with safety, but when you analyse the provisions you see that there is no necessary linkage at all. We are simply required to take it on trust that these extensive powers will be exercised having regard to the achievement of safety objectives.

That brings me to the second point I wish to make in the brief time available, which is to address the central theory upon which this legislative edifice is premised. The central theory underlying this legislation is that the problem of road safety in the road transport industry is a consequence primarily of the fact that drivers are forced to work in unsafe conditions as a result of either the basis upon which they as employees are remunerated as a means of pay or the basis upon which they as a supplier of services to an organisation receive payment. For example, we are told that drivers of heavy vehicles are forced to work to unrealistic schedules, that they are given time frames within which to travel from, say, Sydney to Brisbane and that when you factor in unloading times and all the other things that have to be done they are simply impossible to achieve without speeding. This is the kind of example which is given.

I do not doubt for a second—nobody on the coalition side does—that there are instances of reckless and dangerous behaviour in this industry, as there are in every industry. The question we need to turn our minds to is whether the remedies set out in this legislation are going to solve the problem. The core suggestion is that if drivers are paid more they will not speed. This makes no sense. The logic simply does not hang together. If you are a driver today who receives a certain payment and you drive in an unsafe manner, who is to say tomorrow that if you are paid more you will not take the extra payment and continue to drive in exactly the same way? The answer is that we just do not know. The burden of proof, which sits with the government to demonstrate that this is a sensible measure which can be expected to be effective in solving the problem it is designed to solve, has not been met.

Do not take my word for it, notwithstanding the fact that I am an objective and disinterested observer. Take the words from the regulatory impact statement prepared by the department. It says:

There is some research to suggest that the remuneration for drivers is a factor in safety outcomes, however data at this point in time is limited and being definitive around the causal link between rates and safety is difficult.

You could not have it put more clearly than that. There is no proven link that the relevant department was able to point to in preparing the regulatory impact statement to accompany this bill, which responsible parliamentarians need to consider as we weigh up the merits of this bill. When Mr Sheldon, the secretary of the Transport Workers' Union, came before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications I asked him how we were to be satisfied that there was a causal linkage between the tribunal awarding drivers higher payments and a safer outcome. Mr Sheldon had this to say:

If you are a truck driver with a quarter of a million dollars of equipment and you are required to work excessive hours to be able to pay your bills, people decide to work it. If you have to work excessive hours to keep your job, people decide to work it.

It seems to me that if people are choosing to work particular hours now it has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the parliament that that is going to change if awards of changed remuneration are made.

The third point I want to make in the time that remains available to me is that there are other regulatory tools better suited to dealing with the urgent and important problem of road safety. Firstly, as we all know and as the House has been told many times in this debate, the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator starts in 2013. Under those arrangements, there will be national chain-of-responsibility provisions making companies directly responsible for the unsafe behaviour of their drivers. Secondly, the workplace health and safety model laws commenced in a number of Australian jurisdictions on 1 January this year impose a requirement to ensure workplace risks are as low as reasonably practical. To take a third example, in the state of New South Wales, should this legislation pass into law, it will be the fourth layer of regulation applying to driver fatigue.

The question before the House this evening is whether the mechanism in this legislation is likely to be effective in improving road safety. The House has not been provided with proof that the mechanism will have an effect and, for that reason, on this side of the House we are unpersuaded and we are not supporting these bills.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill 2011. These bills will establish a new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which will have the objective of promoting safety and fairness in the road transport industry. The principal bill lays out the powers and functions of the tribunal, which will be empowered to inquire into sectors, issues and practices within the road transport industry and, where appropriate, determine mandatory minimum rates of pay and related conditions for employed and self-employed drivers. These determinations will be known as road safety remuneration orders.

The tribunal will also be empowered to resolve disputes between drivers, their hirers or employers and participants in the road transport industry supply chain about remuneration and related conditions insofar as they provide incentives to work in an unsafe manner. The tribunal will be made up of a mixture of Fair Work Australia members and expert members with qualifications relevant to the road transport industry. The bill will also establish a compliance regime for the enforcement of road safety remuneration orders, safe remuneration approvals and any orders arising out of the arbitration, by consent, of a dispute.

This bill will complement existing federal legislation such as the Fair Work Act 2009 and the Independent Contractors Act 2006, current state based schemes dealing with owner-driver contracts and proposed state based heavy vehicle laws. The principal objects of the bill recognise the government's intention to provide a framework that promotes a safe industry by ensuring that drivers in the road transport industry do not have pay and pay related incentives and pressures to work in an unsafe manner. This includes unsafe work practices such as speeding and working excessive hours. The bill also ensures that road transport drivers are paid for their work including loading or unloading their vehicles, or waiting for someone else to load or unload their vehicle. It also includes developing and applying reasonable enforceable standards throughout the road transport industry supply chain to ensure the safety of road transport drivers and ensure that hirers of drivers and participants in the supply chain take responsibility for implementing and maintaining those standards.

We have heard from the member for Bradfield and the member for Mayo that this bill allegedly does not deal with fairness or safety. In fact, the member for Mayo only a couple of hours ago went so far as to say there was no reference to the words 'fairness' or 'safety' in this bill. All I can say to the member for Mayo is that he must not have read the front cover or even opened the bill to look at its contents.

I will not go to numerous references throughout the bill to fairness and safety but I will draw the attention of the member for Mayo and those on the other side of this debate to sections such as section 20, which specifically goes to matters the tribunal must have regard to. Section 20 subsection (1) states:

In deciding whether to make a road safety remuneration order, the Tribunal must have regard to the following matters:

(a) the need to apply fair, reasonable and enforceable standards in the road transport industry to ensure the safety and fair treatment of road transport drivers.

It could not be made any clearer. Those of us who are elected to this parliament should at the very least be able to read a piece of legislation that clearly articulates the purpose of that bill, which is fairness and safety. As I say, I do not intend to use the time that I have to go through every section that is outlined there, but I have already stated what the principal objectives of this bill are in relation to removing those incentives and pressures for unsafe work practices.

Why is it important for this bill to be introduced? We have already heard from the member for Mayo that this industry has an award—there is the Fair Work Act—and if this is all working why do we need to do anything else? If it is not working, why do we not just fix that act or fix the award? This is evidence that the member for Mayo, along with many on the opposition side, has no idea of the issues facing the road transport industry. These are issues that have plagued this industry for many, many years. There have been numerous coronial inquiries, government reports, judicial determinations and academic studies outlining why it is necessary to introduce separate legislation to deal specifically with the transport industry.

The Transport Workers Union of Australia's website notes that these reports and studies have indicated that legislation needs to give effect to four key principles: firstly, the universal application of a safe rates system to all participants in the supply chain, including client accountability for safe performance, planning and safe rates; secondly, safer rates and related conditions for all drivers including long- and short-haul employee drivers and owner-drivers determined by an independent tribunal; thirdly, the capacity to make binding determinations and resolve disputes amongst supply chain participants; and, fourthly, an appropriate and adequate enforcement regime.

For far too long drivers have been pushing themselves on our roads to meet ridiculous time lines to put food on their tables and pay their bills. These drivers have gone to extraordinary lengths to do their jobs. We have heard of the accounts of taking stimulants and prescription or other drugs just to meet their demands. These drivers want to drive safely; their families want them to drive safely; we want them to drive safely. How can drivers be expected to drive safely, obey speed signs and take appropriate breaks to avoid fatigue when there is insufficient legislation to protect them while they do this? We all know the effect fatigue has on drivers, on fine motor skills and concentration.

When we turn a blind eye to what is happening in the road transport industry, we say it is okay for these drivers to put themselves at risk. We say that it is okay for them to put other lives at risk because, when we talk about the road transport industry, an unsafe industry means unsafe roads for all road users. The road toll is already too high. Too many people die on our roads every year. Families lose loved ones and sometimes whole families are lost. Sometimes these accidents involve truck drivers who also have families who grieve. These drivers are just trying to do their job, a job that we need them to do. Without truck drivers our businesses suffer and our economy suffers. We have heard the minister already state that the road transport industry is an integral part of the Australian economy. Road transport accounts for over 1.7 per cent of Australia's total GDP and employs over 246,000 Australians. Australia's freight task has increased at an annual rate of 5.6 per cent and is forecast to continue growing.

We have heard this evening the offensive deriding of the union movement by those on the other side of this debate. The member for Mayo was particularly scathing of the union movement in his comments on this bill. I think his words were that we are just trying to give more power to our mates in the unions. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am more than proud to stand here and congratulate the Transport Workers Union and the union movement. They should be congratulated on their safe rates campaign. We should congratulate the union, their members and every person in the community who has signed up and supported this campaign. It is long overdue, and it is their hard work and advocacy that has seen this come to fruition.

I appreciate that opposition members, particularly the member for Mayo, are very nervous about unions, and I can understand why. It is unions that give workers a voice, and we know that the opposition do not like workers to have a voice. When in power, they have done in the past, and would do in the future, everything possible to ensure that workers have no voice and cannot act collectively in their common interest. That is what these workers have done. They have acted collectively in their common interest not just to get better pay, not just to get better conditions but to actually save lives—not just for their own safety but for others on the road as well—and they should be congratulated.

All workers deserve the right to have laws in place that provide a safe workplace. All workers deserve to have regulation within the industry that they work in that ensures that where unsafe work practices are allowed to occur the individual or business can be held liable. Every worker wants to go home at the end of a work day without injury. Every child or partner wants to have their mother, father or partner come home from work. The Gillard government is committed to improving the road transport industry. We have listened to the industry and we are acting in the interests of the industry.

Some of the statistics that the Transport Workers Union have put together are quite horrifying: the 330 Australians killed every year in truck crashes, the 5,300 Australians injured every year in truck crashes and a trucking fatality rate 10 times the national fatality average by industry. This death and injury causes immeasurable family and community devastation. There is a $2.7 billion cost to taxpayers each year from truck related deaths and injuries. Misuse of unfettered commercial power by massive industry clients like Coles is the root cause of death and injury. Clients squeeze the industry so hard that drivers are often forced to work too long or too fast just to make a living for themselves and their families. This is what the Transport Workers Union has identified as the crisis: someone's mother, son, sister, brother or dad.

We heard from the member for Mayo today that we are just politicising these people. But these are workers, real people who are sick of hearing about these fatalities. It is not just numbers to them. This is their husband or their wife, their brother or their sister, their son or their daughter, and we do need to talk about them. That is the problem. We cannot just talk about this as a piece of black-and-white law and statistics that do not affect people. This is all about people, and that is why we need to introduce this legislation.

The Transport Workers Union website notes that a survey conducted in 2011 by the TWUA illustrated the dangerous on-road behaviours that drivers are currently forced to engage in as a result of economic pressures. According to the survey results, 48 per cent of drivers report almost one day a week in unpaid waiting time; 56 per cent of owner-drivers have had to forgo vehicle maintenance because of economic pressure, the need to keep working or the high cost of repairs; 27 per cent felt they had to drive too fast; and nearly 40 per cent feel pressured to drive longer than legally allowed, with many saying that the pressure comes directly or indirectly from the client.

In the brief time I have left I want to acknowledge the great work that our drivers do. I met some of my local truck drivers just last year when they came to the Redcliffe showgrounds for the Brisbane Convoy for Kids, raising money for sick kids. It was incredible to see truck after truck coming into the showgrounds. I met the drivers and I met their husbands, their wives and their kids, some of whom go to school with my kids—for the first time I realised that they were truck drivers. I talked to them about the risks and about how they feel and are valued by our society and our community. We do not realise the benefits that they provide to our economy by just getting into those trucks every day and driving. Whether they are short-haul drivers or a long-haul drivers, they do an amazing job and an important job for our economy. We need to keep those drivers safe. We need to make sure that they go home to their families each night. That is why I support this bill.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has admitted that this legislation is flawed, which is why the government is proposing to move a series of amendments to the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011, which is before the House, along with a cognate bill. However, neither industry nor the opposition has seen the amendments. Really, where are they and why aren't we debating them right now?

I know that the transport industry is essential to this great nation. I am a regional member of parliament. The road transport industry delivers virtually everything in the Australian community, everything it needs to survive and to thrive. So vital is this sector that Australia cannot survive without it. It is an industry that is frequently undervalued and underestimated. We take for granted everything on our breakfast table and in our houses and sheds, never thinking about how they actually got to the retailer or to our premises. The Trucks provide nearly all urban freight transport and are the only means of transport in most rural and regional areas. Even grain production in Western Australia needs trucks to get to the rail depots and many farmers are now trucking grain freight direct to ports.

My father was a pioneer of cartage contracting and earthmoving in the south-west of Western Australia and my brother is a small business operator in the freight and transport industry. I have spent countless hours in prime movers—from Diamond Ts to an International and Mack trucks—so I am directly aware of the issues in the transport industry and I do know that safety is critical to those involved. However, as in every other industry, there are some people in the transport sector who risk their own safety and that of other road users and the community, and there are those who do the wrong thing.

In my electorate in 2011, two men from my community were killed while they were standing on the side of a busy highway. They were killed by a truck which had run off the road. This was a dreadful tragedy and I feel extremely sorry for their families. Nothing can possibly eliminate their suffering from the loss of their loved ones. The truck driver involved was charged with dangerous driving causing their deaths, found guilty and sent to jail. There is nothing in the bill before the House today that would have prevented such a dangerous driver, who was negligent behind the wheel and showed a disregard for other people's safety and his own, from causing such a crash. I agree with the shadow minister that, if we could pass a law to eliminate tragedies or make road safer for truck drivers and other road users, we would support it in a heartbeat.

There are many things that could and should be done to improve safety, but this bill is not providing all of those answers. For instance, in my electorate fatalities on the Coalfields Highway and roads between the industry centres of Collie and Boddington have fallen by over 90 per cent over the past two years. Local police have said that the South West Industry Road Safety Alliance has had a dramatic influence on the reduction of road deaths near Collie. The alliance provides a collaborative approach to road safety. It incorporates major industry, state road authorities, local government and police in and around Collie and Boddington. The group has worked at a practical level. There have been major infrastructure improvements to intersections, the installation of street lighting and the development of car parks to encourage car pooling and bus services.

The alliance conducts major road safety campaigns at Christmas and Easter which include altered workforce travelling times to avoid peak holiday traffic, education campaigns and local television, radio and print road safety advertising. The alliance has implemented voluntary heavy vehicle curfews and a local road safety education calendar with supporting resources and signage. I know there are ongoing workplace road safety toolbox sessions and the development and implementation of fleet safety policies. This is what is happening. These are all practical, workable and working measures. In fact, it has been so successful that it has been replicated in other areas.

In my experience, the majority of truck drivers and transport industry workers are committed to safety, particularly when you consider the numbers of trucks and truck movements on Australian roads. Their priority is to get home safely to their families and the majority do their job the best way they can so that the rest of their communities can do the same. It must be recorded in this debate that a large proportion of accidents involving trucks are actually caused by car drivers. New South Wales RTA research concluded that other road users are responsible for 69 per cent of fatal crashes involving a heavy vehicle.

I know from first-hand experience that many motorists simply do not understand how to drive in heavy vehicle traffic and, as a result, cause accidents. A will give you an example. I am driving a prime mover heading towards the lights at the bottom of the reasonably steep Armadale Hill near Perth. My truck is fully loaded and my combination's load weighs around 42 tonnes. I am slowing down through the gears and giving myself at least 200 metres to stop at the lights. I am at least 100 metres away from the nearest car in front of me. And what happens?

In that braking space, several cars pull in front of me, some literally diving into the lane right in front of my truck. And what happens? They put their brakes on the minute they pull in front of me. How on earth do those motorists think that I will be able to safely pull up in the remaining space, and why would they be surprised to see my bullbar taking up the majority of their rear-vision mirror? This is happening right now. Right as we speak, I guarantee this is happening. It is happening across Australia every single day and it is one cause of serious accidents.

Many truck drivers I know spend their time on the road every day anticipating such driver behaviour, and work overtime trying to prevent these types of accidents. In recent local South West Times media in relation to the road safety message, South West Industry Road Safety Alliance Chairman and Acting South West District Superintendent Lysle Cubbage said:

... motorists could make the biggest difference—people shouldn't speed or drink drive and they should wear seatbelts and avoid driver distraction.

The government has confirmed that this bill is far more about industrial relations and increasing union power than it is about safer roads by simply taking the legislation from the Department of Infrastructure and Transport to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. It sets up and empowers a new tribunal to introduce a range of arbitration arrangements that are clearly industrial relations measures, not safety measures. It creates major changes for independent contractors. It will remove the independence of owner-drivers, which will treat independent contractors in the heavy vehicle sector differently from independent contractors in any other industry, and perhaps it is actually a warning for what is ahead for all other independent contractors.

Independent Contractors Australia noted in their submission to the House inquiry into this bill:

The Bill should be rejected. The government presents it as a road safety measure. Don't be fooled. It is a direct attack against self-employed truckies. It sets a model for further attacks against all self-employed people in Australia. In fact the Bill is a government ploy designed to give huge power to the Transport Workers Union.

In delivering this power to the TWU, the Bill will probably breach competition principles and laws that prevent price fixing, will result in increases in road transport costs affecting all consumers, reduce productivity and suppress driver incomes. All this, and it would do nothing to improve the safety driving habits of truckles.

That was Independent Contractors Australia. The Civil Contractors Federation said:

A consequence of the setting of Road Safety Remuneration Orders to owner/drivers would be the setting of a floor price, or benchmark which may not take into account the individual specifications of a particular job. An operator who has 10 years experience in a particular type of cartage would be rewarded the same as an operator who has little or no experience.

I would ask another question: how on earth will the tribunal set wage rates when the transport businesses, their clients and individual business operations are so absolutely diverse?

It is also not the case—as the government seems to suggest through this legislation—that all transport companies treat their drivers poorly or pay them badly. There is also nothing in this legislation to address what I believe is a road safety issue—the critical shortage of experienced truck drivers in the south west of WA.

Good operators are constantly leaving local transport and haulage companies to work in the north-west in the mining industry. Transport companies are continually putting time, effort and money into training their drivers. By the time the drivers have the necessary experience, certification and accreditation and have been put through the various site inductions, the companies have invested thousands of dollars in each and every employee. They then have to watch that investment walk out the door and fly out to the mines. Transport company owners in my electorate are, by majority, already paying above average and award wages to keep their highly valued employees. They know their businesses depend on their drivers.

I believe there are some safety issues in the transport industry which we in this parliament should be looking at. However, as the habit of this government is to come up with the wrong answer to whatever question is before us, instead of supplying practical solutions, we see the government, through this bill, simply giving unions more power to dictate to small and medium businesses. This bill imposes the latest extra layer of red tape and cost on small businesses at the same time that the government is imposing more cost and compliance on the transport sector through the carbon tax. Transport Workers Union National Secretary Tony Sheldon said on Ten News on 11 July 2011:

Under the carbon tax, drivers will be forced to do longer hours, sweat their trucks further, have less maintenance, and that means more deaths.

We know that the Australian Trucking Association has said that the carbon tax will add $510 million to costs in the trucking industry in 2014. Through this carbon tax on fuel, the carbon tax will not apply to only 400 or 500 businesses in Australia, but initially to 60,000 businesses which face increased air, rail and maritime transport costs. By 2014, when the tax applies to trucks on roads, this number will jump to 100,000 Australian businesses and millions of Australian families. And it is not as if the transport sector has been ignoring the issue of carbon emissions. According to the Australian Trucking Association in its submission to the government on the carbon tax:

The trucking industry has already spent millions on improving its environmental outcomes. A recent report commissioned by the ATA shows:

- the industry's greenhouse gas emissions fell 35 per cent per billion tonne kilometres between 1990 and 2011, as a result of improvements in engine technology and the use of safer trucks with greater capacity.

- emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and particulates from new engines fell dramatically between 1995 and 2010. For example, particulate emissions from Euro 5 engines (mandated from 1 January 2011 for all new trucks) are 92 per cent lower than the particulate emissions from new model trucks built in 1995.

The new Euro 5 standards cut emissions but come at additional cost to the truck purchaser. I have had people in my office who have said that it can cost them at least $50,000 per unit. It is not unusual for truck owners to pay that sort of money to reduce their carbon footprint and upgrade their vehicles without being able to recoup those costs in their businesses. This means the trucking industry is already paying extra carbon costs to reduce their emissions—something unrecognised and unrewarded by the Gillard government.

Many in the transport industry have raised their concerns about this legislation. The Australian Logistics Council's managing director, Michael Kilgariff, said:

Rather than improving safety, the Bill will add another layer of unnecessary regulation that will impede industry efforts to improve safety and productivity levels which have flat-lined in recent years.

This regulation comes on top of existing laws applying to wages, conditions, contracting arrangements, road use, vehicle standards, fatigue, speed, mass, dimension, loading, substance abuse and record keeping, as well as general workplace health and safety obligations. The Australian Industry Group's Heather Ridout has identified that:

The Government's announcement of a new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is based on the flawed logic that paying drivers differently and at higher rates of pay will lead to improved safety. Road safety is a critically important issue for employers, employees and the wider community, but the proposed Tribunal is not the answer.

The National Road Transport Operators Association has urged the government to 'pull' the bill because it believes it will not improve safety. The bill covers the road transport industry including distribution, long-distance operations, the cash-in-transit industry, the waste management industry and all road transport drivers, including independent contractors. As I said, there is still more to be done and I support genuine road safety initiatives such as the Industry Road Safety Alliance South West and practical measures. However, the bill before the House certainly does not deliver those outcomes.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Symon, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment to the Speaker's panel. I believe that this is the first time that I have spoken in the chamber when you have been in the chair. I am sure that you will do a wonderful job.

I rise to support the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill 2011. I do so because I support road safety and sound occupational health and safety legislation. This legislation will ensure that workers in this industry are protected in ways that they are not at the moment. The bills will establish a new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, whose objects are to promote safety and fairness in the road transport industry. It will be empowered to inquire into sectors, issues and practices within the road transport industry and, where appropriate, determine mandatory minimum rates of pay and relative conditions for employed and self-employed drivers in addition to any existing rights employed drivers have under the industrial instruments and contracts of employment and any existing rights that self-employed independent contract drivers have under their contracts for services. A determination may be made by the tribunal on its own initiative or on application.

The tribunal will also be empowered to grant safe remuneration approvals in relation to remuneration and remuneration related conditions contained in road transport collective agreements. It will be empowered to resolve disputes between drivers, hirers, employers and participants in the road transport supply chain by mediation, conciliation and private arbitration. It will be a mixture of Fair Work Australia and an expert panel of members with qualifications relevant to the road transport industry and it will establish a compliance regime for the enforcement of RSROs.

This legislation will complement existing federal legislation, such as the Fair Work Act and the Independent Contract Act 2006, which was brought in under the Howard government. It will also complement state government schemes dealing with owner-driver contracts and proposed state based heavy vehicle laws.

I first became aware of the conditions that many drivers in the road transport industry work under when I was involved in an inquiry into independent contracting and labour hire arrangements. The report that the then House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Workforce Participation brought down, Making it work, opened my eyes. The most powerful submission and the most powerful evidence given to that inquiry was from the Transport Workers Union. It came from drivers who were pushing the envelope each and every day, in many cases just to make enough money to keep their rigs on the road. The legislation that we have before us today is long overdue. It is legislation that will benefit the whole of our community. It is not just about ensuring that there is proper and adequate remuneration for drivers. It is also a road safety initiative.

I will run through some of the strong arguments why members on both sides of this House should support this legislation. Members should not just stand up and support special interest groups within their own electorates, support big business or concentrate on profits, blaming the drivers and attacking the unions. These owner-drivers are small business operators. Each and every day they go out there and work very hard. Their downtime is time that they are not paid for. It is a very difficult industry to make a living in. It is a very hard industry for those who are employed in it. It is to the government's credit that it is finally recognising that those drivers deserve to have a decent wage.

I compliment the member for Hinkler, who is sitting in the House. I know that he understands a lot of the pressures that truck drivers are under. He brought down a report when he was chair of the transport committee called Burning the midnight oil. It showed the pressures that drivers were under in trying to make a living. That has not changed.

I will give a few statistics. Every year, 330 Australians are killed in truck crashes. That means that each and every year 330 truck drivers are farewelled by their families and friends. These families and friends say goodbye to their loved one and that loved one never returns home. Around 5,300 Australians are injured each year in truck crashes. They are not only those who are driving but families who are going away on holidays and people going to work. Trucking fatality rates are 10 times the national fatality average by industry. That is an incredible figure. Death and injury cause immeasurable family and community devastation. It costs the community.

Those people who are left without a father or in some cases a mother who was the main income earner are then forced to initially look towards the welfare services that operate within this country. Their standard of living and lifestyle falls down around their ears. The associated economic costs of hospitalisation, rehabilitation and maybe a lifetime of unemployment are enormous. As a community, I do not think that we can allow that to continue. The government feels that way and that is why we have introduced the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill 2011. The cost to taxpayers each year from truck related deaths and injuries is $2.7 billion. That shows you just how expensive it is when you take into account all those things I mentioned earlier. The root of this problem is the unfettered commercial power of the big industry clients. It is the one issue that pushes the drivers to go that little bit further and then it causes death and injury. These big commercial powers squeeze the industry so hard that drivers are often forced to work too long or to drive too fast just to make a living for themselves and their families. Keeping a truck on the road is very expensive—the fuel and other associated costs of operating a truck are enormous.

We like to think that the people who are delivering essential goods and services throughout Australia are going to be fairly paid for the work that they do, but the fact is that currently they are not. Some employers are paying the right wages, and some drivers are getting the right sort of compensation for their work, but there are many, many thousands that are forced to push the envelope, to go a little bit faster, to work a little bit longer than they should just so that they can survive. This leads to dangerous on-road behaviour.

This all relates to the economic pressure that is placed on the drivers. Forty-eight per cent of drivers report almost one day a week is unpaid waiting time. They are standing there with their truck waiting for the goods to be loaded. As a consequence, they have got to make up the time they have lost while they are waiting. Fifty-six per cent of owner-drivers have had to forgo vehicle maintenance because they have economic pressure to keep their truck going. It is imperative that we look at these issues. Twenty-seven per cent felt they had to drive too fast, and 40 per cent feel pressure to drive longer than is legally allowed. I believe there have been some checks recently in New South Wales which have shown that these behaviours are taking place. It is all about pressure. It is coming indirectly from the clients and it leads to unsafe trucks being on the road and unsafe behaviour from drivers who are being forced to push themselves to the limit just so they can make ends meet.

I will give the example of Tom, who lives on the Central Coast of New South Wales, which is part of my electorate. He completed a survey and summed up some of the pressures and dangers in the industry. He said:

I'm doing 24 hours in unpaid waiting times a week. With trailers being pre-loaded by—

the company—

I cannot afford to wait another an hour or so unpaid while they unload and reload a set of trailers to get the legal weight. I carry overweight regularly and I don't have a choice.

He carries overweight regularly and he does not have a choice. That is the pressure that is being put on drivers by the way the industry is operating at the moment.

It is time for the government to act. It is time for governments in all jurisdictions to come together and work to make this industry safer and to protect not only the drivers, not only those who work in the industry, but also the community as a whole. It is a major occupational health and safety issue for those drivers and it is one that cannot be ignored. The solution is quite simple: introduce a safe rates system and the legislation we have before us today, and make sure that we have an industry that operates in accordance with proper safety guidelines.

It was in 2000, I think, when the member for Hinkler chaired the committee which brought down the Beyond the midnight oil report. It is 2012 and really nothing has changed in that time. Drivers are still pushing the envelope; drivers are still forced to keep their trucks on the road when they should be going in for service; drivers are still forced to fudge their logbooks just so they can make a living; and drivers are still being forced to drive faster than they should. Drivers are still being forced to do all of the things that they really should not be doing. As a government we should be putting in place proper laws to make sure that they do not have to do this.

I was interested to hear the previous speaker. She was talking about 'red tape' relating to bookkeeping and substance abuse. I actually think as the government and as the parliament we should be ensuring that we have legislation in place that stops that substance abuse and makes sure there is proper record keeping. With the introduction of the Road Safety Remuneration Bill and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill, that is exactly what we will have—good safety legislation. (Time expired)

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Symon, may I commence my contribution by congratulating you on your elevation to the Speaker's panel. These bills being debated tonight, the Road Safety Remuneration Bill 2011 and the Road Safety Remuneration (Consequential Amendments and Related Provisions) Bill 2011, envisage a new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, and this legislation has been the subject of a Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications referred legislation inquiry. I want to make it clear that, from my perspective, the committee's report is a fair and accurate record of the evidence that we received, both in the submissions and in the public hearings. However, the coalition members of the committee reached different conclusions from the evidence that was brought before us, and we did not support the final recommendation of this report.

The objective of these bills is to promote the safety and fairness of the road transport industry by establishing a Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal which may set pay and contract rates in the road transport industry by issuing road safety remuneration orders, or RSROs. The RSROs may contain minimum remuneration and employment conditions in addition to those contained in an award. The RSRO may also address industry practices such as loading and unloading, waiting times, working hours, load limits, payment methods and periods.

The tribunal can also make an order to 'reduce or remove remuneration related incentives, pressures and practices that contribute to unsafe work practices, for example speeding and excessive working hours'. Further, the tribunal may also grant safe remuneration approvals, which are a form of collective agreement determination in relation to road transport collective agreements between hirers and self-employed drivers. It will also be empowered to resolve disputes between drivers, hirers and employers, and others involved in the road transport industry supply chain, with any orders being enforced by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

As I said before, the coalition members of the committee understand and appreciate the intention of the bills. However, we do not believe that the measures contained in them will have a significant impact on improving safety for truck drivers and other road users. Indeed, it should be noted that there has been a gradual improvement in the accident and fatality rates in recent years, despite the increase in the national freight task.

The coalition has always prioritised road safety, and that is why we created the first ever national transport plan, Auslink and Roads to Recovery; restored the Black Spot Program; and supported the development of the National Road Safety Strategy. The key issue for coalition members in assessing the legislation is whether the proposed reforms have the desired effect of reducing unacceptably high rates of injuries and fatalities on our roads. There actually could be some unintended and dire consequences for individuals and entities involved in the trucking, freight and logistics industries.

One scenario that has been put to me is that of livestock saleyards. At no time in the entire saleyards process do the yard owners actually own a single animal. Other regulations state that saleyard managers are in charge of animal welfare while livestock are at a facility but at no time do they ever take ownership of that stock. When livestock arrives at the saleyards facility, the vendor's agent is in charge of them and, once the sale has taken place, responsibility is transferred to the new owner. In effect, the saleyard operator simply provides a facility and acts as a landlord yet they are covered by the proposed legislation and, for them to be able to function legally and effectively under the legislation, they may have to employ a logistics manager who would be able to allocate trucks to particular slots. This expense will have to be recouped from the industry, which in turn comes back to more pressure on the owners and ultimately the drivers.

Another consideration is the facilities for truck drivers currently provided at saleyards. Most of these facilities include parking, toilets and showers for the entire transport industry, not just livestock haulers. It has been suggested by some in the saleyards sector that these rest-stop facilities may only be open to drivers who have a prearranged loading or unloading timeslot. I certainly do not want to see that happen.

Members would be aware of my strong belief that we need more and better rest stops for drivers, including truck drivers. This was one of the findings of Beyond the midnight oil; 3,000 is what we suggested. Apart from improving rest facilities for truck drivers, we need to maintain and improve roads—a point supported in a number of submissions to the inquiry. The committee received plenty of evidence which supported a sharper focus on improving roads and enforcing existing laws and regulations, and it was frequently put to the committee that these and other measures would have a greater impact on road safety.

In its submission to the inquiry, the Civil Contractors Federation told the committee:

… road safety is a broader issue and improving road safety requires a holistic approach rather than being based on a narrow focus upon the method and quantum of remuneration.

Noel Porter of Porter Haulage in Victoria said:

There is no such thing as a safe rate .

There are however safe roads .Which we currently do not have .

We feel that the evidence points to ongoing fatigue and extended waiting times at loading points and later at distribution centres, supermarket unloading bays and the like, and they need to be the first point of attack.

During this inquiry, I met with a delegation of women who had lost their partners, husbands or family members in trucking accidents. I met with Johanna de Beer, a mother who had lost her son; Lystra Tagliaferri, a wife who had lost her husband, Lisa Sawyer, a sister who had lost a brother; Suzanne de Beer, a wife whose husband had been killed; and Stella Minos, the wife of an owner-driver. I was deeply moved by their circumstances. And, as one who lost his best friend who was a long-haul driver just 15 or 20 minutes from his home at the end of a long transport run, I can well appreciate their loss and their family tragedy. I pledge myself to continue to pursue better physical conditions for truckies and owner-drivers, but I do not see how introducing two layers of remuneration solves the problem. You end up with two regulators and with cross-jurisdictional problems. I am not in the business of union bashing, and Tony Sheldon knows that. I am a great supporter of the trucking industry and its drivers. I just do not agree with him in this instance.

In terms of committee credibility, my mentor was the Hon. Peter Morris, the Minister for Transport in the Hawke era and Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure in the Keating era. He urged us as his colleagues—and that was as colleagues of both political persuasions—to report on the evidence in our inquiries. I think it is a great waste of effort and a great pity if standing committees simply divide along party lines and report as the government wants them to report, especially when reviewing legislation, so I was really upset to have to disagree with the report. In fact, I can proudly say that during the 10 or 11 years that I chaired the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communication, Transport and the Arts we did not have one dissenting report between the two sides of politics. I thought that was quite remarkable—and we brought down some very heavy reports. The only dissenting comments that we had were, strangely, from government members who wanted to toughen up our recommendations. They were not speaking against them; they just wanted them to be stronger. I also remember the member for Oxley was trying very hard to get funding for the Brisbane to Ipswich Road when one of our reports came down. One of our recommendations did not align with his plan for that road. I went to see him and said that if he wanted to put in a dissenting report I would understand. He said, 'No, Paul. This is a great report. I would not spoil it by a dissenting report.' That was the spirit we had in those days, and I hope in matters as important as road transport we continue along those lines.

The member for Shortland mentioned 'beyond the midnight oil'. Some people ask me why we called the report Beyond the midnight oil. The reason was very simple. We all talk about 'burning the midnight oil', which is when we say we are doing more than we should or we are pushing ourselves more than is reasonable. But when we said 'going beyond burning the midnight oil' we meant that we were ratcheting up yet another notch, and that is what we found in the transport industry. We went out to truckies' service stations in the middle of the night. I remember one north of Armidale and in the cold hours of the morning talking to truckies, looking at the food they ate and working out how many hours they had driven. We got two of the best experts in the world on transport fatigue, who happened to be in Australia at the time, to give evidence and they put a lot of emphasis on what is known as circadian rhythms. They are the times of your daily cycle when your alertness is at its best. There are certain hours between midnight and dawn when, no matter how well you are adjusted, you are not at your best. There was also work from the University of Adelaide that showed how fatigue caused danger for truck drivers. So I have no inhibitions about strict laws that come down hard on employers who mistreat their employees, who force them to drive faster than they should or to take on time limits that are unachievable. I have no problems with prosecuting people who try to get their employees to bodgie up their logbooks. I believe there should be stricter controls enforced on supermarkets and loading organisations to make sure truckies get a fair go in loading their trucks and do their genuine work on the highway, not sitting around, as one speaker said earlier, for one day in every week just waiting for loads or waiting to be unloaded.

I had another bit of a problem with the report. I know it may have been well intentioned, but the idea of trying to extend this legislation to courier drivers and Australia Post contractors is, to my way of thinking, going a bridge too far. I am not saying that there may not be a case for better regulation in those two fields; I am not saying that at all. But, if we are going to have two layers of regulator, both dealing with money and money related conditions, and then we push this agenda into other fields of transport, I ask the questions: where will it end and will it give healthy certainty to business? I think not.

It was interesting that both the New South Wales and Queensland governments, two governments of different political persuasions, disagreed with the legislation. The Queensland government said, 'Queensland does not believe that the setting of specific rates and methods of payment by the proposed tribunal under legislation is likely in itself to encourage employers, employees and owner-drivers to adopt a broader range of safe work practices.' I think that quote from the Queensland government says it all.

Debate adjourned.