Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the government's response to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee report, Aspects of road safety in Australia. I just want to go to a few issues. The report is an extremely important report, and it is disappointing that it has taken such a long time for a response.

The transport industry—I'm talking particularly about trucking at this point—is an industry where there have been 901 deaths from truck crashes in the past five years. So far this year, of 78 workplace deaths, 25 were transport deaths. Those are the figures that we actually have from safety departments in various states. But because not every state counts a trucking death as a workplace death, in actual fact you could quite easily, unfortunately and horrifically, double those figures.

But it does go to a particularly appalling situation, and that is the way that the industry has been responding to some of these calls. I'm going to mention something about the ACCC as well. This is an industry which has extremely low margins. It's under incredible pressure: some pressure from clients, some pressure from the supply chain. In one study I recall, 25 per cent of drivers were doing more than 72 hours a week. I remember being at one inquiry some years ago, in my previous life, explaining to those senators that, if I were to tie down somebody in a chair—or, if you were to tie down one of your staff in a chair—for five hours before they could have a break, as is what happens with truck drivers, then you'd be put in jail. If you were tying down your staff, giving them half an hour to get out of that chair every five hours and sitting them in that chair for 17 hours, you'd be put in jail. Truck driving is an incredibly dangerous, difficult and demanding industry, with high exploitation. Twenty-five per cent of drivers do more than 72 hours.

In one study, four per cent of drivers were doing more than 92 hours. That wasn't because people were greedy or because they didn't care about the law. It's because of the pressure that comes on the trucking industry. One very brave person—he's an owner-driver, an interstate driver in one of the toughest segments of the transport industry—spoke up on numerous occasions over many years. It's a very tight business that he runs. It's a very difficult business that he runs—highly competitive, at the beck and call of clients that have little regard to the pressure they apply on the trucking industry. He was quoted recently. I will quote him from a very important article he wrote in what's called Owner Driver. I'm happy to say that Owner Driver is a bit like the Bible for truckies. If you're in a truck stop, that's the first thing you have a look at. In a recent opinion piece, Frank Black said:

This is no time for bottom feeders to seek to profit at the expense of others. We can't afford for rates to be lowered anywhere in the industry.

In harder times, it's more important than ever for us to stick together and stand strong. We all feel the calling of our personal financial needs but undercutting each other to win work will only do harm to us all.

These seem like pretty sensible words, when you think this is the sort of state this industry is in: low margin, submarginal; people doing it tough; poor rates; vehicles not being able to be maintained; decisions about whether you keep your business running or you pay your bills at home; having your trucking business tied in with your mortgage; being away from your families for extremely long hours. All these things are a cocktail of despair in this industry.

But so many drivers put energy into making sure that they make this industry work better, and Frank is one of those people. After Frank said those very sensible words, he received a threatening letter from the ACCC. They not only threatened to charge him but reminded him that those charges carry a jail term of many years. He's an elected representative for truck drivers. They've accused him of a price-fixing cartel. In three jurisdictions in this country—in Western Australia, in Victoria and in New South Wales—we have legislation that gives some onus of rights to owner-drivers, that are exempt from the ACCC. There is even the Independent Contractors Act, and, for all its deficiencies, it also can exempt collective negotiation of owner-drivers and has on occasions. But the ACCC has tried to shut him down. Why did they try to shut him down? Because some scurrilous individual—and I'm waiting for a response from the Australian Trucking Association over this—decided to do a backhander to Frank Black because he stood up for truckies.

When you stand up for owner-drivers, this is the pile of dirt that gets thrown on top of you. I've got to say this to all those that are sitting back and thinking that they're going to shut people like Frank Black up, and many, many owner-drivers like him—because they won't. I've got to say this to the ACCC. Reach out, have the right arguments, have the discussions, look at the reports, look at the deaths in this industry and then decide whether you should be sending letters to people who are standing up for truck drivers and saying, 'You can't work for a rate that will literally kill you, that will literally send you bankrupt.' If that's illegal, then what sort of dope have we got in the ACCC?

The Australian Trucking Association have now completely distanced themselves from Frank Black. Will they distance themselves from many drivers around this country, small businesses over a long period of time? And now they have dumped on a hard-fighting owner-driver who was on their executive. He doesn't always see eye to eye with them, he doesn't always have the same opinion as them, but he is an elected owner-driver representative on that committee. Doesn't it make you sick to think that the ACCC has nothing better to do than badger and harass a hardworking owner-driver who is saying we should stand up for small-business people, that we should stand by what we've done in legislation in other states? I've been there when Liberal governments and Labor have come together to make improvements to owner-driver protections to protect their goodwill. I've seen occasions where parliaments have come together—and even governments in control of parliaments have come together—and given owner-drivers rights controlled by conservative governments.

The Australian Trucking Association, and the ACCC, have a lot to answer for this. I'm going to go through their executive because, I'll tell you what, every one of them has a tale to tell of stealing from drivers, of employing owner-drivers because they don't want to have a minimum rate so drivers can survive. They have been convicted of all sorts of atrocities in the trucking industry. And they finally thought they had got their man; they thought they would get the ACCC to play the line for them. Well, guess what? I stand with Frank Black and owner-drivers in this country. Unlike the Australian Trucking Association, and unlike the ACCC, I'm not going to see small businesses crushed and I'm not going to see people not being prepared to stand up and call it out when they're being stood over and stood on.

I have had to go to the funerals of truck drivers, and too many of them were owner-drivers. Those deaths were not due to acts of God that occurred; they were due to acts of pressure on those drivers by clients and malicious trucking companies. I'm going to out the Australian Trucking Association for what they are doing. They deserve to be outed because we need to clean this industry up. (Quorum formed)