Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a delight to go on after Senator Hanson! On Thursday 28 July, I had the privilege of meeting with a parliamentary delegation led by the Transport Workers Union. The TWU are calling for urgent reform of our transport industry to protect wages and conditions to improve road safety and save lives. In the room we had employee associations, owner drivers, couriers, food delivery drivers, employee drivers and family members affected by road safety accidents. Parliamentarians heard directly about the serious impacts of the evolving Amazon effect and the gig economy on eroding pay and safety across the transport sector. The delegation told us about companies at the top of the supply chains squeezing transport contracts and pressuring workers to drive past legal hours, speed in order to meet deadlines, delay vehicle maintenance and ignore fatigue management measures, all to shamefully put profits before people.

Workers also told us about being exploited by unregulated gig megacompanies such as Amazon, who undercut traditional transport operators from the bottom. Then we have Amazon Flex and Uber push our workers into precarious and insecure work with low rates of pay and no workplace rights or entitlements. Just as I indicated in my first speech, it is, sadly, too common for our migrant workers and communities to undertake the heaviest work for the lowest pay. They are the very people and communities who absorb the unfair brunt of these appalling practices.

Along with the stories of the wage rip-offs and workplace exploitation, we heard about the devastating impact this exploitation has on real lives. The heavy vehicle and road transport sectors are Australia's deadliest industries and deadly in the worst way. With an average of 180 deaths per year and many more hospitalisations associated with heavy vehicles, these workplace injuries, traumas and deaths have immense social and economic impacts on drivers, their families, businesses and the broader community. However, rather than take action to stop the devastation, the previous government in 2016 chose to dismantle the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, the very measure designed to keep our roads safe and workers paid fairly. It was absolutely shameful.

Since this unforgiveable decision by the Liberals, there have been over 1,000 associated truck crash deaths on our roads, with 250 of these deaths being truck drivers. How incredibly devastating for each family affected. We can do better and we must do better.

As identified by the Senate committee inquiry into the viable and safe transport industry, chaired by my good friend Senator Glenn Sterle, there is an immediate need for government intervention to change the practice and culture of an industry that literally carries our entire country, an industry that carried us all through the height of the pandemic and an industry that will be key as we continue to reopen, recover and rebuild.

Along with the inquiry's 10 recommendations, federal Labor's national 2021 platform pledged to introduce a national system of safe rates to lift standards across the transport sector. This included an independent body to lift the safe standards of work, payments and conditions, elimination of economic and contractual practices that place undue pressure on transport workers, fair and enforceable payments for all workers regardless of labels, the capacity to resolve supply chain disputes and appropriate resourcing of supply chain training, auditing and education through an industry fund.

I would like to thank all of the representatives who attended parliament to tell their personal stories, who took time off work, unpaid, to come up here and advocate for the rights of workers like them who aren't even getting the minimum wage, who can't go to work and expect to be able to come home safely like almost every other worker in this country. I want to thank the TWU representatives, including Michael Kaine, Mike McNess and Mem Suleyman, for facilitating the workers attending parliament. I'm proud to stand in solidarity with the Transport Workers' Union, who are fighting to— (Time expired)