2016-04-18 44 2 1 House of Reps 0 1

Monday, 18 April 2016

OPENING OF THE SESSION 1 OPENING OF THE SESSION GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH 1 GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH Message from the Governor-General 1 BILLS 1 BILLS Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 3) 2016 1

Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 3) 2016

First Reading 1 GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH 1 GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH Address-in-Reply 2 09:53 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth I move: That a committee, consisting of Mr Zimmerman, Ms Price and the mover, be appointed to prepare an Address in Reply to the speech delivered by His Excellency the Governor-General to both Houses of the Parliament and that the committee report at a later hour this day. 09:53 Mr BURKE DYW Watson I move an amendment to the motion that has just been moved: That the committee also include the member for Warringah and the member for Menzies. We have been recalled here to debate Abbott government legislation. The message that we have just had from the Governor-General exactly quoted the message we were given after the election. 09:53 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the member be no longer heard. 09:53 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the question be put. Mr Albanese R36 Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Leader of the House moved one motion. You heard that motion. You went to put it to the House and then he moved another motion that was contrary. I know this is a farcical process we are dealing with here this morning— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Grayndler will come to his point of order. Mr Albanese R36 but he moved something quite rightly before the House, because he doesn't need a seconder. Once he has moved it you have to put it to the House. Mr Burke DYW On the point of order, Mr Speaker. There are a limited number of motions which once moved must be put immediately. The motion 'That the member no longer be heard' is one of them. Therefore, he cannot move a subsequent motion, because under standing orders the first one must be put immediately. I don't particularly like what he moved, but I simply ask that the standing orders be followed, that the first motion be put immediately and then you ask whether the amendment is seconded. The SPEAKER 10000 The question is that the Manager of Opposition Business be no longer heard.

The House divided. [09:59]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 85 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 55 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 10:03 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the question be put. The SPEAKER 10000 The question is that the question be put.

The House divided. [10:05]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 85 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 55 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 10:06 The SPEAKER 00APG The question now is that the motion moved by Mr Turnbull be agreed to.

The House divided. [10:07]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith

 85 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 56 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 BUSINESS 6 BUSINESS Rearrangement 6 10:09 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong I seek leave to move the following motion: That the House: (1)      notes that: (a)   confidence and trust in the financial services industry has been shaken by ongoing revelations of scandals and tens of thousands of Australians being ripped off; (b)   retirees have had their retirement savings gutted; (c)   families have been rorted out of hundreds and thousands of dollars; (d)   small business owners have lost everything; (e)   life insurance policy holders have been denied justice; (f)   it is clear from the breadth and scope of the allegations that the problems in this industry go beyond any one bank or type of financial institution; (g)   on 6 April 2016, the Prime Minister himself said “There have been many troubling incidents over recent times for them simply to be dismissed”— The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the House? Mr Pyne 9V5 Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There is ample precedence in the standing orders that a motion such as this kind should be to the point and certainly not overly lengthy. The Leader of the Opposition has many pages. He intends to give his speech while reading the motion. That should not be tolerated. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Members on both sides will cease interjecting. I wish to hear the Leader of the House. I also wish to hear the Leader of the Opposition's motion. Members will cease interjecting. I take the point from the Leader of the House. I have had cause to reflect on this a number of times over recent months. I will certainly be mindful of the length of the motion but also point out there have been lengthy motions moved and accepted in the past from members who have occupied various positions in different parliaments. So I am cognisant of it but, without going directly to those precedents, I will hear the Leader of the Opposition. I remind him that the motion should be to the point and not depart from the practice that he has been used to as Leader of the Opposition in the period that I have been Speaker. Mr Whiteley 207800 You don't use banks, Bill. You use brown paper bags. The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Braddon is warned! Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Members will cease interjecting. I will address the chamber. The member for Braddon will also withdraw. Mr Whiteley 207800 I withdraw. The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition will continue his motion. Mr SHORTEN 00ATG You want me to start the whole resolution again, Mr Speaker? The SPEAKER 00APG No, I am happy for you to continue. Mr SHORTEN 00ATG The motion continues: (f)   it is clear from the breadth and scope of the allegations that the problems in this industry go beyond any one bank or type of financial institution; (g)   on 6 April 2016, the Prime Minister himself said “There have been many troubling incidents over recent times for them simply to be dismissed”; (h)   Liberal and National parliamentarians have defied the Prime Minister and the banks and publicly supported a Royal Commission; (i)   Australia has one of the strongest banking systems in the world but we need Australians to have confidence in their banks and financial institutions, to uncover and deal with unethical behaviour that compromises that confidence; (j)   there are reports that Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison have been secretly colluding with the banks to concoct a plan to protect them from a Royal Commission— The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition knows he needs to refer to members by their correct titles. I have said it a number of times. The Leader of the House? Mr Shorten interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition does not have the call. Mr Pyne 9V5 Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Leader of the Opposition must withdraw that rather unpleasant imputation that he made, that slur on the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. Mr Burke DYW A point of order, Mr Speaker. The standing orders require that, if an allegation of that nature is to be made, it should be made by direct resolution. That is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition is seeking to do. The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition will ensure that his motion goes to why standing orders should be suspended. The content of the last 30 seconds or so has gone beyond previous motions moved, certainly in this parliament. I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to refer to members by their correct titles, and to bring his motion to a conclusion. Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Thank you, Mr Speaker:    (k) anything less than a Royal Commission into misconduct in the banking and financial services industry amounts to a cover-up orchestrated by the Prime Minister and his Liberal Government; and (2) agree on:    (a) Wednesday, 20 April 2016, being appointed as a sitting day; and    (b) priority being accorded over all other business at that sitting to the following motion to be moved by the Leader of the Opposition: That the House calls on the Prime Minister to request His Excellency the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia issue Letters Patent to establish a Royal Commission to inquire into misconduct in the banking and financial services industry. Leave not granted. Mr SHORTEN 00ATG I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion forthwith—That the House: (1) notes that:    (a) confidence and trust in the financial services industry has been shaken by ongoing revelations of scandals and tens of thousands of Australians being ripped off;    (b) retirees have had their retirement savings gutted;    (c) families have been rorted out of hundreds and thousands of dollars;    (d) small business owners have lost everything;    (e) life insurance policy holders have been denied justice;    (f) it is clear from the breadth and scope of the allegations that the problems in this industry go beyond any one bank or type of financial institution;    (g) on 6 April 2016, the Prime Minister himself said “There have been many troubling incidents over recent times for them simply to be dismissed”;    (h) Liberal and National parliamentarians have defied the Prime Minister and the banks and publicly supported a Royal Commission;    (i) Australia has one of the strongest banking systems in the world but we need Australians to have confidence in their banks and financial institutions, to uncover and deal with unethical behaviour that compromises that confidence;    (j) there are reports that Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison have been secretly colluding with the banks to concoct a plan to protect them from a Royal Commission;    (k) anything less than a Royal Commission into misconduct in the banking and financial services industry amounts to a cover-up orchestrated by the Prime Minister and his Liberal Government; and (2) agree on:    (a) Wednesday, 20 April 2016, being appointed as a sitting day; and    (b) priority being accorded over all other business at that sitting to the following motion to be moved by the Leader of the Opposition: That the House calls on the Prime Minister to request His Excellency the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia issue Letters Patent to establish a Royal Commission to inquire into misconduct in the banking and financial services industry. Australians have finally found something the Prime Minister believes in—covering up for the big banks! 10:18 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the Member be no longer heard. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the Leader of the Opposition be no longer heard.

The House divided. [10:22]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 83 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 56 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 10:24 The SPEAKER 00APG Is the motion seconded?   10:24 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon I second the motion—the latest in a long line of issues where this Prime Minister waffles and does not lead. 10:25 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the Member be no longer heard. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the member for McMahon be no longer heard.

The House divided. [10:26]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 83 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 56 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 10:27 The SPEAKER 00APG The question now is that the motion be agreed to. A division is required but, it being Monday and between 10.00 am and 12 noon, in accordance with standing order 133, the division is deferred until 12 noon. Debate adjourned. BILLS 11 BILLS Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2], Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 [No. 2] 11

Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2]

Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 [No. 2]

Message from the Governor-General transmitting particulars of proposed expenditure and recommending appropriation announced.

10:28 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I ask leave of the House to move a motion requesting that the Senate resume consideration of the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2], and the Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 [No. 2]. The SPEAKER 00APG Is leave granted? 10:28 Mr BURKE DYW Watson We have made it clear that we are ready to debate this in the Senate so, on that basis, leave is granted. Leave granted. Mr PYNE 9V5 I thank the House, and I move: That: (1) the House requests the Senate to resume consideration of the bills entitled a Bill for an Act to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, and for related purposes, and a Bill for an Act to deal with consequential and transitional matters arising from the enactment of the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Act 2013, and for related purposes, which were transmitted to the Senate for its concurrence during the last session of the Parliament; and (2) the House's requests be conveyed to the Senate in a separate message for each bill. Mr Bandt M3C Mr Speaker, I move that— Mr PYNE 9V5 I move: That the question be now put. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the motion be put.

The House divided. [10:33]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 85 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McGowan, C McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 55 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 10:36 The SPEAKER 00APG The question now is that the motion moved by the Leader of the House be agreed to.

The House divided. [10:38]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 85 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 55 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 10:38 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne (In division) Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order about the conduct during the debate. I had begun moving a motion by way of amendment to the Leader of House's motion to allow us to debate a national anti-corruption watchdog instead of the ABCC bills. I had begun moving that motion and then the call was given to the Leader of the House. I seek your clarification: is it the case that only certain members of this House are allowed to finish their motions before a gag motion is put or does that right extend to members of the crossbench as well? The SPEAKER 00APG My answer to that is, as I said when I became Speaker, that I would treat all members equally, and that is what I do. BUSINESS 14 BUSINESS Consideration of Legislation 14 10:41 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I thank the House for passing that resolution. I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the following occurring: (1) the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 3] being presented without notice, read a first time, second reading moved and the debate on the motion for the second reading being adjourned to a later hour; (2) immediately thereafter the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 being presented without notice, read a first time, second reading moved and the debate on the motion for the second reading being adjourned to a later hour; (3) immediately thereafter the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016 being presented without notice, read a first time, second reading moved and the debate on the motion for the second reading being adjourned to a later hour; (4) when the order of the day for the resumption of debate on the second reading of the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 is called on, a cognate debate taking place with the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016; and (5) any variation to this arrangement being made only by a motion moved by a Minister. The purpose of this motion and subsequent motions is to allow the House to debate the matters for which it has been recalled. We have just dealt with the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation message to be sent back to the Senate, and this House has passed that bill twice. We will now give the Senate an opportunity to bring productivity back to the building and construction industry and to bring the rule of law back to the building and construction industry, but there are other bills that the government wishes to deal with. One of those is the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014, a bill that this House has passed three times, and a bill that is designed to support honest workers, honest union leaders and the people that they represent, and to root out dishonest union leaders in unions. It is a bill which we have passed three times and which we will pass again in the next 24 hours. There are two other bills that, it has become absolutely apparent since the House last sat, need to be passed: the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 and the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016, in the event that the abolition bill is not passed. I do not wish to delay the House in the substance of the debate around the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal bill, because members want to get on with debating it, and there is a long list of members on both sides of the House who wish to speak on the disastrous, catastrophic events surrounding owner drivers of trucks, introduced by the Labor Party when they decided to put small business out of business, look after big unions, big government and big business. That is why we are moving the suspension in the terms that have been described—in order to allow the House to deal with those bills according to the standing orders. 10:43 Mr BURKE DYW Watson Let us make no mistake: the reason we have this debate management motion being put forward is that those opposite are not willing to sit for more than two days. The reason they have to have a motion to do this is that those opposite are not willing to face question time for the remainder of the week. They expect taxpayers to pay for us to come down here, but they are not willing to turn up to be accountable. I am not surprised that the Prime Minister does not want to be in the same room as his colleagues for the whole of the week. It is not the first time a government has replaced a Prime Minister. It is the first time the one who was replaced has continued to govern! It is the first time that the one who was deposed has remained in charge of the legislative agenda! What we just heard across in the other place from the government— Opposition members: Bye! Bye! Mr BURKE DYW That is right: the Prime Minister is off to a room with all his supporters, but the Liberal Party remain here! That is what is going on over there. We have a situation in this House where we just walked across to the Senate to hear the Governor-General quote from the same speech that had been provided to the previous Governor-General by the previous Prime Minister! The reason we are here is to debate an Abbott government bill to defend Abbott government reasons, as those opposite prepare a photocopy of the Abbott government budget! The member for Warringah is dead right when he says the next election is going to be about the legacy of his government. That is exactly the reason we have been called here. Didn't the Prime Minister think he was oh so clever the day he called us all back here? Didn't he think it was a stroke of Constitutional brilliance? Now he discovers what it means is that the die is cast and that everybody knows that they are pursuing at every level—from budgetary angles through to their approach to industrial relations—the same agenda that was there from the previous government. The rhetoric of fear is back and the outcomes that they seek are exactly the same. In the comments that were just made by the Leader of the House we had a claim that we were brought back here to deal with the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. No we were not. There was no mention of that when we were brought back. What the Leader of the House has just said is completely misleading. We were not brought back here for that reason at all. When the tribunal was making this decision the government declined to even make a submission! The government had no interest back then in having anything to say about road safety. And don't you notice now, every time those opposite stand up to talk about the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal in media conferences they will only call the tribunal by its acronym. They will only use the acronym to describe it because they will not dare acknowledge that they are abolishing something established in the name of road safety. That is what they do not want known. That is what they will have nothing to do with. To hear from the Leader of the House—the person who had praised Kathy Jackson, the person who had been in here claiming that Kathy Jackson was the symbol of a freedom fighter and a person for us all to look up to—and to think that he has any credibility at all in coming into this place to say that he can have an opinion on trade union officials and who to trust and who not to! The Leader of the House has been completely deceptive in the reasons he has given and in the motion that is in front of us now. The motion that is in front of us is simply an excuse to make sure that they can get out of this place as quickly as possible. I am not surprised they want to get out of this place as quickly as possible, because we know that every time they are all here together the plotting continues. The plotting continues on their backbench and the plotting continues among their previous ministers. Where does it all lead? Every time there is a policy advance that this Prime Minister might think he might make he always ends up caving in to the member for Menzies and the member for Warringah. Every single policy debate ends up where they want it to be, every time. They want to have a process whereby, in avoiding question time, they only have to have two days dealing with the fact that the Prime Minister has proposed double taxation from the states and the Commonwealth on income tax! They only have to have two days defending the fact that the Prime Minister suggested that the Commonwealth should only fund private schools. They only have two days where they have to defend the fact that what they are going to do about the banks is say really mean words but do absolutely nothing. They only have to have two days where they have to answer questions about the absolute rorts and corruption by the New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party, which they do not want to have to defend and which they do not want a public spotlight on. Most importantly, they only have to have two days where they are all in the same place! There will be a book released later today, and I will tell you what: that book was meant to be a piece of history, not a how-to guide! We might have learnt lessons from it but those opposite have decided that it is a 'how-to' guide, and they are following every stage of it to the letter! We know, when the member for Warringah and the member for Menzies were proposed to be part of the committee, what was going through the Prime Minister's mind; we know that those opposite are absolutely aware of the problems within their own ranks and problems that, at their heart, come from having a Prime Minister and a Treasurer without an agenda—a Prime Minister and a Treasurer without an agenda at all! The problem is that when this Prime Minister stands for nothing and changes nothing it means that the policies of the Abbott government remain in place. We are heading for a photocopy of the 2014 budget. We would like to be here all week to debate those issues. We would like to have a situation where members of parliament who want to have a say on legislation have the opportunity to be able to have that say on legislation—and those opposite want to get out of here as quickly as they can. The Prime Minister stood up and announced the proroguing of the parliament in a completely unprecedented way. This has only happened four times before in the nation's history: it has happened twice for visits by the Queen; once when an election was running, technically, late; and once following the death of Harold Holt. No-one before has ever thought they needed to use the Governor-General to run their political arguments for them in the lead-up to an election. What those opposite have done this time is completely unprecedented. That is the reason for this motion. This motion has nothing to do with the ordinary management of parliamentary debate, because this is no ordinary week of parliament. This is a week of parliament that only runs for two days. This is a week of parliament that is unprecedented—a week where those opposite are running scared, not only of questions from this side of the House but they have no idea what their own backbench are going to do. They have no idea what their own backbench will say about the royal commission into the banks. They have no idea what their own backbench will say on whatever crazy-brave idea the Prime Minister might think of tomorrow and get knocked down by his party room a couple of days later. They have no idea, and when you have a government with no idea it means that everything that was there previously remains in place. I never thought there would be this moment: when the Deputy Prime Minister was Acting Prime Minister for a moment I thought, 'It could even be better! It could even be better than his predecessor!' I have to say, for those two days it was actually calmer than when the Prime Minister is in charge! That was achieved by the Deputy Prime Minister. But we are here now in a parliament that was called for chaotic reasons—in a parliament that was called through a crazy-brave idea by the Prime Minister. And when he called it, everybody presumed it meant we were all here for three weeks. When he called it, everybody presumed that the parliament was here for three weeks—not that we would be here as little lemmings to perform a stunt for the Prime Minister and then people would be sent away to hide the fact that this is a government that does not want to answer questions because they do not know what they stand for. 10:53 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the motion be put. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the motion be put.  

The House divided. [10:57]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 83 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 55 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 11:01 The SPEAKER 00APG The question now is that the motion moved by the Leader of the House be agreed to.

The House divided. [11:02]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 83 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 55 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to, with an absolute majority.

 BILLS 19 BILLS Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 3] 19

Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 3]

First Reading 19 Second Reading 19 11:05 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That this bill be now read a second time. Since being elected in 2013, the government has repeatedly sought to honour the commitment it made to the Australian people to legislate to improve the governance and accountability of registered organisations. Sadly, the Senate has voted against the government's legislation—not once, not twice, but three times. They can do so no longer. The evidence in favour of reform is compelling. The initial impetus for reform in the regulation of registered organisations was the sorry, sordid saga of the Health Services Union—the financial impropriety and gross breach of trust demonstrated by its office holders including former ALP National President Michael Williamson and former ALP member of parliament Craig Thomson. It is now clear that the Health Services Union behaviour was not an isolated instance. The final report of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption outlines many appalling examples of misconduct in unions, together with many employers with which they deal. What we find are grave failures of governance and a lack of accountability and transparency within Australia's workplaces and—in some cases—a widespread and deep-seated culture of lawlessness among union officials. The final report outlines allegations of bribery, extortion, and payments being made in exchange for cutting workers' entitlements. It beggars belief that, in a number of case studies examined by the royal commission, union officials were found to have neglected their responsibilities to their members in preference to self-serving motives. This conduct must be stopped. There is no doubt about the need for appropriate legislative reform. No-one can deny that there is a serious problem that needs to be urgently addressed. Consequently, the government reintroduces the registered organisations bill—the same bill that has been rejected by the Senate previously. The government sincerely hopes that, in light of the findings of the Heydon royal commission, members and senators will finally be convinced of the need for this legislation. This need remains stronger than ever. To do nothing is not a responsible option. It is simply no longer tenable to argue that the present system is adequate to deal with or discourage the kind of behaviour exposed by the royal commission. The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 3] contains measures designed to improve the standard of governance of registered organisations and deter wrongdoing. In short, these include: a robust regulator with appropriate powers and resources; a strong regulatory regime with enhanced financial accountability provisions; and meaningful sanctions that can be applied when wrongdoing is revealed. To improve oversight of registered organisations, the bill will establish the Registered Organisations Commission, a dedicated independent watchdog with enhanced powers to monitor and regulate registered organisations. The new commission will be established within the office of the Fair Work Ombudsman but will have financial and operational independence to regulate registered organisations effectively, efficiently and transparently. The establishment of a dedicated registered organisations regulator was identified as a 'foundational issue' by Commissioner Heydon. It addresses the glaring shortcomings in the current arrangements, demonstrated most clearly by the lengthy and expensive investigations into the affairs of the Health Services Union. Members of registered organisations—and the broader community—have a right to expect that any wrongdoing is identified quickly and dealt with swiftly. The new commission will be provided with enhanced investigation and information-gathering powers, modelled on those available to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and will have the power to commence legal proceedings and refer possible criminal offences to the Director of Public Prosecutions or law enforcement agencies. The Registered Organisations Commission will also educate, assist and advise registered organisations and their members in relation to the new obligations and ensure members are aware of their rights. The commission will be required to report to the Minister for Employment annually on its activities, and that report will be tabled in the parliament. The Registered Organisations Commissioner will appear at Senate estimates. The activities of the commission will also be subject to oversight by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. These measures will ensure the appropriate level of transparency and public accountability in the commission's operations. Transitional arrangements have been included in the bill to ensure any ongoing matters being dealt with by the Fair Work Commission relating to registered organisations can be dealt with by the Registered Organisations Commission. This bill will also strengthen existing financial transparency obligations of registered organisations and officers and align them with obligations that currently apply to companies and company directors. Many registered organisations control assets worth millions of dollars—they are effectively dealing with cash flow and investments similar to those of large businesses. It is entirely appropriate to expect a high standard of financial reporting from our registered organisations, given the trust members place in unions and employer associations to operate honestly and to use members' funds to represent their interests. Registered organisations have substantial economic, legal and political influence. It is clearly inconsistent with community expectations for such organisations to operate to lower standards than those that apply to corporations or other comparable bodies. Registered organisations will need to disclose remuneration paid to their top five officers in the head office and any branches. Officers will be required to disclose their material personal interests to the committee of management. This means disclosing the personal interests of officers, and declaring any payments made to persons or entities in which an officer has declared an interest. Registered organisations will be required to provide a summary of this information to members in an 'officer and related party disclosure statement' and lodge it with the Registered Organisations Commission. The government is not alone in its view of the need for these sorts of reforms. Since the bill was last considered in this place former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty has publicly stated: I was always on that side of the debate which said that unions are public bodies so they are accountable to members for their management … I never cared that people knew how much I got paid. We had very strict rules about how much money you could earn outside the ACTU too. Sensible figures in the union movement such as Mr Kelty recognise the integrity and credibility of their organisations depends on them being clean and transparent. The royal commission's findings have shown us that the existing regulation does not sufficiently protect members' interests. Unfortunately, there will always be less scrupulous individuals who will seek to take advantage of their positions when standards of accountability and the risk of getting caught are too low. In the face of this kind of behaviour, a strong message needs to be sent to discourage wrongdoing by officers and to rebuild the confidence of members and the community. These measures, however, will have little impact if the penalties for wrongdoing are not high enough to act as a deterrent. The current penalties do not fit the gravity of the offences. For this reason the bill introduces higher civil penalties and a range of criminal penalties for organisations and officials who are found by courts to have done the wrong thing. These penalties are consistent with those faced by companies and directors who break the law. There should be no difference between the penalties imposed on a company director who misuses shareholders' funds and a registered organisations boss who misuses members' money. The bill will also give the Federal Court the power to disqualify an officer from holding office where a civil penalty provision has been contravened and the court is satisfied that disqualification is justified. Criminal penalties are being introduced for reckless or intentionally dishonest breaches of officers' duties as well as offences in relation to the conduct of investigations under the registered organisations act. Broadly, these offences relate to officers and employees of registered organisations who fail to exercise their powers or discharge duties in good faith and for a proper purpose. They also apply where an officer uses his or her position—or information obtained while an officer—to improperly gain advantage for themselves or someone else. Criminal sanctions will also apply where an officer does not comply with the commission's new investigation powers. These sanctions align with the penalties that apply to non-compliance with an ASIC investigation and will ensure that officers of registered organisations take their obligations seriously. Some registered organisations have expressed concern that the new penalties will discourage people from taking on official responsibilities. If that is the case, it is a sad reflection on those organisations but, quite frankly, I do not believe it. It is very simple: no wrongdoing, no penalty. The only people who have anything to fear are those who do the wrong thing. Those officers who operate within the law—and I believe this is the majority of officers—have nothing to fear. Rather, they should be comforted in knowing that unlawful behavior will be dealt with, thus ensuring ongoing members' confidence in registered organisations as a whole. The government acknowledges that registered organisations play an important role in the affairs of workplace relations in this nation and the broader economy. Registered organisations are given special privileges under the Fair Work Act. With those privileges come countervailing responsibilities. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Australian workers pay hard-earned wages as union dues; similarly, Australian businesses—both small and large—pay membership fees to employer organisations. Workers and businesses invest a great deal of trust in the organisations that represent their interests. They are entitled to expect that these registered organisations operate to the highest standards. This bill ensures that they do so. Conclusion The government's commitment to reform is absolutely unwavering. The corrupt and illegal conduct of many union officials will continue unless there is immediate and effective parliamentary intervention, meaningful reform and strong leadership. Members on this side of the House have made it very clear where we stand. We stand for a clean and honest union movement. Members opposite, from the party of the unions, must now explain why they do not. I call on all members to support honest union members and honest union officials by supporting this bill. Again, I commend this bill to the House. Debate adjourned. Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 21

Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016

First Reading 21 Second Reading 21 11:17 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That this bill be now read a second time. Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 The government is introducing the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill2016 because this government stands by owner drivers and mum-and-dad small businesses who just want to earn an honest living. It has been clear for some time that the Road Safety Remuneration System, established in 2012 by the former Labor government, has demonstrated no tangible safety outcomes for the road transport industry. Two separate, comprehensive, evidence based reviews have supported this in the strongest of terms. Even Labor's own regulatory analysis completed at the time the system was introduced acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate a clear link between road safety and remuneration. There is nothing fair or safe about the Road Safety Remuneration System and that is why the coalition government has listened to thousands of owner drivers across the country and put this very urgent bill before the House today. The refusal of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal to listen to reason and delay the commencement of the 2016 Payments Order in the face of widespread confusion and misunderstanding is the last straw. Around 800 submissions were made to the tribunal. Almost all of these called for a delay to the Payments Order, with many indicating that the order will negatively impact their business and, in a number of cases, put them out of business altogether. Even in the face of this evidence, the tribunal refused to delay the start date of the Payments Order to allow these small businesses time to try to comply. I note that, notwithstanding the Transport Workers Union's in-principle opposition to any delay, the TWU is before the tribunal today, seeking to delay the payments in the order to 1 January 2017. What an extraordinary and absurd turn of events—the union for whom the tribunal was created, who attacked owner drivers for challenging the Payments Order and went to the Federal Court only two weeks ago to have a stay of the order lifted, is now before its tribunal saying, 'We've changed our mind, we want you to delay the order'. Are the tens of thousands owner drivers out there supposed to believe the TWU has finally accepted that the Payments Order is having devastating effects on the industry, or should they believe this is just a stunt—one last desperate attempt by the TWU to save its own tribunal? But the introduction of this legislation is not about the Transport Workers Union. It is much more important than that. This is about the mum-and-dad owner drivers, who have staked their livelihoods on owning a truck and driving freight across this vast country of ours. This is about those operators who contribute to the economy by paying their taxes, and keeping alive other small businesses in the regions in which they work. And this is about those same operators who just want to earn a living, so they can continue to sponsor their local sport club, the St John's Ambulance or their children's school, without having their very livelihood threatened by this disastrous tribunal created by Bill Shorten and the TWU. The tribunal's Payments Order handed down on 18 December 2015, together with the Road Transport and Distribution and Long Distance Operations Order 2014, will result in a net cost to the economy of more than $2 billion over 15 years. The way owner-driver trucks are financed means the family home is often at risk if the family business goes under. The tribunal is not just putting people out of business; they are also putting them out of their home if their business fails. But let me now put a human face to those very real accounts of the impact of the RSRT is having on owner drivers and the trucking industry more broadly. One owner driver who recently applied to the tribunal expressed her fear about what the Payments Order will do to her business and her family. In her own words, she told the tribunal: 'As an Owner-Driver our future is grim. Major transport companies have already begun sending letters to their Owner-Drivers stating that as of April 4, 2016 their services will no longer be required. In trying to protect us, the Order is setting out to destroy us. The impact of this Order upon Owner-Drivers will very likely be that we will no longer be a part of the Road Transport Industry and in turn finish up bankrupt as we have loans on equipment that we will be unable to sustain. My family of four relies solely on the income provided by our truck driven by my husband. Without this we will lose our livelihood and lifestyle after over 20 successful years in the Industry.'   Glen and Pauline Kearney are two other owner-drivers facing economic ruin thanks to the RSRT. Glen and his wife Pauline own two trucks, having mortgaged their house to set up business 20 years ago. Pauline and Glen employ their eldest son in the family business and want to employ their youngest son when he is old enough. If you ask Pauline and Glen, they set up their haulage business to provide their sons with an economic future—a means by which they can support themselves and in turn their own families while supporting other small businesses—for example, the mechanic who maintains their trucks, the tyre seller who replaces their tyres and the coffee shops and restaurants they visit while they are working. We have heard a lot from those on the other side of the chamber that the RSRT and the payments order will drive down truck crashes and improve road safety. This is plainly wrong. The payments order cannot improve safety. Let me explain a couple of reasons why. Firstly, there is no tangible link between paying drivers more and improved road safety. As one owner-driver explained to me, if you pay the cowboy drivers more, because they are cowboys, they will just drive more—more hours, longer distances, to get that money. This creates increased risk to road users, not safer roads. Secondly, the payments order applies to only owner-drivers. Road accidents involving trucks involve both owner-drivers and employee-drivers and in 84 per cent of cases are caused by the other vehicle involved, not the truck. To single one group out, effectively branding them as unsafe, is not only unfair, but it's also wrong, and enormously insulting. And as one owner-driver put it, un-Australian. Finally, the payments order does not require an owner driver to have a minimum number of rest breaks on their journey, nor does it require a truck to have the latest fatigue management equipment installed. And it does not require the owner-driver to undergo any training on road safety. These practical measures have all been recognised as having a significant impact on safety and yet the order does not mention them. This government is not prepared to let small business operators and families be punished just because they decided to buy a truck instead of a corner store. Since the order was made, concerned truck drivers and their families have been inundating the government saying that this order is creating uncertainty and costing them their livelihoods. The uncertainty is almost as crippling as the order itself, and some drivers have indicated they are parked up and will be broke within weeks. This order has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with pricing small businesses out of a market. Small businesses whose workers do not typically choose to be a member of a union—which when it boils down to it, is what the Road Safety Remuneration System has always really been about. And who can forget the circumstances in which this system was created. The RSRT was a trade-off by the Gillard government—a deal done by the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, to stop the TWU agitating against the carbon tax. Tony Sheldon, head of the TWU, confirmed the link himself when he spoke on 28 July 2011: Mr Sheldon told the Herald yesterday that during the meeting with Ms Gillard, "I spoke about the impact the carbon tax would have on truck drivers and the urgent need for safe rates to ensure truckies didn't have to wear yet another cost". This government wants to see real solutions to the problem of road safety. The most recent independent review of the system, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, was damning. PwC found that: there is no clearly established link between rates of pay and road safety; the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal has a high degree of overlap with real safety agencies, who are more focused on road safety matters; and 'abolition of the System would result in significant net benefit to the economy and community at large.' The report could not be clearer on the many failings of the Road Safety Remuneration System. The government remains strongly committed to ensuring the highest standards of road safety. The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is clearly not the body to tackle road safety. This is why we will ensure that the proper regulator, solely focused on safety issues, will be properly funded. We will redirect all the resources from the Road Safety Remuneration System—$4 million each year—to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator to ensure the tangible safety measures the industry want are given priority. Australia cannot afford to wait any longer for this mess to be sorted out. We must stop this act of economic vandalism—there are real families suffering real stress and financial ruin. This bill will repeal the Road Safety Remuneration Act 2012, thereby abolishing the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal and the orders it has made. We will make sure the payments order is gone as soon as the bill takes effect. I urge all members to support this bill, which is about saving jobs, not only of the 35,000 owner-drivers, but of their families who help run the business, and of local people in the community who rely on the business that local trucks bring. Now before I conclude, there are a number of owner-drivers who are present today in the House. Those owner-drivers have taken the time and borne the cost of fuel and accommodation to be in Canberra today as their futures depend on it. Thank you for being here today. The government is committed to abolishing the system so you can return to work. A vote for this bill is a vote for a real solution to the issue of road safety in the trucking industry. A vote for this bill is a vote for the thousands of Australians who rely on this industry. A vote for this bill is a vote for the viability of small businesses, which are so vital to the Australian economy. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016 24

Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016

First Reading 24 Second Reading 24 11:29 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The government is introducing the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Billin order to ensure that owner-drivers across Australia are not left paying the price for the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal's devastating contractor-driver minimum payments order. The government has made it clear that its preferred option is to abolish the economically damaging road safety remuneration system and focus on real road safety solutions. To achieve this, the government has introduced the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 and wants to see this bill passed urgently by the Senate. I have outlined the reasons the government is supporting the abolition of the road safety remuneration system and urge members again to vote for its full abolition in order to protect the livelihoods of thousands of mum-and-dad owner-drivers before they are put out of business. The reason the government is also introducing this bill is so that, in the extremely undesirable event that the parliament does not support abolition, at least the recent contractor-driver minimum payments order is suspended for the rest of the year to minimise the major detrimental effects it is already having on the independent trucking industry. The effect of this bill will be to suspend the operation of the contractor-driver minimum payments order 2016 and any subsequent orders that may be made by the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal until 1 January 2017, and also to allow the minister to make rules dealing with transitional and other matters. This is essential for ensuring the short-term survival of owner-drivers, limiting any further impact on their families, the communities that rely on their services and the economy more broadly. As I have previously outlined, this order is creating uncertainty and costing 35,000 truck drivers and their families money. There are already many reports of financial hardship from these small businesses, and it will only get worse. I also reiterate that this bill is not the government's preferred option. Only full abolition will address the devastating impact that the road safety remuneration system is having, and will continue to have, on thousands of hardworking owner-drivers. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 99931 In accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier, the resumption of the debate is made an order of the day for a later hour of this day. GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH 24 GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH Address-in-Reply 24 11:32 Mr ZIMMERMAN 203092 North Sydney I move: That the Address-in-Reply be agreed to. I reserve my right to speak later. Ms Price 249308 I second the motion, and I reserve my right to speak later. Debate adjourned. BUSINESS 24 BUSINESS Days and Hours of Meeting 24 11:31 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt Just before we begin the debate on the RSRT—I know that the shadow minister has been very patiently waiting for this—I present a chart showing the program of sittings for 2016 second session. Copies have been placed on the table. I ask leave of the House to move that the program be agreed to. Leave granted. Mr PYNE 9V5 I move: That the program of sittings for 2016 2nd session be agreed to. Question agreed to. BILLS 25 BILLS Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016, Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016 25

Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016

Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016

Second Reading 25 11:34 Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR 00AN3 Gorton I rise to speak against the bills as proposed by the government. This is an important issue without a doubt. The opposition wants to discuss the merits of this bill and also the reasons we cannot support the bills in their current form. We certainly do not support the idea that you would abolish an independent umpire because you do not agree with a decision, particularly in light of the fact that the government has not really spent any time explaining what is, I think, in some senses a complex issue around the correlation between the remuneration of payment for drivers, whether they are owner-drivers independent contractors or award employees, and the incidence of fatalities and injuries on our roads. This is not just an occupational health and safety issue; this is a public safety issue. Less than 24 hours ago, on the Augusta Highway in South Australia, 200 kilometres north of Adelaide, four people died in a car accident: a 70-year-old man, a 59-year-old woman and two girls, aged five and 10. The truck driver involved and two of his passengers were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries—it has been reported—and a fourth passenger is in a critical condition and was flown to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Nobody knows, nor should anyone conclude, that this accident is a result of any fault of either driver. Nor do we know whether in fact fatigue of either driver or any other reason impacted on the capacity of the drivers to avoid this collision. But what we do know is that too many people die on our roads. What we do know in the context of this debate is that too many truck drivers have injuries and also die too often on our roads. I think this debate, if it is to be a genuine one between the opposition and the government, should seriously contemplate the arguments that have been submitted about the correlation between reducing the likelihood of injury or death on the roads and the need to ensure that wage remuneration does not have a bearing on truck drivers driving excessive hours, driving fatigued, driving under pressure and in some cases driving debilitated because the driver has self-medicated just to get the job done. I think a truck driver's job is a remarkably tough one. I think for owner-drivers in particular, who have to deal with the responsibility of looking after their rig, paying for what is an expensive piece of capital equipment, and maintaining a business, it is certainly a challenging one. I have great empathy for those that manage to struggle and to ensure that they can maintain a profitable business. I do believe that members on this side share the government's concern in relation to the plight of truck drivers. However, the difference seems to be—at this point, at least—that on this side of the House, whilst we do not believe remuneration is necessarily the predominant reason and we certainly do not think it is the sole reason, we think it is a reason we see the incidence of fatalities. We do believe there is some correlation, and we are not alone in that. The other thing to note is that, if this matter were so sincerely held and considered by the government, why is it that we have prorogued the parliament? The Prime Minister has written to the Governor-General, referring to why he wanted the parliament to be reconvened, yet there is no mention of this matter in that letter to the Governor-General. There is no mention of this matter in, for example, the Governor-General's address. The reason for that is that the interest of the Prime Minister in this serious issue arose between us leaving parliament a few weeks ago and returning. There was an order made by the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal some months ago. The only time the government showed any interest whatsoever in a matter that has been ongoing for some years now is when the Commonwealth intervened last month to delay an order. With respect, there was no effort by the government, which has the capacity to do such a thing. The Minister for Employment could have intervened in the matter before the tribunal, as is her wont and as the legislation provides, and made a submission on behalf of the Commonwealth laying out its concerns. The government did not do that. There was no attempt to put an argument before the independent umpire in relation to any concerns it had with the proposed order. All we had was an eleventh-hour intrusion to delay. That was the first position taken by the government. Then we had the Prime Minister—a Prime Minister who has no agenda for this country—intervene in this matter and elevate the controversy, if you like. He did not act as a leader; he elevated the matter, saying, 'I don't like this decision, so we're going to abolish the independent umpire.' To me, that is a rash, disproportionate and arrogant response to a single decision of an independent body by a Prime Minister who, as I said, has no agenda other than to attack working people's pay and conditions. I believe it is insincere of the Prime Minister to be using the safety of Australian truck drivers as a pawn in his political game, as I believe it does also not really become a Prime Minister to use what is clearly the genuine concern and emotion of truck drivers who are concerned about the potential consequences of the order. Let me be very clear about this: in the view of Labor, this bill will mean that roads are less safe for all Australians. We need, of course, our roads to be safer. In the last month alone, tragically, 25 people died on our roads as a result of heavy vehicle accidents. Fatality rates for the trucking industry in Australia are 12 times the national average of all industries. Between 2004 and 2014, more than 2½ thousand people were killed in truck-related accidents. Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, you cannot put a price on a person's life, but that is exactly what the Abbott-Turnbull government is seeking to do. This is not just an emotional argument; there are significant bodies of evidence that link the pay of drivers to safety on our roads. Labor established the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal in 2012 to make Australian roads safer not only for heavy vehicle drivers but for all road users. The decision to establish the tribunal was based on the significant evidence linking pay and road safety. I have been asked, 'What evidence?' Firstly, the government's own report, prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 'assumed that the Road Transport Order and Payments Order resulted in a 10 per cent and 18 per cent reduction in the number of crashes'. A study in 2001 entitled Driver fatigue: a survey of professional long distance heavy vehicle drivers in Australia found: Drivers who were paid in terms of the amount of work they did … reported fatigue more often than drivers who were paid in terms of the time they were working. A 2007 study concluded: The strong association of payment by results and low pay with drug use among Australian long-distance truck drivers is consistent with other research suggesting that economic factors are an important influence on health and safety in the workplace. A 2008 report determined: … the overwhelming weight of evidence indicates that commercial/industrial practices affecting road transport play a direct and significant role in causing hazardous practices. There is solid survey evidence linking payment levels and systems to crashes, speeding, driving while fatigued and drug use. The evidence has been accepted and indeed confirmed by Government inquiries, coronial inquests, courts and industrial tribunal hearings in Australia over a number of years. The association between remuneration and safety applies to both employed and owner drivers. A 2014 survey of heavy vehicle drivers in Australia found: Piece-rate compensation methods were associated with higher levels of fatigue-related driving than non-piece-rate methods. And the government's very own report it commissioned back in 2014 to justify the tribunal's abolition but only released recently—and how convenient of them to do that just recently—stated: Studies have identified statistically significant relationships between driver remuneration and accident involvement. I could go on on these matters. On top of the evidence, we have had major employers and employer associations backing the establishment of the tribunal. But how has the Prime Minister responded? He denies the evidence, denies employer support because, for him, this is a political game. Malcolm knows everything about everything—just ask him. The experience has been the same, by the way, in comparable jurisdictions. Take for example the United States of America: research there has found that driver pay has a strong effect on safety outcomes. Of course, before making the order, which led to why we are standing here today, the RSRT—that is, the tribunal—heard evidence from employers, workers, unions, employer bodies and, based on that evidence, agreed there was a link between pay and safety. I note that during the entire consultation period, more than two years, where the tribunal was hearing from affected parties, gathering submissions and evidence, the Abbott-Turnbull government did not make a single submission. Why did they do not make a submission? The order that brings us here today was made in December last year. Where was the government until a few weeks ago? The only conclusion you can draw is, once this became an issue that attracted media attention, Malcolm Turnbull thought he better buy in. Of course his comments do not fit with the evidence. His conclusions are one of someone who has not considered this matter fully. The evidence does not suit his political agenda so what is the response of the Prime Minister, who thinks he knows everything about everything? It is to deny the evidence and trash the tribunal—abolish the one body that has the ability to address the conclusions which have been reached by these multiple studies and reports. If this tribunal is abolished, a number of enforceable conditions will be simply wiped away. When it comes to safety, protections for drivers who want to raise their hand about safety issues including their pay will be removed. Abolishing the tribunal will mean that there will no longer be a requirement that transport operators have drug and alcohol policies in place. Talking about safety, what a reckless, retrograde Prime Minister we have. Tony Abbott's wish is Malcolm Turnbull's command. After all, it was Tony Abbott, the former Prime Minister, who wanted to abolish the tribunal and the current Prime Minister is gleefully seeking to ensure that happens. It is now crystal clear what the Prime Minister will do when he gets a decision from an independent umpire that he does not like: he will just get rid of the umpire. The Prime Minister has gone from seeking a delay to the decision by legislation to now recklessly trying to kill off the tribunal simply because he does not want to hear the evidence, does not want to consider the evidence and does not like the conclusion of the decision. This raises very serious questions about future decisions of governments and sets a very disturbing precedent. If the Prime Minister is willing to abolish an independent body because he does not like the decision, what would stop Malcolm Turnbull, if he were to be re-elected as Prime Minister—if he ever gets elected as Prime Minister, I should say—by the Australian electorate, what would stop him intervening on a Fair Work Commission case delivering a national wage minimum? What would stop him saying: 'I do not agree with that minimum wage increase by the national Fair Work Commission; I think we better change that by way of parliament.' This is the approach that was taken here: 'I do not agree with the independent body; therefore, by way of legislation, I am going to revoke the order of the independent umpire.' What would it mean for the decisions of the Fair Work Commission? We know the government has already made a submission by putting in the Productivity Commission's submission that recommends the abolition or indeed the reduction of penalty rates on Sundays for the lowest paid workers in this country. We have already heard the Prime Minister talk about us now living in a seven-day economy and he effectively pronounced the death of the weekend in doing so. What would stop the Prime Minister intervening in the Fair Work Commission decision to not cut penalty rates and he was not happy with that decision? He would have his big fund raising mates, he would have the donors of the Liberal Party saying, 'We want to see cuts to penalty rates.' He might just intervene on that decision and move a piece of legislation in the parliament to revoke an order of the Fair Work Commission. What would stop him doing that? Because that approach is consistent with what is happening here, except it would then be further if he chose to abolish the Fair Work Commission. Who would know? This is supposed to be a mature, sensible, stable, adult government. We have a prorogued parliament. I just sat in the Senate to listen to a two-minute speech by the Governor-General on the agenda of the government. It took him about two or three minutes to outline the agenda of the government. They have embroiled the Governor-General, His Excellency, in this matter for a stunt. And now, in the House of Representatives, we are debating a bill that was never mentioned in any letter to the Governor-General to reconvene the parliament. It is a too-clever-by-half tactic of the Prime Minister to bring back the parliament, and now, apparently, this has become a matter of national importance. If this is so important, then a true leader—a genuine leader in the office of Prime Minister—would convene a meeting of all affected parties. A true leader would listen to the experts and the owner-drivers—they have absolutely got a right to be heard. I believe, having spoken to the Australian Trucking Association and the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters' Association, that some of the points they have made to me have got merit. I believe there are problems with the order. Normally, I would have to accept that—as you accept independent decisions of statutory bodies—but the matter is now before the parliament. I have made it clear that Labor is willing to sit down and discuss with the Australian Trucking Association, the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters' Association, the Transport Workers Union and other affected parties how we would go about making sure that on one hand we reduce the likelihood of death on our roads—of truck drivers as well as the men, women and children who use our roads from dying—and, on the other hand, deal with some of the legitimate matters that have been raised. Some of these matters I do not agree with. Some of the matters are misrepresented, in my view. Some owner-drivers have been misled by some propaganda, but they have raised legitimate concerns. The opposition—Bill Shorten and others, and me—are willing to sit down and talk to them about these matters. Instead, what we have is a motion to revoke the order, or delay the order—but it does not matter, because we have before us right now a bill to abolish the independent umpire all because the Prime Minister does not like the decision, having thought about it for a day or so. Now, if they are willing to abolish a tribunal, then who knows where they would stop with decisions of independent bodies. No wonder 4½ million Australians—who do, on occasion, receive penalty rates; some receive it as a part of their constant weekly wage—should be worried about a government that is willing to show such a disproportionate and reckless response to such a situation. We believe that there should be time to consider this. What should not be forgotten either is the sincerity of all parties. This has been blown up into this black-and-white issue—this binary argument we are now having—but that was not what was happening before the tribunal. With respect to the tribunal, they should have allowed the parties to delay the order, as was put to the tribunal. There was goodwill, via the parties, to consider some of the matters that had been raised. That did not happen, and that is regrettable, but we have an opportunity now, because if this is about seriously looking at the concerns of the constituency in the road transport industry, then you can do that. You can bring people together; you do not have to seek to divide them. I consider this to be very divisive. The way in which the Prime Minister is handling this matter is disproportionate, and he has not listened sufficiently to those who say, 'I have lost my husband, because someone was fatigued and drove for too long.' 'I lost my wife.' 'I lost my children.' Because, regardless of those on the other side pretending that it does not happen, I am sorry to say there is too much evidence. We can argue about the degree to which it happens, absolutely. But I do not think anyone is suggesting that people do not die on our roads because drivers are fatigued. I do not believe the Prime Minister has seriously considered the mounting evidence that shows a correlation between remuneration and the incidence of death on our roads. If he was really serious about this issue, he would be doing that. Insofar as the way the government operates, was there a cabinet meeting called to discuss this? Did this happen because he just chose to make a decision? Was this a captain's call from a bloke who said he wanted to deliver collegiate, proper Westminster style government? The Prime Minister gets to answer this. What we know about the Prime Minister is this: he says he listens, but does he really listen to anyone at all? We know he does not talk to his Treasurer, even about when he decides to set the budget. We know he does not talk to the Treasurer about when the Treasurer has to hand down the budget across this table at this dispatch box. So we know he does not talk to the Treasurer about the budget and when it might be handed down. Has he spoken to his cabinet colleagues about this approach? I would dare say he has not. He has not, because this is a Prime Minister who is without an agenda. Without an agenda he plays stunts, like proroguing the parliament. He embroils His Excellency, the Governor-General, in recommitting us to sit in the Senate to listen to a two- to three-minute speech on, supposedly, the agenda of the government. This is a government bereft of an economic plan. It is bereft of a jobs plan. It is bereft on policies in the areas of health and education. Indeed, the Treasurer has no capacity to explain the fiscal strategy of the government. So instead we are here, apparently to talk about the ABCC and registered organisations, and yet we find ourselves talking about a bill that was not mentioned once in the five weeks we sat in parliament in a conventional way but has been brought back here for consideration now in a rash, arrogant way by a Prime Minister who clearly is not willing to listen to those people who have been victims of tragedies on our roads and yet at the same time is willing, with scant regard to the evidence, to abolish an independent umpire just because he does not like the decision. Well, that is not the way prime ministers should conduct themselves. What we have said all along is that we believe there is that link. I do not believe the government has refuted the fact that there is a direct link between remuneration and road deaths. And yet we have a situation where the government is willing to throw out, as it said, the entire system to claim victory. I am not sure that all public users of roads will be claiming victory, and I dare say that some of those owner-drivers—many of them, I would suggest—who are in very unfair contracts will not be claiming victory. If this leads to one more death on our roads—and I dare say that, if we abolish the system, it is going to lead to a lot more than one—I really believe that this parliament has failed. It has failed in its duty of care. It has failed in its most important job, which is to protect and secure the safety of the public in public thoroughfares. If we cannot see that this matter is more than just arguing about some of the issues that have been raised by the government, if we cannot see that this is first and foremost a road safety issue, a public safety issue, then I think the government has completely misjudged this matter, has failed the Australian people and, in particular, has failed the road users of Australia. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 99931 It being slightly after 12 pm, I took the view that the deferred division should not have been proceeded with until the member speaking at 12 noon had completed his speech, and I did not interrupt the member. Debate adjourned. BUSINESS 29 BUSINESS Days and Hours of Meeting 29 12:02 The DEPUTY SPEAKER 99931 In accordance with standing order 133(a), I shall now proceed to put the question on the motion moved earlier today by the Leader of the Opposition, on which a division was called for and deferred in accordance with the standing order. No further debate is allowed. The matter before the House is the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition. The question is that the motion be agreed to.

The House divided. [12:06]
(The Deputy Speaker—Mr Craig Kelly)

 54 AYES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 82 NOES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jones, ET Joyce, BT Keenan, M Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 0 PAIRS

Question negatived.

 BILLS 30 BILLS Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016, Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016 30

Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016

Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016

Second Reading 30 12:13 Mr CHESTER IPZ Gippsland Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with truck drivers from around Australia who had driven to Canberra to have their voices heard. Again this morning I had the opportunity to meet with owner-drivers who had travelled from around Australia to have their voices heard in the nation's capital. Australians should not have to drive thousands of kilometres and spend thousands of dollars of their own money to fight for their jobs. These are not paid protesters; these are Australian mums and dads who are passionate about their industry and passionate about the future of our nation, and they are being told by the Australian Labor Party, the Greens and some independents that they are not worthy of taking to the roads and continuing to provide the enormous service they provide to our community. The member for Gorton, in his contribution, would have us believe that the Prime Minister is acting on some sort of whim or that he does not like an individual decision of the RSRT. But the member for Gorton conveniently ignores the hundreds of people who drove to Canberra yesterday and are on the front lawns here again this morning. He conveniently ignores the long list of organisations—and I will quote from some of them—who oppose the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. There is Toll Holdings, who say: … we don't believe the RSRT is the best way to improve safety for either big or small operators. The Australian Trucking Association says: The ATA has been urging the Government to repeal the— Road Safety Remuneration Act 2012— and abolish the Tribunal as a matter of urgency … The Livestock and Rural Transport Association of Western Australia has said, 'Unfortunately, many small family operations will find it increasingly difficult to survive in this environment.' NatRoad has said: These effects will be disproportionately felt in rural and regional areas … The National Road Transport Association has demanded the Turnbull government immediately withdraw this ill-conceived order. This is not a Prime Minister acting on a whim or a government making it up as it goes along. This is a government responding to legitimate concerns of owner-drivers throughout Australia who, right now, fear being forced out of work, forced out of their industry and unable to meet their family commitments. The member for Gorton and I agree on one thing: too many people die on our roads. But this tribunal is simply not the answer. Bizarrely—and I think this is the one particular point that bells the cat on this issue—the original legislation for this tribunal does not even sit in the transport portfolio, which has responsibility for road safety around our nation. It sits within the employment portfolio. It sits within industrial relations. This was never about road safety. As someone who came to this place without a great deal of interest in party political games, I am not someone who gets too much involved in the political cut and thrust. I try to build consensus. I try to get things done within my community and work with either side wherever possible. Sometimes you just have to you pick a side on an issue like this. As a regional MP and as a transport minister, I am proudly on the side of small business owners. The Liberal and National MPs from around Australia gathered here today cannot wait to come to the chamber and vote to keep these good people in business in the future. We want to keep Australia moving. We want them to play their role in keeping Australia moving. We want to vote to protect these small business people. It remains to be seen whether Labor, the Greens and some Independents actually want to sack them. Over the past few weeks I have been contacted by dozens of owner-drivers, many of those in Gippsland. They are concerned. They have many concerns, but I will try to cut right down to the point of their major concern. They feel the RSRT order is discriminatory, and they are right. They feel it is confusing and too complex in the time frames they were given. Keep in mind that these are largely mum and dad operations. They do not have a human resources department. They do not have a legal department. They do not have an accounting department. They do not have the capacity within their small organisations to comply with increasingly complex legislation. This order from the RSRT specifically singles out owner-drivers for treatment that no-one else in the industry cops. In the past month this debate has heated up in the public sphere. No-one from the other side has even been willing to attempt to justify why this RSRT order, this Labor tribunal, singles out owner-drivers in the way it does. Let's just remember who these people are. These are our local owner-drivers in small communities like Gippsland. They have lease payments to make on their trucks. They are significant investments. These are small business people by any definition. More than likely they also have a mortgage to pay, kids to get to school and all sorts of things we all deal with on a daily basis. These are small business people. It is not just about them as truck drivers; there is a whole supply chain which reverberates throughout regional communities in particular. If you have a small regional operator in a town like Murchison, for example, that driver more than likely buys his tyres locally. He more than likely purchases his fuel before he heads off on the road. He probably uses local mechanics. He probably got a sign-writer to help get his rig set up in the first place. They are a significant part of their local community. I am proud to stand with them here today and vote with them to make sure they continue to have an important role in the Australian transport sector. As someone who comes from the regions, like all of my National Party colleagues—and I note that the Deputy Prime Minister is here today as well; he spoke very passionately in favour of small business owners yesterday at the rally here in Canberra—I know how important the trucking industry is to our nation and that the owner-drivers are the backbone of the sector. As the transport minister I also know that the Australian government's move to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is necessary and it is vital to do this so that these mum and dad truck operators can continue to be in business in the future. There have been two damning reviews into this tribunal that have shown that the tribunal has not been effective in making the industry fairer or safer, despite being in operation for four years. In life, we all make mistakes. It is how you respond to those mistakes that matters. The Labor Party made a mistake by introducing this tribunal. It was under enormous pressure from the Transport Workers Union and it buckled under that pressure. But, having made that mistake, I appeal to those opposite to help us clean up the mess, because this tribunal has nothing to do with road safety. Submissions to the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal from small business operators did not change the tribunal's decision to mandate this unfair pay order on only one sector of the industry. The tribunal has refused to pay any heed to the owner-drivers who say that the road safety remuneration system risks harming their businesses without doing anything to improve the safety of the industry. Safety is at the heart of the government's approach to transport. I acknowledge the former speaker's passionate references to the number of people who die in the heavy vehicle sector and on our roads. Tragically, it is true that the road transport industry is one of the most dangerous industries in Australia, with a fatality rate over 12 times the average rate for all industries. But the reasons behind road accidents are complicated. They are often tragic. But the facts tell us that targeted and practical initiatives are what make the biggest impact on reducing accidents, not tribunal rulings. An important point is that a recent study has found in respect of heavy vehicle fatalities that in 84 per cent of cases the heavy vehicle driver was not at fault. That is an important point as we debate the RSRT. In 84 per cent of cases the heavy vehicle driver was simply not at fault in the accident. Although there has been a steady and encouraging decline in road deaths involving heavy vehicles in recent times, we all—members on both sides—accept and acknowledge that one death is one death too many and one serious injury is one serious injury too many. That is why this government wants to prioritise its efforts in a way that will lead to genuine road safety outcomes for the heavy vehicle industry and the broader community. As I said, it has been proven time and again that pragmatic, practical and targeted initiatives will have the most impact on road safety, not a ruling from a tribunal. Assuming that the legislation successfully passes the House of Representatives and the Senate over the course of this week, the government wants to pursue a reallocation of the funding from the RSRT to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator to expedite a number of critical initiatives to improve the safety of the heavy vehicle industry. The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator already has a comprehensive safety work program underway, including such things as: utilising technology to facilitate fatigue management; programs which target roadworthiness, including a baseline survey of 9,000 vehicles to test the health of the vehicle fleet around the nation; and consistent inspections and enforcement across Australia. I am the first to acknowledge in this place that there is more to be done in relation to road safety. Our work on road safety is never-ending at a Commonwealth level, at a state level, at a local community and, absolutely, at the household level when we get behind the wheels of our cars or our trucks. While we are proposing to the state ministers that funding from the scrapping of the tribunal can be used to strengthen our technology and reprioritise the safety measures that will work on the roadside, there are a range of initiatives that I will bring to the various state ministers in the coming weeks to seek their support on. In addition to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator's work, which, I might add, has the support of industry, the Commonwealth has been investing record amounts in infrastructure, because we understand that providing safer roads is part of the equation. It is a complex equation. It is about safer roads, safer drivers and providing an environment where people take responsibility for their own actions. We will be working with our state colleagues in continuing to roll out our record investment in safer roads and, along with better support of the NHVR, the government is working to achieve real safety outcomes for the heavy vehicle sector and the broader community. I want to mention a couple more things in relation to safety. I have found it appalling and contemptible that, in recent weeks, the Transport Workers Union has rushed to the media on every single occasion, every time, there has been an accident involving a heavy vehicle and a fatality and, somehow, tried to link that tragic event with the RSRT. On the weekend, we had the horror, across our nation, of 10 people dying in accidents involving heavy vehicles. And again today we have the TWU putting out a press release somehow trying to link those two events—in this case, there were three accidents. The causes of those accidents are not known. Quite rightly, there will be a full investigation into the causes of those accidents. In at least one of those accidents, the immediate reports from the scene were that a car pulled out in front of a B-double truck. I do not know what the TWU thinks it is doing by seeking to blame drivers in circumstances where the evidence has not yet been given to a coroner or anyone else. I just appeal to the TWU: if you want to have a rational debate on this issue, end the contemptible and disgraceful behaviour of seeking to politicise the road toll in the manner in which you have in recent weeks; stop putting out those press releases until you know the facts of the accidents. Everyone cares about road safety. We were down there this morning on the lawns of Parliament House and there were families there. Those people who were there, the owner-drivers, care about safety for an obvious reason: they want to get home alive. They want to get home and get on with their lives and do their jobs. That is why we have the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator working for the industry. That is why there is enforcement of fatigue management, why there are police on the road enforcing speed limits, why there are roadworthy checks and why the government—and I acknowledge that former ministers Mr Truss and Mr Albanese are here, and the current minister—invested in road funding in black spots and investing in new rest areas for the heavy vehicle sector. It is a complex equation. It is about safer drivers, safer roads and all of us working together as a community. But the point I made earlier and the point I want to emphasise again is this tragic loss of life on our roads. It is a tragic fact that it is normally not the heavy vehicle driver at fault. We need to remind ourselves of that as we have this debate. Yes, the heavy vehicle industry has a safety problem in terms of the number of people who do not make it home alive or who make it home but with serious injuries, but in most cases—up to 84 per cent of the cases—it is not the heavy vehicle driver who has caused the accident to occur in the first place. I am proud to represent the National Party and a coalition which has a Prime Minister, in Malcolm Turnbull, a Deputy Prime Minister, in Barnaby Joyce, and an employment minister, in Michaela Cash, who were all out there yesterday talking to the owner-drivers. They spoke about the importance of small business; the important job they do, as mums and dads, out there every day on our roads keeping our country moving. They all said that owner-drivers were the backbone of the transport sector. I believe them and I support them in their efforts. I urge the Labor Party, the Greens and the Independents to have another look at this legislation, to acknowledge that you made a mistake by introducing this tribunal, which has absolutely nothing to do with road safety. I urge those opposite to get on with the job of helping us clean up the mess that they left behind and help us get Australia moving again. 12:27 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I rise to speak on the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 and the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016. Last month, 25 Australians died in traffic accidents that involved heavy vehicles. Last year, the death toll was in excess of 300 for accidents that involved heavy vehicles. That is more than double the number of people who sit in this House of Representatives—and that is just one year. No government serious about the welfare of Australians would accept this dreadful statistic without trying to do something about it. The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, who just spoke, is correct in referring to some of the other programs that are about doing something about it that have bipartisan support—the Black Spots Program. The program that I introduced that is no longer a specific program—the heavy vehicle safety and productivity program—was about identifying areas for rest stops on highways right around the country. It is something that, as I drive down the Pacific Highway or the Hume and have a look at the new rest stops that have been built as a result of the conscious decision to include that as part of the economic stimulus program, I am very proud of. The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was also a necessary component. The minister said, 'Let's not politicise this issue', and yet to bring in this legislation today, when parliament sat for five weeks out of seven earlier this year during which this issue was not raised at all, says it all about the politicisation of this issue. This is unworthy legislation to be brought in during a special sitting that was not mentioned in any of the correspondence between the government and the Governor-General just weeks ago, when the Prime Minister made the absurd decision to prorogue the parliament and to pretend that this is the first day of a new parliament. I have been in this place for 20 years. You have first days of parliament after you have elections. Tony Abbott won an election in 2013; Malcolm Turnbull has not. The proroguing of the parliament and the pretence that this is somehow a new parliament with a new agenda is politicisation in the extreme. To bring in this legislation does no credit to the minister or to anyone on that side of the chamber, because this tribunal has been in place since 2012. Those opposite have had three years to raise something about this tribunal and yet there has been nothing from them—no piece of legislation seeking to amend the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal or how it would operate, and no submission to the tribunal when it was deliberating on making this determination. There has been not a word from those opposite in the government. Yet now we have the ultimate politicisation of road safety and this issue. Just last month I attended a breakfast function here in Canberra. I heard from a truck driver named John Waltis. He offered up a statistic that was so disturbing that it should concern every member of this House. He has attended the funerals of 52 truck drivers killed on the job. That is 52 families that have lost their breadwinner, their father, their mother, their sibling or their child. In a nation as big and prosperous as Australia, a nation that relies heavily on road freight, we have a responsibility as legislators to ensure that road safety is paramount when it comes to regulation of the industry. Death rates for the road transport industry are 12 times the average for the entire workforce. Safety must not be a matter of political engagement. Yet today we are being asked by a desperate government to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, an organisation specifically established by the former Labor government to focus on road safety in the trucking industry. There is nothing deficient about the tribunal, but this government has made such a mess of running the country that it has decided to target this organisation as part of a cynical re-election campaign. Because of the government's failures it cannot run on its record. Indeed, this is a government that has been in opposition for its entire three years. Now the latest expression of its opposition mentality and focus is to reject safe rates. If you are opposed to safe rates, it must mean by definition that you somehow support unsafe rates. At the heart of this debate is that simple view. If you do not believe that there is a connection between pay rates and safety then by all means argue that, but you must argue it on the basis of evidence. Every study that has been done, including the 2008 report of the National Transport Commission, the Jaguar Consulting report of 2014 and the PricewaterhouseCoopers report released just months ago, has shown a clear link. The PwC report, for example, recognised at page 86 that commission orders reduce crash rates between 10 and 18 per cent. Common sense tells you that that is the case. If people are paid for eight hours to do a task that in reality takes 12 hours, corners will be cut and those cut corners endanger not just truck drivers but all road users. That is why this legislation demeans all those good people across the parliament who worked on these issues for so many years—people like Paul Neville and others who during the Howard government produced the House of Representatives landmark committee report Beyond the midnight oil. This legislation did not come from nowhere. We had hearings in this parliament in the lead-up to the creation of the tribunal, having proper consultation with industry, academics and experts. This was not something that was dreamed up. Indeed, the argument somehow that this is about the Transport Workers Union is so absurd that it shows no understanding of the industry. Members of the TWU who work for the big companies like Linfox and Toll organise their pay rates through enterprise bargaining between their union and their employer. This is for people who are outside of the industrial system, people who are owner-drivers, who are not in a position to negotiate in a collective bargaining forum and say that you cannot pay unsafe rates. That is the task of the tribunal—to make sure that you cannot have circumstances whereby people are put under pressure: 'Do it for this rate or we will get someone else who will.' It is similar to the opposition that we on this side of the House had to Work Choices legislation whereby an individual waiting to get a job could be told: 'Do it for $3 an hour even though you should be paid $20 an hour. If not, the person behind you will do it for that amount,' and destroy any ability for collective bargaining. This is a government that is just determined to have scare campaigns about trade unions. This is the next step. We have had the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation that will create a different set of laws for people who work in the construction sector from the rest of the workforce and here we have a cynical attempt—something that has not been argued for until the last couple of weeks in terms of looking for an election issue. The former government did establish a tribunal, following the publication of a series of reports and following extensive—extensive—consultation. It was about stamping out practices like speeding, not taking rest stops and using amphetamines and other drugs to stay awake. There is no dispute that these facts are there, and they were accepted by an all-party committee that backed the creation of the tribunal. Consider the evidence of a truckie named Andrew who told the New South Wales industrial commission that he was required to work so many hours that he would hallucinate while driving. Andrew said he once imagined he saw another truck doing a three-point turn on the highway up ahead and stopped. As traffic banked up behind him, another truckie radioed to ask why he had stopped in the middle of the road. There was no truck up ahead. Another driver named Robert revealed in a 2011 survey that he had asked his boss for time off to have his tyres replaced in the name of safety. The boss refused. Not long after, he was driving along at 100 kilometres per hour with a full load when one of his tyres blew out. 'It's sheer luck no-one was killed,' Robert said. Before the creation of the tribunal, too many trucks were moving around the nation's highways being driven by people forced by economic necessity to adopt practices that put their lives at risk—not just their lives but those of other road users. The tribunal provided orders that can include minimum pay levels; clear conditions for loading and unloading; waiting times; working hours; load limits; payment methods, payment periods and other means of reducing pay related pressures; and practices and incentives which contribute to unsafe work practices. The bottom line here is that truck drivers should be able to earn a decent living without having to risk their own lives or the lives of others. That is why we call them 'safe rates'. Key figures in the National Party clearly indicated that they knew where we were coming from when this legislation was carried. This is what New South Wales senator John Williams, a former truck driver, told the Senate on 20 March 2012: We are talking about safe rates. We are talking about what truckies are paid, especially the contractors when they unload at Coles and Woolworths. I do not have a problem with what you are proposing. Later on, on 16 March this year, Senator Williams said this in the Senate: When the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was put through this place when Labor was in government I did not have a lot of bad things to say about it because, as a former pig farmer, I know how Woolworths treated me. I know what the big end of town does to the small Aussie battlers, as I call them. We have had a look at the expertise that is there about the connection between road safety and pay rates. Indeed, The Conversation had a look at these issues and asked Professor Michael Quinlan, the director of the Industrial Relations Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, to review the evidence, including the PwC report. Professor Quinlan found that drivers being paid per trip drove an average of 15 kilometres an hour faster than drivers on an hourly rate. Let me read his verdict. It says: Albanese was correct. There is persuasive evidence of a connection between truck driver pay and safety. I cannot fault The Conversation on its academic rigour. They also asked a US academic, Michael Belzer, an associate professor in economics at Wayne State University in Detroit, to review Mr Quinlan's findings. He described Mr Quinlan's report as an excellent summary of the issue and backed its findings. This, today, is all about politics. The parliament exists to provide a venue for debate. Often we agree, but sometimes we do not. But what we should not be having a debate about is road safety. What we should have in terms of road safety is an absolute commitment from everyone in this parliament to do whatever they can to decrease the likelihood of deaths and accidents on our roads. That is why I will strongly oppose this legislation that has been brought forward in such extraordinary circumstances. 12:42 Mr JOYCE E5D New England It is incredibly important that I express my views on this, and my views are also reflecting the views expressed overwhelmingly by the people who have come down to Canberra—away from their work and away from their capacity to go out and earn a dollar—because they know full well this is about their livelihood and their future. I do not have to explain my position again because my position is the same as it was at four past 10 on 20 March 2012 when I voted against this, and my position remains the same. I am going to do my very best today to be part of a process of making sure that we repeal this and get rid of this tribunal. Let's not for one second believe that we do not have a concern about safety. Of course we do. This is not about safety. This is what has happened to it: it has created a funnel to take owner-drivers out of work and to put other people in their jobs. Good luck to and God bless the Transport Workers Union—good on them! But it is not their right to be a part of a process that drives other people out of work, and that is what is happening here. The people we saw at the front of this building today, and the people who I saw at the rally in Tamworth are good people—decent people. They are law-abiding citizens. They are people trying to make a buck—people who are trying to make sure that they have the capacity to pay for their families and to give themselves an opportunity, an opportunity that is available to someone who might not have had the best education and who might not have had the capacity to be born as lucky as others or with the wealth of others. But they have decided to try to get ahead in life by the sweat of their own brow. We need to support that, because that is the dream that so many Australians hold. It is epitomised by what you see on the road when you see trucks moving. When I see trucks moving I know that it is the sound of an economy moving. It is the sound of produce moving—the sound of cattle moving around, sheep moving around, cotton moving around, coal moving around and iron ore moving around. It is produce going into the supermarkets for people to buy. It is the sound of an economy, and we have to make sure that that sound of an economy keeps going. This is not just about the mum-and-dad operators, who are overwhelmingly the owner-drivers—the dad in the rig and the mum looking after the books. As an accountant, I do not have a heavy-vehicle licence but my wife does. Mr Mitchell M3E Does she drive trucks? Mr JOYCE E5D I will take that interjection. I think that the Labor Party today should be wise and honourable enough to say that this has not worked out in the way that I suspect they thought it would work out at the start. It would be disgraceful to think that they would stand by a decision today which is obviously hurting people. Why would they do that? The decision was originally made by the Labor Party and the Greens and, especially, the Independent, Mr Windsor—he backed it as well. Mr Oakeshott, I have to give him his due, did not vote for this; Mr Windsor did. But it is not just about the owner-drivers—not just the mum-and-dad operators—it is also about the tyre fitters. I would see them, as an accountant, and there is a whole heap of money that goes to tyre fitters. They try to keep the owner-drivers on the road. There are the mechanics, there is the fuel bill, there are truck sales—this is basically all the sections of small economies. You can go to a little town—a little town like Wobbegar—and that is one thing that you will find there: you will find an owner-operator with his rigs. He is also a source of employment for a lot of people around the area. If you try to pick up a load from some of the remote areas—from the back of Eulo, or the back of Barragan, or into the hills behind Weabonga or up into Emmaville—then guess who is going to pick up the load? Guess who is going to go to pick up your cattle? It will be an owner-operator. An owner-operator is the one who will turn up there with their truck to get your produce to a sale, to keep that family on the land going, to keep that truck operator going and to keep the people who supply that truck operator going—to keep our economy going. Before they even start, these owner-operators have substantial bills to pay. The lease payments on average would be around $6,000 for a decent rig, and if you are going for one of the new ones, like the Kenworth T909, it is probably more than that. So you would have about $6,000 or $7,000 in payments before you even pass go. Of course, you have to pay your registration. That is about $30,000 a year, so there is another 2½ thousand dollars a month that you need for that. Then before you can even pass go you have to pay your insurance—there is about $12,000 there, so that is another $1,000 a month. With the bits and pieces you are not shy of $10,000 before you even start—before you even pick up a load. What this legislation has done means that they cannot pick up a load. I will tell you why, Mr Deputy Speaker. Basically, in very rough form, your back loads have to be at roughly the equivalent charge of your forward loads. So if I picked up a load at Tamworth and ran it down to Thomas Foods International in Adelaide—let's say it is 60 steers or something—it would be maybe $5,000 or $6,000. That is the price for going down. Now, if I live in Tamworth but my rig is in Adelaide and I have to get it home. I cannot live there—there is only so long that you want to live in your cabin for. I have to turn around and get it home. It does not matter what happens; it is not 'safe' to say, 'Well, you can't pick up anything on the way back.' But I could say, 'Oh, I could pick up a couple of bulls and run them back up then at least they will pay for a bit of my fuel. I will be able to help myself out a bit and pay for some of my costs to get back to Tamworth.' But I cannot do it under this legislation! I can do it, but the rate that I charge means that there is no way on earth the person will pay for what I have to charge them to run that smaller load—maybe it is a couple of pallets of beer or something that I pick up to run back. The rate that I have to charge puts me out of the market. So what do I do? I still have to get my rig home. I get the rig home, but I do not get any money for it. Obviously, on both instances, I am driving myself out of business. This is absurd, because the problem is that other people can do it. The bigger operators can do it—to be quite frank, the operators where the Transport Workers Union are the members driving the rigs. They get to do it. This is just completely and utterly at odds with what our nation is supposed to be about. Let's compete on fair terms. If you want to talk about fairness, let's have these people competing on fair terms—not driving the mum-and-dad owner-operators out. They are doing what we believe a person should be able to do in an economy: start and, by the sweat of their own brow, go through the economic and social stratification of life to find themselves in the best possible position and the highest level of freedom. They can be masters of their own ship—that is, masters of their own rig. They can basically wear their own uniform, pay for their house and have the greatest control over their own future. They work hard, and they are happy to do it. But today they are not working. They are down here, and they should not have to be down here. They should not have to spend their time, their money and their efforts. Some of them came down today from Rockhampton because they know that this has to be changed and that they have to keep the pressure on people to change it. The other thing I can assure us of is that when people start running out of money that the safety issues we want them to control are not going to be controlled. They need to change their tyres to deal with the wear and tear, they go through a king pin or they go through all the issues—like the brake lines. These issues are assisted by keeping people viable financially by allowing them to pick up loads. It is not by keeping them in a corner and restricting them from getting access. I think about some of these people—the Welshes of Kootingal, or the Cruikshanks, or the Harrisons who I knew up at St George, or Stockmaster at Tamworth, or Laurie's Haulage at Manilla or the person who used to pick up a lot of our cattle—Bullier Johnstone out at Surat—these are the people who are so fundamentally a part of our towns and, fundamentally, we have to make sure that we look after them. What will also be interesting today is that we will deal with this issue as quickly as possible. I know it looks like the Labor Party are standing by this piece of legislation—why, I do not know. But it will be interesting to see where the Greens are. I was up at Tamworth the other day and there was a unanimous resolution from the floor. We had Mercurius Goldstein from the Greens. We also had Rob Taber there as an Independent. It was a unanimous resolution in support of getting rid of this. It will be interesting to see whether the Greens resolution in Tamworth is the same as their resolution down here. Every time I see an owner-driver, I see the pride that people have in their rig—how clean they keep it. I have known people who would not let you into their truck with your shoes on. You had to take them off, put your shoes beside it and go in your socks. It was pride they had in it. You have a look at them; they are clean. They are a reflection of their lives. It is their home on the road, and they treat it as their home. What is happening in this parliament—and, as I said, we never voted for it; Darren did not vote for it and I did not vote for it—is that we have to make sure that that pride that is reflected in their lives and their works is also reflected in the way we support them today in our vote. I hear and do not like the insinuation when they continue to bring up the issue of accidents. Let me remind you that 84 per cent of accidents between a car and a truck—and we wish there were none—are the car's fault, not the truck's fault. These people are the professional drivers. They spend their whole lives on the road. With owner-drivers it is lower still because it is their rig, it is their insurance bill and it is their load that they are dealing with. Let's not start pointing the finger. We note that human error means there will always be accidents of some sort, but we are trying to deal with them with better roads and monitoring logbooks. These issues, not sending people broke, deal with safety. This is not an issue about how the scalies operate on the road. This is not an issue about the hours you are supposed to work on the road. This is not an issue about the conditions of the road. This is an argument determining what a person, an individual, a mum-and-dad operator—can pick up so they can stack up their books so they can get their rig home so they can keep themselves financially viable. It also inevitably brings us back—and I saw it today, when I was listening to the noise of the people driving around, blowing their horns in their trucks as they went around. I had heard that before. It is an indication of the chaos that you get from a Labor-Greens-Independent government. It is an indication of the absolute chaos that we have seen before—the chaos we saw when they closed down the live cattle trade. All of a sudden, the northern cattle producers—they said they were just indulgent rich pastoralists, but it was absolutely devastating to the whole cattle industry. Now we have seen it again in owner-operators, mum-and-dad operators in the truck industry. Once more they have all come down here as a memory for the Australian people. This is another leftover of the chaos that is created by a government that does not understand how business works, that does not understand how people work, that does not look through the ramifications of the decision and that, more importantly, even when those faults are discovered and clearly on display for everybody to see—what is worse than everything else is to hear that, after they have seen all these people turn up, we have the Labor Party coming to the dispatch box and saying they have not changed their minds. If the Labor Party, the Greens and the Independents win the election, they will bring this back because it is their policy. It is what they believe in. They can say it was a mistake in the first instance, but it is no longer a mistake; it is their policy. Everybody has to remember that. When you go to the ballot box at the forthcoming election, if Labor, the Greens and the Independents win, they will bring back their policy. I hope we get this thing kicked out. I hope it gets through the Senate; we will see how we go. I commend the work of all those who have come down here. But let's remember: we have a battle today to get it kicked out, but we have a battle in the next month or so to make sure it stays out, and the only way it can stay out is if Labor, the Greens and the Independents stay out of government. 12:57 Mr MITCHELL M3E McEwen I have got to commend Barnaby for that—15 minutes of absolute nonsense and a clear indication that he has no understanding of the transport industry. He got up and spoke about how they have to protect this and protect that. I put it to you this way, Deputy Prime Minister: if it were farmers, would you be thinking the same way? Would you not want farmers to be paid a fair amount of money for their work? That is exactly what you are doing today. I have spent 20 years in the transport industry in a whole range of things, whether it be driving trucks, selling parts, servicing vehicles or even doing the bad stuff of driving tow trucks at heavy vehicle accidents. I have seen what happens. I have seen each and every day owner-drivers coming in who are being forced to work for less money and longer hours just to make ends meet. Every day they are forced to work longer and harder, and it is not right and not fair. There is absolutely no reason—unless you are doing the bidding of the IPA, which this government is doing—to sit there and say truck drivers do not deserve a fair rate of pay. Quite often trucks will be sitting down at the wharfs, waiting to get loaded on. They sit there for five or six hours, trying to get on, and then they get told, 'You've got a slot in Sydney and you've got between 5 and 6 pm to get there; and, if you miss that, you're out for another six or seven hours.' That happens all the time in this industry. So what do the drivers have to do? They do five or six hours work. Then they have to hop in the truck and drive for another 10 or 12 hours to make sure they get there on time to get their slot or they basically wipe out a day. They do not do that because they want to; they do that because that is the way they are being forced to do it. That is why I speak very strongly against this bill. I remember the days. Obviously the Deputy Prime Minister has read a catalogue and named a truck, but he obviously does not know much about those trucks. When I worked at Freightliner Australia, we went out of our way each and every day to make sure the owner-drivers who came in to get parts or service were looked after quickly to get them back on the road, because we knew they were not making any money when they were sitting in that workshop. If you have been to an accident and seen when a set of dual rear wheels come off because someone has not been given the time to go and replace the wheel bearings—and a set of duallies come off at 100 kays an hour—let me tell you, that makes a mess a big mess. When you go to freight-forwarding places and they say: 'Look, just chuck these extra couple of palettes on. You're a little bit over weight, but you'll be alright. Get going. You've got eight hours to get to Sydney from Melbourne.' Then you get caught at the weigh station. It is not the freight forwarder that gets the blame; it is always the truck driver. Owner-drivers and truck drivers are always the ones that cop the blame in these situations. It is not fair and it is not right. If the government was fair dinkum about looking after people, they would not be just walking out the front and getting their jollies because a truck came past blowing its air horn like we just heard; you would actually get in there and find out what goes on. You would find out about the conditions they are working under; the fact that they have to bust their chops day in, day out and take shortcuts to make sure they make their times. We heard the Deputy Prime Minister talk—and I thought it was very disparaging the terms that he heard. He said, 'truck drivers are not the best educated'. I think that is absolutely appalling. It is absolutely appalling for him to come into this place and disparage truck drivers and owner-drivers like that. I tell you what: most of those guys would be a lot sharper than that bloke will ever be. It is just wrong to treat people so badly and think it is fine because the IPA have told you to drive down wages and conditions. That is exactly what this is about. If you fair-dinkum want to talk about road safety and looking after people, then pay them a proper wage so they do not have to shortcut the system and so they do not have to take get assistance and take illicit substances to keep themselves going. I have done many runs from Melbourne to Sydney and I do not know how people do it. I take my hat off to them, because it is the most boring road to drive on. When you are doing it two or three times a week, it gets very boring. You do those midnight runs where you run out of Melbourne at eight o'clock, you get to Tarcutta, you drop your trailer, you turn around and you run back again. You have to work flat out. You do not have time to stop. You do not have time to have a rest. You have to make sure you keep going and going and going. And they do that each and every day. You think about the maintenance issues. Something simple like—I don't know—a Horton fan clutch. It costs 1,500 bucks, plus fitting, for that one part. But that puts your truck off the road for a day. Most owner-drivers are not earning a lot more than that a day. Then they get to their destination and—as the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out again in his ignorance—there is talk about backloading: 'If you do it for cheaper, that's okay.' No, it is not. Let's be honest. Backloading is nothing more than getting owner-drivers to lower their rates to get back home. That freight has to be moved. Why shouldn't it be moved at an appropriate rate? Why shouldn't it be moved at a rate where someone is actually going to be able to pay their bills and put food on their table, and not have to panic that if they are 10 minutes late they are going to be stuck for four or five hours? It is unfair and it is wrong. That is why we need to have a Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. We got there because this independent tribunal has the power to make these remuneration orders, approve and assist with collective agreement negotiations, and conduct research into pay and conditions and related matters that can affect safety in the road transport industry. The tribunal conducts its work in an open and transparent manner—an accessible way—which has been lost in this debate. It is well canvassed that a decision by the tribunal in December 2015 is the cause of this. The tribunal spent more than 12 months consulting on a proposed order to set payment rates for owner-drivers. Then it released a draft order, along with a statement for further consultation. There was some criticism of the proposed payment rates. So the tribunal sought to get more information from stakeholders about their views. But the information was not forthcoming. I think that that is an important thing to note. The big companies said, 'No, this is no good', but they did not supply information to show why or to show how it could be better done. They just said, 'Nah. We just want to make sure that people are paid fairly.' It is part of the belief that we have to drive wages and conditions down. We know that when people go out and buy themselves a new truck, a new trailer and all that, they could be sitting there with $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 worth of debt hanging over their head and they cannot afford to be sitting around waiting. You have to keep going and going. So what happens is the big fat cats at Coles and the like will sit down and say, 'You come in and you do the trip for $1,200? There's a little bloke who'll do it for $1,100.' So you will do it for $1,000. And you keep lowering and lowering and lowering. This continuation of trying to remove safety nets, to lower wages and conditions, is just another Work Choices by stealth so that the government can stand there and say: 'It's not us; it's the industry.' It is not the industry. People are desperate to have work, to build their dreams, to put food on the table, to pay their bills. They will do what they have to. Again, I go back to the point earlier: if we took truck drivers out of this equation and put farmers in, I could guarantee that the National Party would be up in arms, screaming: 'Farmers deserve a fair right. They deserve fair pay for their produce.' I do not disagree with that. You should be entitled for a fair day's pay for your work and you should be entitled to be remunerated properly for the investment you have made. But, outside of a farm or outside of a business or any place, truck drivers are on our highways. They are running up and down in 62½ tonnes worth of steel—and more and more plastic these days—in their vehicles, working hard to try and make a living. To sit there and say that we do not think they deserve a fair day's pay is appalling. It is absolutely appalling. These people, people I know, run up and down the highways and work their butts off day in, day out. They hardly take a decent rest break. As we used to always say: they are the lifeblood of this nation They keep this nation moving. We have seen examples of accidents, and I have been to them, where people were overtired or going a bit hard trying to get to their destination to make sure that they made it on time so they could get paid. In some cases, these guys are forced to wait three or four months to get their pay. Not many small businesses can carry themselves for 120 days, but truckies are forced to do that while continuing to pay $1.40 per litre. On a trip from Melbourne to Sydney, you would put in 1,200 litres, running on tyres that are between $300 and $600 apiece. A universal joint can break at any given time, and you are looking at $200 to $400 plus fitting for a universal joint. I know; I have been out to do repairs on trucks on the side of the road. It is not a simple thing. When you have truck driver walking up and down, pacing, because he knows he is going to miss his slot, you know the extra stress it is causing him. It is not fair that they should be treated this way. The people who drive our trucks, and the families they feed, are so important to our communities. I very strongly oppose this government's IPA agenda in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If there are issues with the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, why didn't the government do something about it? Why didn't they put in a submission to say how we can do things better and how we can manage this process properly? They did not. Instead, they just came in and said, 'Just get rid of it. It doesn't suit our ideological beliefs, so we'll get rid of it.' It is not the right way to do it. The government should really take the time to sit back and just for once think about something. Get the Prime Minister to make a decision and stick to it for more than 24 hours, to make sure that we look after the people who are driving up and down our roads. The Hume Highway is a highway that is probably the main artery for road freight in this country. It is a really magnificent road, particularly in Victoria. It is a good-quality road and a safe road. Why do we have accidents on it? Why do we have so many accidents, particularly down towards the bottom end, towards Melbourne? We have that because people are tired, overworked, overstressed and rushing to try to make ends meet. We in this place would be very unhappy if all industries were treated this way; so why do we treat truck drivers as second-class citizens? Why do we think they are uneducated, as the Deputy Prime Minister said? It is not right and it is not fair. The government use this and say, 'This is just the TWU.' Thank God we do have the TWU. There was a great case I was reading about this morning. An owner-driver had been ripped off $24,500. He had to take a loan out on the mortgage on his house to keep his business running because he had been ripped off by an unscrupulous operator. It was not the government that came and helped him; the government could not give a toss. It was the TWU that went out and helped him get that money back, put it back into his house, take that stress and anguish away from him and give him and his family an opportunity to keep running and keep growing his business. We see the government walk out and stand next to some people, do some signing and get a selfie—which is about the depth of the ability of this government—and then walk off and say, 'Yes, we must get rid of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.' The challenge I put to you lot opposite is: go and spend some time in the entire sector—with the drivers, mechanics, tow truck drivers and everyone involved in there—and have a look at the pain and suffering you are going to cause. You are not just going to put people out of business; you are going to drive people into very serious health issues and, in some cases, suicide. Do not do this. Support the people that are out on our roads. Support the businesses and give them a fair go. Do not wipe out this tribunal. Stand up, do the right thing and the grown-up thing, and work to actually find a better solution, because each and every day there will be another crash on the road and another truck driver injured, and you in government will have to sit there and ask yourselves, 'What have we done to stop it?' 13:12 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I too rise today to speak on the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 and the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016. I will say that I do have some credentials to speak on this: I hold here my heavy vehicle driver's licence. It is a shame that the member for McEwen is scurrying out, because I would like him to hear some of my comments. I agree with many of the things he said about safety and truck drivers, but what he did not say was that, unless he owned any of those trucks he had supposedly driven in a previous career, he would be exempt from the regulations that are in place at the moment. It was not the IPA that wrote to me in great distress about losing contracts, losing their house and losing their truck; it was the truck drivers in my electorate. That is why I am speaking today, not because of some right-wing think tank. I am speaking about small business owners who are being discriminated against. It would be really nice if the member for McEwen and others actually spoke the entire truth. Unless you own your own truck and drive that truck, these regulations do not count. Over the years we have had extensive changes to fatigue management, the weights that trucks can take and compliance. A whole range of safety measures have been put in place. That is not what this legislation is about. It is called safety legislation, but if it were about safety why wouldn't it affect all truck drivers, not just the ones who own and drive their own truck? The way it works is this: you own a truck and you go to a ready reckoner, and if you are the owner it asks how many years of experience the driver has on how many axles and for the configuration of the truck. They will come up on that ready reckoner with the rate you can charge. So far so good. It sounds good to me because I agree with the member for McEwen that truck drivers should get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. The problem with this is that it comes up with an amount per kilometre which is higher than the going rate, so the members of the Transport Workers Union that are working for the big line-haul companies, and those companies, do not have to pay this amount. I can go onto this ready reckoner and, if it comes up with the rate which is higher than my competitors, I have got a couple of choices: do I break the law and take a chance that I will not get caught or do I charge the higher rate and not get the work? These people are in a real bind. Despite the contact I have had through my electorate, I spoke to Greg, a truck driver from Melbourne, this morning and he already has had to park his truck because the rate that he has been told he has to charge is higher than the going rate. The contractor that he was working with has gone out and bought a couple of other trucks and employed drivers so that he is exempt. This is not about safety; this is about anticompetitive behaviour. It is un-Australian because one of the great dreams of people is to be their own boss. There are a few ways you can do that and being a truckie is one way. But to do that, you have probably got to mortgage your house to get a deposit on the truck, then you have got to find a finance company that will back you and then you have got to get a contract that you can rely on to make your monthly repayments. It is hard work but at least you are your own boss and that is a great aspiration for people to have. A truck driver and contractor from Tomingley, just south of Dubbo—he is trying to set up a small farm there—who runs a triple road train through to Darwin every couple of weeks, contacted me. He drives and owns one truck. Driving a triple road train is a fairly specialised occupation and purchasing a triple road train is incredibly expensive. But he was prepared to do that to have an income for his family and hopefully as off-farm income so they can establish their small property. Now he cannot compete with the other large trucking firms that are exempt from this. We had the member for McEwen called out as a mechanic and as a tow truck driver but, unless he owned those vehicles, this legislation would be irrelevant to him. Never before have I seen such discrimination through legislation. If he wants to go back to the Hansard of 2012 like I did, he would find out that he only has to read the final speeches in detail from the then shadow minister, Warren Truss, to see these problems were highlighted in 2012 when the tribunal was set up by the member for Maribyrnong, when he was the minister for industrial relations. Those problems were highlighted, and the members of the coalition voted against it. One of the crossbenchers voted against it. If the member for Kennedy had not been paired as a Labor vote and the then member for New England, Mr Windsor, had not voted with the Labor Party in the hung parliament, this legislation would not have even got off the ground—that is how close it was. Do not talk about the coalition not being engaged in this until the last moment; we spoke about this in 2012 when the tribunal was set in place. Not very often do we debate things in here that actually have an actual day-to-day impact on people. The guys I spoke to out there this morning were saying, 'Is this going to be done today? Is it going to be done tomorrow? What happens if the Senate gets caught up debating the Building Construction Commission? We cannot wait till after the budget week because, quite frankly, we have got a payment to make before then.' The trucks of the six drivers I spoke to this morning were parked. They were specialist trucks. A couple of the guys I spoke to were running flat tops, not the taut liners that you mostly see running up and down the highway, specialising in the types of loads that they take—steel, machinery, things like that—not the boxed commodities that you generally see going up and down the highway. They had no work. No one more than me believes in a fair day's work for a fair day's pay or understands the need for road safety. I have got in my electorate the Newell Highway from Goondiwindi on the Queensland border to Peak Hill. In the last two weeks I have done 5,000 kilometres in my car and half of that would have been on the Newell Highway going up and down through my electorate. It is not the truck drivers that are the issue with safety on the roads; it is the other users of the highway that they have to contend with. What is different to what you saw 10 or 15 years ago is, if you go down that highway at five o'clock in the morning, there are dozens of trucks parked off the road with the drivers having sleep breaks as per the recommendations for safety on the highway. One of the things that this government and the previous government put money on were rest areas on the highway so that truck drivers could get off the road to get a sleep away from the traffic and with facilities like toilets. This tribunal needs to be abolished. It was a gift to the Transport Workers Union from the member for Maribyrnong when he was the minister. They have abused the power they were given. We need to make sure the drivers are protected and that we have safe rates, but we do not need to financially ruin individual people who have a dream of being their own boss or move those people across to be drivers for the large freight forwarding logistics companies, where they would be working for a wage. They need to have a fair wage. I have no problem with people who choose to work for a large company, no problem at all. But why are we discriminating against people who have a dream of being their own boss? This is not just a matter of losing your job, because when you cannot make the payment you not only lose the truck but also you more likely will lose the house. What about the market for second-hand trucks coming up when these people exit the industry? The market will skydive down. The finance companies that are going to end up with all these trucks on their books are going to be incredibly pressured, because the big line haul companies do not buy second-hand trucks. They buy new trucks. There will be very little market as these people exit the industry. The member for McEwen also mentioned cut-price back loads, and I agree: a freight is a freight. But, in my electorate, there are a lot of owner-operators that are in the stock transport industry. Many of them are mostly running B-doubles, some are running road trains, over large distances. There are a lot of sheep and cattle that come from Western Queensland down to places like Dubbo for sale and slaughter. If there was an opportunity on the way back up to maybe pick up a load or to take a mob of stud cattle or whatever, to cover some of the cost of fuel, what is wrong with that? Under this legislation a full kilometre rate has to be charged, which means they are priced out of contention. I strongly urge my colleagues on the opposition benches to abandon their speaking notes handed down from the Transport Workers Union, and to think about the great Australian dream of being your own boss, working hard and getting ahead under your own hard work and initiative. This needs to be repealed. It needs to be done today. Never before has there been a more important piece of legislation for owner-operators and small business people in Australia. I commend this bill to repeal the tribunal. 13:25 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo There is one issue that the previous speaker, the member for Parkes, forgot to address. In the back load, when you take on that cheaper load to cover the fuel, you are undercutting another truck driver. Taking on the cheaper load means you are undercutting somebody where it might be their first load. The whole point to this tribunal was about setting up safe rates. The whole point of this order was about being paid for every hour that you work. This is so rich coming from a government that stands up and rants about farmgate prices. Yet, once it gets loaded onto the truck, they are not interested in the workers who carry the load getting a decent rate of pay. Every time you turn around and drive back up the highway at a reduced rate, you are undercutting the other truck driver that wants to charge a proper rate. It is wrong for government members to stand up here and say that all owner truck drivers are opposed to this. I have had countless owner truck drivers contacting me to say that they support the decision and that they are tired of being undercut by those who they call the 'cowboys' in the industry. I have had owner truck drivers say to me that the rate that they charge is higher than what the tribunal has ordered. It is wrong for government ministers to stand up here and say that all owner truck drivers are opposed to it, because it is just not true. The purpose of the tribunal is to set in place minimum standards. It is to set in place minimum pay for employee drivers and owner-drivers. It is about road safety. For government MPs to say that this has nothing to do with road safety is also misleading. My electorate is a country electorate, and there is the Calder Highway that runs straight through the heart of it. When I first became the member, somebody gave me some advice: 'Unless it's road crash, Lisa, you may not get the media to come.' It was a really cynical view about the media in Bendigo, but it also painted a reality of how often there are accidents in the Bendigo area, because we are a major transport route. We have trucks carrying product to port every day, intersecting with a large regional community. The Bendigo Advertiser in April 2016, 'Fuel tanker rolls at Inglewood': … the fuel tanker was travelling north on the Calder Highway about 7.45pm when it lost control entering Inglewood on a sweeping bend … This is just one accident from the last few weeks. In the Bendigo Advertiser in March, 'Calder Highway reopened after truck rollover': VicRoads has confirmed all lanes of the Calder Highway at Big Hill have reopened … following a [truck accident in a] two-vehicle crash at 7am. In the Bendigo Advertiser, January 2015, 'One killed in Lockwood crash': The collision involved a truck and a car at the intersection of Lockwood Road and the Calder Alternate Highway. In the Bendigo Advertiser, April 2015, 'Trucks collide on Calder Freeway': White paint spilled across two lanes on the Calder Freeway today when two trucks collided … The Bendigo Advertiser,March 2014, 'Workplace tragedy: man killed in truck accident at Newham'. The Bendigo Advertiser, November 2012, 'Truck driver killed in horror Calder crash'. The Bendigo Advertiser, November 2012, 'Truckie dies in river crash'. Bendigo Advertiser, November 2012: 'Three dead in overnight crashes'. Bendigo Advertiser, 2012: 'Driver airlifted after Midland Highway crash'. Quite tragically, the list continues. To stand here and say that this order is not about safety is wrong. I know it, and people with country electorates know it. This decision by this government to abolish this tribunal says one message loud and clear to people in regional areas: 'We do not take road safety seriously. We are not interested in doing everything we can to ensure road safety.'   I just read out a sample of the articles that have appeared in my local paper about accidents and collisions—some of them, tragically, fatal—involving truck drivers. As the previous speaker said, they are here just blaming car drivers. It is not that simple. It is not that simple. The DEPUTY SPEAKER YT4 Order! Debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS 42 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Death Penalty 42 13:30 Ms PARKE HWR Fremantle Late last year in Kuala Lumpur I participated in a parliamentary roundtable concerning the abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia, which was co-hosted by the parliament of Malaysia and the Parliamentarians for Global Action, or PGA, of which I am the chair of the Australian branch. At that roundtable it seemed that progress was made concerning the mandatory death penalty for certain offences and the issue of transparency and accountability around the use of the death penalty. It is with much disappointment and sadness that I note that Malaysia last month secretly carried out the executions of three men. These actions were criticised as 'arbitrary, secretive and hasty' in a media statement by the Malaysian branch of PGA. I call upon the Australian government to convey a strong protest to the Malaysian government concerning these secretive executions. At the roundtable in KL, I also met the family of a 31-year-old Malaysian man, Kho Jabing, who faces imminent execution in Singapore following the rejection of his court appeal. Earlier courts had found that there was no intention to cause death during the robbery, and Jabing's sentence had been converted to life imprisonment. However, this was narrowly overturned on appeal. The only recourse for Kho Jabing is for the President to reconsider clemency, and there are many groups calling for this, including Reprieve Australia, Amnesty International, ADPAN and Second Chances. To be effective, Australia must maintain a principled and consistent opposition to the death penalty in all cases, including when Australians are not involved. I therefore call on the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister to make urgent representations to the President of Singapore to respectfully ask him to reconsider Kho Jabing's clemency application and spare this young man from the death penalty. Hawkesbury Show 43 13:31 Mrs MARKUS E07 Macquarie I rise with much delight to speak on the 130th Hawkesbury agricultural show, held annually in the beautiful Hawkesbury region of the Macquarie electorate. This year's show saw the greatest number of attendees ever in the history of the show. Some 52,000 people attended the three-day event. It first started in 1845 with some 3,000 attendees. The President of the Hawkesbury District Agricultural Association, the HDAA, said this year's event showed 'more soul' than ever before, with more entrants, more displays, more participants and more commercial and industrial interest. In fact, there was a waiting list of people who could not get a stall. The HDAA are all volunteers who dedicate thousands of hours to ensure this iconic tradition is a huge success, and a success it was, assisted by great planning, eager visitors and beautiful weather. It was wonderful to enjoy the show and meet with many residents. I thank and congratulate particularly the president, Phil Close; the manager, Linda Beneke; all the committee; and the ground keepers. I also acknowledge the Rural Fire Service, particularly my own brigade, Oakville, who assisted in delivering a world-class show in one of NSW's premier showgrounds, the Hawkesbury Showground. I look forward to a great show next year in 2017. New South Wales: Anti-Protest Laws 43 13:33 Mrs ELLIOT DZW Richmond I rise to thank the New South Wales Labor leader, Luke Foley, for visiting the North Coast last Friday and announcing that, if elected, New South Wales Labor will repeal Premier Baird's anti-protest laws. Luke Foley made the announcement whilst meeting with representatives of the Knitting Nannas, Lock the Gate and Gasfield Free Northern Rivers in Lismore. These new laws have been brought in by Premier Mike Baird. He brought them in last month. They were strongly opposed by New South Wales Labor at every stage, and they prevent legitimate, peaceful protest by law-abiding members of the community. Activities that were once completely legal now expose farmers and groups such as the Knitting Nannas and the wider community to jail for up to seven years for acting to protect their land, water and food security. In addition, further reform by the Baird government has effectively reduced the fines faced by large mining companies for exploring or mining without permission. This is a government in New South Wales that sides with corporate interests and not the community. But Labor certainly sides with the community. That is why New South Wales Labor have announced that they will repeal that anti-protest legislation as a priority. These changes that the Baird government have brought in are particularly directed at community protests against coal seam gas and other unconventional mining projects, especially on the North Coast of New South Wales. We as a community have been very vocal and very outspoken about our objections to CSG mining and other unconventional gas mining, so these laws are designed specifically to stop our community raising our voices and concerns about it. In fact, all of the North Coast Nationals voted for this harsh, draconian legislation, but New South Wales Labor stands with the community and will repeal these anti-protest laws if elected. Stronger Communities Program, A Capella West 43 13:34 Dr JENSEN DYN Tangney I would like to take this opportunity to again highlight the positive impact of the Stronger Communities grants program and the impact it is having on my community in Tangney. Just a few weeks ago I had the honour of officially awarding A Capella West, a ladies' acapella singing group in my electorate, a cheque of $6,757. This grant goes towards providing each chorus member with shoes and a shirt with the group's logo embroidered on it. A Capella West is a women's barbershop chorus with about 100 members from many different cultural backgrounds, and they are aged from about 22 to their late 70s. Team co-ordinator Linda Wilson told me on the night that the group are very excited about showcasing their new uniforms and representing their country in some sartorial splendour at the upcoming Sweet Adelines International world championship in the US. I encourage any community group interested in the Stronger Communities Program to get in touch with my office. For further information on successful applications, go to dennisjensen.com.au. Transport Industry 44 13:36 Ms McGOWAN 123674 Indi With over 30 years experience running a small business, I am extraordinarily proud to represent all the small businesses in my electorate of Indi, but I am particularly proud today to represent the trucking industry and the small businesses associated with it. There has been extensive community consultation regarding the current legislation before the House. But today I would particularly like to bring to this parliament the voice of Transport Women Australia and of the national president, Pam McMillan, one of my constituents, who lives in Wodonga. Transport Women Australia made a submission to that particular inquiry, and I would like to quote it: We have no argument that operators need and deserve to receive adequate pay for the job they do but we believe the intent of the original concept has been lost with the industry only to be disadvantaged … I would like to say how proud I am of Transport Women for their reasonable approach to this. Formed in 1999, they are a support and networking group for women right across Australia involved in the transport industry. I have been delighted to support them and to be at their annual conferences, and I am delighted to bring their voices to parliament today. I would like to say to all the transport women; to all the small businesses involved in transport, logistics, manufacturing, primary production and associated industries: I am very proud to be your voice in this House. I am very proud to support small business, but I am particularly proud to be the voice of Transport Women Australia. Herbert Electorate 44 13:37 Mr EWEN JONES 96430 Herbert Last week in Townsville we had a tough week, but it was good week, with the announcement that we will be enacting the fair entitlements guarantee for the workers of Queensland Nickel. The workers of Queensland Nickel do not want a handout from the taxpayer, and they will be taking this with a grain of salt. What they want is the management of Queensland Nickel to stump up and pay what they have taken, to make their money available to them. I will tell you this: my city of Townsville is not going to be defined by what happened last week. My city of Townsville is going to be defined by what we take from this, how we prepare for our future and, in that, what the government is doing about developing the north of Australia. We are looking towards our markets in Asia and the Melanesian world, looking to new industries around our city—the bases of science and technology that will drive our industries and our people further. Our city is a great city and we are great people; we are resilient people. Our city will never be defined by the likes of the member for Fairfax—however long he is in that space. What we need up there is a state government that will do the right thing by North Queensland and make sure that we are pushing ahead with the infrastructure that we do need. In that instance, the Queensland state government, for the way it is treating the social infrastructure of the south-east corner and its paltry offer towards our entertainment, convention and sporting facilities in Townsville, should be brought to account by all concerned. I thank the House. Turnbull Government 44 13:39 Mr ZAPPIA HWB Makin The Turnbull government is in total chaos and at war with itself. This is a government led by a panicked Prime Minister desperately trying to cling to office by using the expensive stunts of recalling parliament and bringing forward the budget; a government which, since being elected, has replaced every leadership position in its ranks, including the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the Speaker, the Senate leader and the Chief Government Whip. It is a government in which, to date, 13 of its sitting members either have jumped a sinking ship and announced their retirement or have been dumped by their own party. Regrettably, its destruction does not stop within itself. The Turnbull government has sold out Australian jobs to overseas workers and presided over the demise of Australian car makers, Australian naval shipbuilding and Australia's steel industry. The future of Australia's remaining two steel mills is at risk, along with the livelihoods of thousands of Australian workers, because of the Turnbull government's failure to back Australian steelmakers. The industry minister's claims that preferencing Australian steelmakers breaches trade agreements or that it will create a local steel monopoly are just more excuses from an incompetent government whose only interest is its own future. The people I represent are not being fooled by the Turnbull government's spin. Education Funding 45 13:40 Mr CRAIG KELLY 99931 Hughes Right now 12-year-old children across our nation are studying various things in our classrooms, but in Victoria they are studying, under the name Building respectful relationships, how to write personal ads to hook-up. I will quote, directly from the curriculum, what our 12-year-old kids are learning today in our classrooms. These are the examples of the personal ads that they are being given: Hot gay gal 19 yo seeks outgoing fem 18–25 yo into nature, sport and nightlife for friendship and relationship. Here is another one: 30-year-old blonde bombshell, wild and sexy, living in the fast lane. Can you keep up? 25–35 years apply This is not what should be taught in the classrooms of our country, especially when education standards are falling across our nation. This is simply the adverse, premature sexualisation of our children. Those behind it should explain to the parents in their schools what they are promoting and ask them what they want taught. They should go to the parents and ask them: is this what you believe should be taught to 12-year-old kids in schools? I think they will find that they are very wrong. Our educational standards are falling in this nation. We need to get back to the three basics. Geelong Electorate: LAND 400 45 13:42 Mr MARLES HWQ Corio It is well-known that Geelong has suffered greatly at the hands of this government in job losses through the failure of the Turnbull government to have a proper manufacturing policy. LAND 400 is the Army's $10 billion program to replace armoured vehicles. With it come a whole lot of job prospects, and those prospects have been cynically exploited by the Liberal Party in Geelong. On 12 February 2014 we had the former Liberal Geelong mayor promoting the prospect of jobs under LAND 400 under the heading 'Geelong's fight for $10 billion tank contract'. A year later we had the member for Corangamite, again on the front page, talking about Defence jobs as being 'in Sarah's sights'. Both these front pages represented fantastic exposure for those two individuals, but what do we actually see in terms of those jobs materialising? What we have seen is this: LAND 400, under this government, has had first pass—which is the first step in the process—delayed by a year on what was originally proposed by the Labor Party. Tenders closed in August last year and tenderers were to be shortlisted earlier this month, but on 1 April, late on a Friday afternoon, the defence minister put out a media release saying that the request for tender process was being extended to a point that is likely to be after the election. Aside from the defence implications of that, what are the Liberals doing about LAND 400 jobs in Corio and Geelong? Harvey, Reverend Barrie 45 13:43 Ms LANDRY 249764 Capricornia In the lead-up to Anzac Day, I recently made to a constituent one of the most unusual presentations yet. Former army medic and padre Reverend Barrie Harvey received a camouflaged bible to carry out his work as a mentor to returned service men and women. The 75-year-old is the padre to the National Servicemen's Association in Rockhampton, padre to the Capricornia RSL sub-branch and chaplain to Frenchville Sports Club. Reverend Harvey says the unusual camouflage cover would become an important symbol for the ex-service personnel he serves. In the mid-1960s Reverend Harvey served as a medic in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corp. He trained as a medical team member for first casualty clearance stations—the first medic point through which wounded soldiers pass on the battlefield. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 2002 and served as an unpaid clergyman. In the lead-up to Anzac Day the reverend had this message: 'Anzac Day is a time for people to focus not just on the events of the date April 25 1915 but on all those who died, fought or were affected or disabled by any war. It is a reminder that we should strive for peace. Peace is better than war.' Education Funding 45 13:45 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston It was a great pleasure recently to join Labor's candidate for Swan, Tammy Solonec, at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University in Western Australia. There we met with the many students and hardworking staff at the centre, including the Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Professor Marion Kickett. I thank her for her hospitality. It was a great pleasure to speak to third-year students undertaking the Indigenous community development and management degree—a unique program designed for Aboriginal leaders, teaching them frameworks to develop and manage their communities in a way that enables them to meet other Indigenous leaders from around the county. Taught in blocks, the Indigenous community development and management program provides the opportunity for Aboriginal people from regional and remote areas right across this country to access a tertiary education while remaining in their communities. Unfortunately, though, I was informed on my visit that this program was a victim of the $500 million cut made to Indigenous programs around this country. I heard firsthand from students the impact that this will have. It will mean that there will be less face-to-face teaching time. The response to the centre has been that they should encourage students to do it online. Of course, as these students rightly pointed out, they do not always have access to fast broadband in their communities or a regular time to study. This is an incredibly important program and these cuts should be reversed. Swan Electorate: Manning Memorial Bowling Club 46 13:46 Mr IRONS HYM Swan I thank the member for Kingston for visiting Swan. It is a pity I was not able to join her. But it was also a pity that she was not there either when we announced $20 million for the Curtin Medical School, which I see the opposition take little interest in at all. Also in my electorate, which I know the member for Kingston did not visit, was a function on Friday night for the Manning Memorial Bowling Club. I know many people in the audience here probably participate in bowls. It is one of the most participated in sports in Australia. It was their presentation night. It was a night for all their awards. There were about 60 people there. I would like to congratulate particularly the women's team of the Manning Memorial Bowling Club because, out of the 12 participants who made the WA state team, seven of them came from the Manning Memorial Bowling Club. As you can see, they were not only well represented; they were overrepresented. That obviously indicates the strong women's team they have at the Manning Memorial Bowling Club. I would also like to congratulate Graham and Laura, who were nominated the men's and women's bowlers of the year of the club. I also congratulate Faye Doran, who was there. She is the patron of the club and has been an institution at the Manning Memorial Bowling Club for many years. I hope to see her around at the bowls club for many years to come. Congratulations to the people at the Manning Memorial Bowling Club who participate in the sport, particularly the young people as it is often seen as more of a senior sport. I say congratulations again to the Manning Memorial Bowling Club. Road Safety 46 13:48 Ms BRODTMANN 30540 Canberra Labor are defending the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal because we know there is a link between pay and safety. The Turnbull government's own commissioned figures show the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal will reduce truck crashes by 28 per cent by 2020. We also know what happens when truckies are not paid a fair wage. It means cutting corners to cut costs. It means all of a sudden it is more important to get cargo from point A to point B quickly than safely. It means emphasising speed over safety, which is why we see drivers taking fewer breaks, even though we know it is safer if they take more. We see drivers spending less time on maintenance, even though we know it is safer if they spend more time on it. On this front, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is a game changer. Road fatalities must not become a cost of doing business. When I see truckies on the highway sitting behind the wheel of 42 tonnes of steel, I want to know they are fed. I want to know they are rested. I want to know they are alert, and I want to know they are safe. That is because when they are safe so are their families, so are their businesses and, most importantly, so are our roads. Truck drivers should not have to risk their lives to make a living. Tell Tia for Charity 46 13:49 Mr MATHESON M2V Macarthur I rise today to speak about a remarkable nine-year-old girl called Tia Brennen who lives in Minto in my electorate of Macarthur. When Tia was away with her family at a caravan park near Sussex Inlet over the Christmas holidays, she saw a pile of bikes dumped by some rubbish bins and asked her mum, Clarissa, whether she could take them home and give them to kids without a bike in her community. Tia's mum explained that there was not enough car space for a load of old bikes. But Tia refused to forget about her idea and, when she got home, she persuaded her mum, dad and sister Harmony to search for bikes at council pick-ups and throughout the local area. When a bike is discovered, Tia and Harmony help their dad, Simon, to clean them up, replace broken parts and repair the bikes to good working order. Tia had the foresight to create a Facebook site called 'Tell Tia for Charity—recycled bikes for kids' which allows the community in Minto to post information on abandoned bikes and spread the word on this terrific idea. Tia has received the help and support of numerous local organisations, including PCYC Campbelltown, which acts as a drop-off point for the bikes. The Benevolent Society, UnitingCare Burnside, Stepping Stone and 'Minto on the Go' are all giving Tia a hand by collecting and delivering bikes, donating helmets and accessories, and advertising in the local community. So far Tia and her family have collected 50 bikes—a truly amazing achievement. Recently Tia saw a couple of young children riding around on bikes she had recycled and she said it was like seeing a miracle. Tia, your generosity and kind heartedness in someone so young is truly remarkable and I wish you every success with Tell Tia. You are an extraordinary young lady. I wish you all the best for the future. Well done. Kingsford Smith Electorate: Rotary Police Awards 47 13:51 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith Last Wednesday I was fortunate to attend the annual Rotary police awards at the Prince Henry Centre in Little Bay in our community. Now in their sixth year, the awards continue to provide a great opportunity to recognise and thank our local police officers from Botany Bay and Eastern Beaches local area commands for their heroism and outstanding commitment to our community. This year's event was again a great success, with approximately 180 police officers, including 36 finalists in various categories, Rotarians and community leaders in attendance. I would like to extend on behalf of our community congratulations to Sergeant Natalie Howard-Tarn from Eastern Beaches command and Sergeant Nicole Roache from Botany Bay command for being named Police Officer of the Year for their respective commands. It was wonderful to see two women being awarded the top accolades on the evening. That was a great reflection of the number of women who were nominated in various categories and received awards in other areas. I would also like to acknowledge Community Officers of the Year, Constable Andrew Carter from Eastern Beaches and Senior Constable Stephen Lamberth from Botany Bay. A big thank you to the event sponsors, Randwick City and Botany Bay councils, as well as Royal Randwick Shopping Centre, The Juniors, our community newspaper the Southern Courier and, of course, the tremendous local Rotarians for making this fantastic event possible and for the wonderful work that Rotary do in supporting our community. National Broadband Network 47 13:52 Mr LAMING E0H Bowman It will surprise many people here that the worst broadband in the nation, for both quality and access, is in the humble seat of Bowman. That is all about to change this Friday, when they will connect 4,300 homes to fibre to the node—six to eight years earlier than when Labor was going to roll in the trucks, and for $20 to $30 billion less. Those homes will get the fast broadband they have been waiting decades for. It will not be another Labor scheme that never comes to fruition. Ms Ryan interjecting— Mr LAMING E0H That is right, yes. You never see a bad idea you cannot fund—that Labor Party over there—and there are always 100 bureaucrats to make sure they spend the money quickly. We are doing it wisely in Bowman: it is being connected up to Redland Bay-Mount Cotton in August. What we are seeing is a game changer for those families. They should not have to wait until 2020 and beyond, and certainly not for the rolled gold promises of Bill Shorten for fibre to the home that will never happen—his copper-plated guarantee of switching back to old technology and 'fraudband' as he called it. He now sees that the Liberals are doing it first, and we are doing it right. When you connect a home through fibre to the node you get speeds—we know from the trials that there are speeds between 25 megabits per second and 87 off peak, which are thoroughly adequate for the needs of today and tomorrow. They can be improved as required and when economically justifiable to do so. There is a very strong economic case for fibre to the node. I cannot help it that there are no economic degrees over on that side of the chamber. In reality, the sooner we get high-speed broadband to our suburbs the better, and only Malcolm Turnbull and the coalition are delivering it. Turnbull Government 47 13:54 Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B Throsby Today, people right around Australia are shaking their heads in bewilderment because the Prime Minister who wants to cut penalty rates has brought 150 parliamentarians into Canberra for a two-day working week. Well, you would do it if you were going to discuss the issues that the Australian people thought were core to the future of this nation. Issues like the $57 billion worth of cuts to hospitals in the health system, or the GP tax by stealth. Issues like the school funding arrangements, and the Prime Minister's plan to defund public schools and his refusal to fund the Gonski education program; or $100,000 university degrees—there is an issue worthy of debate! Issues like the $2 billion worth of cuts to TAFE and vocational education. Youth unemployment is a national disgrace: today there are about a quarter of a million young people who cannot find a job and who are not in work. There is the future of the steel industry, and the stubborn inability of this government and this minister to match Labor's bold and visionary plan for the future of the steel industry. Issues like homelessness: every night around 105,000 people are sleeping rough and without homes. And how about a royal commission into the banking and finance industry? Here are 10 issues. Sadly, they are not on the government's agenda and they are not on the parliament's agenda, but they well and truly should be! Groom Electorate: Toowoomba Second Range Crossing 48 13:55 Mr IAN MACFARLANE WN6 Groom I rise—and this will come as no surprise to the House—to talk about my favourite subject: the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing. I was delighted to be joined by the federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport on Friday to begin the actual construction of the Range Crossing. I have to also say how delighted I was to be joined by the member for Toowoomba North, Trevor Watts, and the member for Toowoomba South, John McVeigh. John McVeigh is a fine local representative. His father represented Groom in this House when Groom was first established, so it was with absolute delight and with a great deal of confidence that I saw John McVeigh win his nomination to stand for the LNP at the next federal election. There are still challenges to be resolved in Groom. There are always issues in health and education in your local community, but the big challenges are the big projects. Not only do we want to complete the Second Range Crossing but we also want to see inland rail built from Melbourne to Brisbane with, of course, Toowoomba becoming a major terminus and hub on that railway line. There could be no better person to represent constituents of Groom than John McVeigh—not only does he carry on the proud tradition set by his father, but also the proud tradition of good local representation by members of the LNP. National Broadband Network 48 13:57 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo This government have stuffed up on a number of things, but the one thing that they have royally and truly stuffed up is the rollout of the NBN. In my electorate, it is just stark. Let us just remember what this government said before the last election. Malcolm Turnbull, when he was the opposition spokesperson for communications, came to Bendigo and promised the people of Bendigo 'faster, sooner and more affordable' broadband. He promised it would happen by 2016, but here we are in 2016 and not one extra house has been connected—because of this government. Every single house that has been connected to the fast-speed NBN is because of decisions that the Labor government made. This government is so hopeless when it comes to the rollout of the NBN that fixed wireless towers, built when Labor was in government before the last election, have not even been switched on. How incompetent are you that you cannot even switch a tower on? Five towers to the north of the electorate have not been switched on. So, for the people of Bendigo, I have one question to ask the Prime Minister: can you at least do one thing on the NBN before the next election and switch on the towers to the north of the electorate, so at least a few people in my electorate will get what you promised would happen in 2016—'faster, more affordable and sooner' broadband. (Time expired) Armstrong, Ms Rosemary 48 13:59 Mrs McNAMARA 241589 Dobell Earlier this year I had the pleasure of meeting Rosemary Armstrong, a successful and innovative fashion designer based in Dobell. Rosemary is the creator and designer of high fashion label Tea Rose. Rosemary has an amazing list of achievements, including having her designs on exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum. Many of Rosemary's designs have featured in publications such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, to name a few. Famous Australians to have worn Tea Rose include Megan Gale, Elle Macpherson, Kylie Minogue, Sarah Murdoch and Catriona Rowntree. Rosemary was also responsible for making Jennifer Hawkins's dresses for her first Logie and Melbourne Cup appearances. Rosemary and her husband, Ray, commenced Tea Rose 35 years ago in their home in the Yarramalong Valley and, through hard work and determination, they have turned Rosemary's passion and love of design and beautiful fabrics into one of Australia's leading high fashion labels. Whilst she is naturally talented in design, much of Rosemary's success is attributed to her ability to take risks and adapt in a changing business and economic environment. Rosemary is a strong advocate for women to follow their dreams, and I share some wise advice from her: 'Don't let your vision be destroyed by critics who don't understand what you are doing and don't understand your industry. When you get to 50, they want to wrap you up and put you away, especially when you're a woman. We have to change that attitude. Why should a few wrinkles get in the way of success? Believe in yourself and follow your dream.' Wise words from an inspirational lady, and I wish Rosemary every bit of success in the future. We are so proud of her achievements. The SPEAKER 00APG In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded. CONDOLENCES 48 CONDOLENCES Rocher, Mr Allan Charles 48 14:00 The SPEAKER 00APG I inform the House of the death on Friday, 18 March 2016 of Allan Charles Rocher, a member of this House for the division of Curtin from 1981 until 1998. As a mark of respect to the memory of Allan Rocher, I invite all present to rise in their places. Honourable members having stood in their places— The SPEAKER 00APG I thank the House. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 49 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Banking 49 14:01 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to many troubling incidents over recent times in the Australian banking sector, and on 6 April the Prime Minister also said: … there have been too many troubling incidents over recent times for them simply to be dismissed Why won't the Prime Minister join with Labor and commit to a royal commission to restore and rebuild trust in the Australian banking sector—or is this just another case of the Prime Minister saying one thing and doing the complete opposite? 14:02 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth The Leader of the Opposition's enthusiasm for royal commissions seems to be limited to royal commissions into banks. We have had two royal commissions into the Australian building sector—the Cole royal commission and the Heydon royal commission—and each of them has said that we need to have the rule of law applying in the construction sector. Hundreds of examples have been presented. Indeed, there are over 100 members of the CFMEU—officials—before the courts on over 1,000 breaches of industrial law, and every day small business men and women—tradies—are not able to get a start on union jobs. Jobs that should be built—hospitals, schools, roads and buildings that should be constructed at a price the taxpayer can afford—we know are priced out of the market by the demands and the lawlessness of the CFMEU. The Leader of the Opposition is an apologist for them. No matter how much evidence is presented, he refuses to confront it. The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will resume his seat. Has the Prime Minister concluded his answer? The Prime Minister has not. The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order. Mr Frydenberg interjecting— Mr Ciobo interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister for resources and the minister for trade will cease interjecting. The Manager of Opposition Business has the call. Mr Burke DYW Thank you, Mr Speaker. We are now more than a minute into the answer, so, in terms of the preamble, a question about a banking royal commission has to at some point involve an answer that refers to banks. The SPEAKER 00APG I am listening very closely to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister can have a preamble and, as I have said before, is entitled to compare and contrast. I am listening to the Prime Minister for the rest of his answer. Mr TURNBULL 885 Thank you, Mr Speaker. If anyone doubted the hypocrisy, the opportunism and the shallow populism of the Leader of the Opposition, let us go back to his remarks in 2012, when he was the minister for financial services. Mr Dreyfus interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Isaacs! Mr TURNBULL 885 And he said: AUSTRALIA has some of the best banks in the world. It is … because of our excellent regulatory system and prudent management. He said a couple of years before: The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has ensured the strength … of our banks and financial services sector. And the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, with the support of government, has been busier than ever over the past few years. I know my predecessors in this position have said that the Australian "twin peaks" regulation model has worked very well and continues to work. Well, it does not work for him politically, and that is why he wants to have a royal commission. Let me say to you, Mr Speaker: if the Leader of the Opposition were to have his way, not one person who has been given poor advice would be compensated. The only beneficiaries of years and years of a royal commission into wickedness in the financial services sector—no terms of reference—would be the legal profession. I can say, whether it was in my remarks on 6 April or in the work of this government, we are focused on action. We are focused on ensuring that the banks are regulated and that those who break the law are brought to account and those who get a raw deal are dealt with fairly and compensated appropriately. The SPEAKER 00APG Just before I call the member for Banks, the member for Isaacs— Mr Bowen interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for McMahon might stop interrupting me. The member for Isaacs will cease interjecting. Economy 50 14:06 Mr COLEMAN 241067 Banks My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on Australia's strong economic performance as we make the transition from the mining investment boom? How is the government's economic plan delivering jobs and growth? 14:06 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth I thank the honourable member for his question. Our economic plan is to ensure that we continue to make a successful transition from the mining construction boom to a strong and prosperous 21st century economy. Every lever of our policy is directed at ensuring our economy is more innovative, more competitive and more productive so that we can deliver great jobs and great opportunities for Australians, our children and our grandchildren. Only today, the defence minister and I announced the commitment to naval shipbuilding, securing another 2,500 jobs into the future. Under the six years of the Labor government, not one ship was commissioned from one Australian yard. We are getting on with the job. We are rebuilding that industry, which Labor left languish. We are ensuring that our Navy has the vessels that will keep us secure and we have an industry that will deliver us the support and the capabilities that our Navy will need for decades to come. Our policies are working. The labour force data for March shows strong growth continuing: 26,000 new jobs; unemployment fell to 5.7 per cent. Last year we had more jobs created in Australia than since 2006. We had three per cent real GDP growth. Business confidence is resurgent. Business conditions—according to the NAB survey—are at their highest level since early 2008. One of the most important elements in our plan is opening up those big trade opportunities in Asia—especially China—pioneered by our former trade minister, Andrew Robb. I was there last week, with Andrew, with the biggest ever trade delegation to leave our shores—1,000 Australian businesses looking to open up new markets. We know that China is going through an economic transition too. It is going from one based on investment and heavy exports to one that is more consumer based, and that is providing enormous opportunities. It gives opportunities to our primary producers, our beef and dairy exporters, cherry farmers in Tasmania and cray fisherman in Geraldton. It gives opportunities for architects, engineers, lawyers and planners. As the winemaker Warren Randall said: 'The China FTA is the most important development in wine marketing in the 39 years I have been in this business.' It is a massive opportunity and Australians see that right around the country, but let us not forget the Labor Party opposed the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Their union masters campaigned against it relentlessly on television and it was only at the very last minute that they finally relented and agreed to it passing through the parliament. We stand for trade and growth; Labor stands in the way. Banking 50 14:09 Ms O'NEIL 140590 Hotham My question is to the Prime Minister. Denis Scanlon is 75 and he lives in the electorate of Higgins. Denis says his financial adviser has admitted to ripping him off, but his bank is still trying to sell his house after selling both his business and his commercial property. Denis says ASIC and the Financial Ombudsman Service have told him they cannot help. And his local member, the Assistant Treasurer, has given him a list of community legal centres, despite the fact that the Liberal government has cut funding to these services. When will the Prime Minister end his excuses and launch a royal commission so that cases like this can be properly investigated? Mr Conroy interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister has the call. The member for Charlton will cease interjecting. 14:10 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth The question from the honourable member underlines the reckless populism of the Labor Party on this issue. Here you have an individual who has a complaint against a bank, who says that he has been misled—and it may be that he has been misled—and what is the Labor Party's answer? Three years of a royal commission, which has no power to compensate that gentleman—it has no ability to right any wrong—and which will simply go on for years and years. No action. It is just another inquiry. The gentleman that the honourable member refers to no doubt needs redress, no doubt needs legal advice, and his member of parliament has directed him to where he can get it. The reality is that a royal commission of the kind proposed by Labor will offer nothing more than, after many years, a long report, and the gentleman concerned will still be waiting. We are taking action. We are committed to ensuring that ASIC does its job, that it investigates complaints and deals with them. And we are also taking action in respect of small business, protecting small business in the construction sector and on the roads, because the Labor Party's concern is only to run a populist campaign against banks. It has no concern with small business. It has no concern about any of the owner drivers who were with us yesterday and who are here today. No; it wants to run them out of business. It has no concern about the grown men there with their families, with their wives, with their little children weeping as they saw their businesses dissolve because of a dirty deal done between the Leader of the Opposition and the Transport Workers Union. The only tears from the opposition are indeed crocodile tears. The men and women of Australia—the small business men and women—who need to be supported by government were abandoned by Labor, and we are determined to set them right again. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Parramatta! There were a number of members interjecting throughout that answer. The members for Wakefield and Griffith are warned. If they interject again they will be leaving question time. DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 51 DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 14:12 The SPEAKER 00APG I would like to inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the Hon. Warwick Smith, a former member for Bass and a former minister. On behalf of the House, I extend a very warm welcome to you. Honourable members: Hear, hear! QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 51 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Small Business 51 14:13 Mr IRONS HYM Swan My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister remind the House why small family businesses are at the heart of the Australian economy? Will the Prime Minister also outline to the House any risks to the economic security of small independent operators in the road freight industry and the building and construction sector? 14:13 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth It is the passion, the determination, the enterprise, the courage and the risk-taking of small business that drives jobs and prosperity in our economy. Those small business men and women are the very heart of our economy. That is where the greatest jobs creation is to be found. That is where the big businesses of tomorrow begin. That is where the dreams of men and women are who start off with their human capital, borrow some money, buy an asset and get going. It is their enterprise and their entrepreneurship that drives our economy. Now, we understand this as a party. Sitting behind me are men and women from every walk of life. We are a true grassroots party, with members from business—small business, big business—farmers, professional people, the military, the police, health workers—right across the board. We are a broad grassroots party. We understand that the key element in any plan for a prosperous Australia and the key element in our plan for a strong and prosperous 21st century economy must be to provide the incentives and the freedom that encourage those businesses to have a go.   We are getting the big decisions right, and we are seeing that in the economic growth we are enjoying, but the trucking industry is the absolute lifeblood of our economy. The road freight transport industry employs around 200,000 people, and tens of thousands of them are owner-drivers—family businesses, mum-and-dad businesses—and they are fearful because they know that the Labor Party is out to get them. They know the transport tribunal Labor set up is putting them out of business. Opposition members interjecting— Mr TURNBULL 885 The honourable members opposite scoff. The member for Chifley, just before we came into question time, said that our move to abolish this pernicious tribunal was a stunt, just a stunt. That is what he thinks of the owner-drivers of Chifley. That is what he thinks of the truck drivers of Chifley. That is what he thinks of the men and women who have gone to the bank and borrowed some money and bought a rig and are getting out on the road. That is what he thinks of them. He does not have any time for them—because they are not members of the TWU, you see. That is what it is all about. We are going to set this right. We are committed to abolishing that tribunal. We are committed to getting those businesses back on the road. We are committed to ensuring that those mum-and-dad businesses—those small businesses, those enterprising Australians—can get on and do their work. Labor is determined to keep them out of business. Ms MacTiernan interjecting— Ms Macklin interjecting— Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Perth will cease interjecting. The members for Jagajaga and Gorton will cease interjecting as well. Banking, Financial Services 52 14:16 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong My question is to the Prime Minister. The government is reported to be considering directing ASIC to conduct an inquiry into the banking and financial services industry. Can the Prime Minister confirm that ASIC cannot inquire into its own role or APRA's role, ASIC cannot hold an inquiry in public and ASIC can only investigate individual cases, where a royal commission examines systemic issues? When will the Prime Minister stop appeasing and apologising for the banks and launch a royal commission into the Australian banking sector? 14:17 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the Prime Minister for the opportunity to respond to the Leader of the Opposition's question. Ms Butler interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Griffith will leave under 94(a). The member for Griffith then left the chamber. Mr MORRISON E3L The government takes very seriously the issues affecting banks and financial system customers, and for that very reason, when we were in opposition, we proposed a financial system inquiry. That is what we did in November 2010. And in opposition we produced terms of reference for that financial system inquiry, which I table. In that financial system inquiry, we set out to ensure that, when we were elected to government, we could go into all the matters that were relevant to ensuring that our banking and financial system provided the bedrock it needed to for our Australian economy and addressed the consumer and other protection and powers issues that it needed to to ensure that that could take place. It was opposed by those opposite when we put it forward in opposition. Treasury even recommended it to those opposite, and they opposed it. They refused to act on putting in place a financial system inquiry. So, when we came to government, we did that. We initiated the Murray review, and it produced its report. And, when it produced its report, did we hear from those opposite that there needed to be a royal commission? No, we did not. And, when it was proposed in the Senate that there should be a royal commission into the banking and financial system by the Greens, what did they do? They voted against it. I will tell you what happened the month after that, Mr Speaker. This government initiated a capability review into ASIC. Those opposite do not seem to understand that ASIC has the powers and the authority to prosecute and investigate, including holding public hearings, dealing with things in public, and having general matters that it can investigate as well as specific matters. We initiated the capability review into ASIC to ensure that it has the proper resources and powers to do its job. Those opposite, in their economic statement before the last election, when they were in government, placed an efficiency dividend on ASIC, cutting some $30 million from ASIC. It was done by the now shadow Treasurer when he was Treasurer. He would remember that. Now they come to this place, a month or two or however long it is out from an election, and they develop an interest in the banking and financial system. Well, this government has been working on it from day one. Those opposite have opposed it every step of the way. It is rank populism. Dr Chalmers interjecting— Mr Albanese interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Rankin will cease interjecting, as will the member for Grayndler. The member for Grayndler will cease interjecting! Tasmania: Health Funding 52 14:20 Mr WILKIE C2T Denison My question is to the Prime Minister. In 2012 the federal government met my request for $325 million to boost the Tasmanian health system, but that money runs out in June, meaning the loss of desperately needed services. Funding for the essential psychiatric emergency nurses is also about to run out. Prime Minister, will you commit to a new funding package for Tasmania, including for the PENs, and when will you announce the detail? Mr Hutchinson interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Lyons will cease interjecting. 14:20 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth I thank the honourable member for his question. I can assure the honourable member that spending on health in his state, and indeed in every state, increases every year. The honourable member will have seen that, at the recent COAG meeting, we committed to an additional $2.7 billion of spending and entered into a reassuring agreement. The growth in spending was set at 6.7 per cent, and the agreement that we entered into with the Tasmanian government specifically was to ensure that, notwithstanding that the growth rate had changed—and, of course, actually had increased—there would be no detriment or disadvantage to Tasmania because of the manner in which the formula was applied. So I can assure the honourable member that the government is very aware of the demands of the health sector and hospitals in Tasmania. We are spending more money every year. We are keenly alert to it and we are absolutely committed to ensuring that Tasmanians have the support from the federal government to ensure that they have health services on a par with Australians elsewhere in the country. Ms King 00AMR So the answer is no. The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Ballarat is warned. Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal 53 14:21 Mr O'DOWD 139441 Flynn My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on how the coalition are supporting family-owned transport operators across Australia, and how will the coalition's actions drive jobs growth in my electorate of Flynn and, indeed, Central Queensland? 14:22 Mr JOYCE E5D New England I thank the honourable member for his question. I note that he more than most, having also been in the transport business, understands what this means, what it means to be an owner-operator. It is great to see owner-operators here today. I note the Welshes from Kootingal in the gallery at the moment and other owner-operators and their wives and their partners who have to deal with all the trials and tribulations of making those payments, making the lease payments, making the insurance payments, making the registration payments and making the payments to the fuel distributor and to the mechanics. They keep the economy of the local towns going. They are the sorts of owner-operators who go out to towns like Monto, Bilo and Jambin and make their way up the dirt roads behind Weabonga and out into the western districts. They are the kinds of owner-operators that keep this nation's economy going. They are the owner-operators for whom today we introduce a bill to remove this incredible impost. Mr Dreyfus interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Isaacs is now warned. Mr JOYCE E5D There is no way on earth you can say that making people broke makes them safe. Making people broke just makes them broke and puts them out of business. On this side, we believe in the vision of someone who might not start with the education that so many of us have got, who might not start with the money that some people might have. They start with a vision and a drive and a desire to take themselves forward by reason of their endeavours in owning a rig and getting out onto the road and earning a dollar. There is so much about this. It is so frustrating when we see Australian men and women having to come to the front lawn of this parliament to try to make sure, once more, they sweep up after the disaster of the Labor Greens Independent alliance of the previous government, a Labor Greens Independent alliance so well noted for some of their other remarkable decisions where they put people out of business—like what they did with the live cattle trade when they put people out of business, like what they did with the budget when they tried to put the whole nation out of business and like what they are going to try to do with their housing policy and their rental policy and their negative gearing policy, which looks like a Hindenburg policy looking for a match. This is what these people are trying to do. They have no idea how this works. They have never experienced business. They have never been in business. They have never had to get out on the road and earn a dollar. What they have are the experiences from this chamber—that is about it. That is about the only experience they have. But we will drive this forward. Just like the member for Flynn, just like we voted against it in March 2012, we will have the joy this time of kicking it out and making sure that we get the Welshes back onto the road, that we get the lorries back onto road, that we get so many of the working men and women—the true working men and women of Australia—back on the road to keep our economy going. Government members interjecting— Mr Williams interjecting— Mr McCormack interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Hindmarsh is warned and the member for Riverina will cease interjecting. Financial Services 54 14:25 Dr CHALMERS 37998 Rankin My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's previous answer when he said a royal commission into Australia's banking sector would not pay compensation. Given the Prime Minister's close personal knowledge, can Prime Minister confirm that victims of HIH, which was subject to a royal commission, received compensation? 14:26 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth I thank the honourable member for his question. The reality is that a royal commission cannot compensate anyone, and he knows that. I thank him for his gratuitous reference, which he no doubt got some satisfaction out of. Dr Chalmers 37998 You're compensating everyone, are you? The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Rankin has asked his question. Mr TURNBULL 885 Honourable senators opposite should not insult the intelligence of the Australian people. A royal commission is an inquiry. The only thing a royal commission can do is ask questions— Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Gorton is warned. Mr TURNBULL 885 subpoena documents, examine witnesses and write a report. That is all it can do. It cannot compensate anyone. I was about to say it cannot write a cheque. The only cheques that are written in respect of royal commissions are to the lawyers, and they do very well out of it. A royal commission is designed to inquire into something that has gone wrong, and of course there are plenty of opportunities where that can be done. But what we have here in the financial services sector, in the banking sector, is the most regulated part of our economy, bar none. And we have very powerful regulators. With respect to the banks—the Leader of the Opposition's current target—we have ASIC, with enormous powers that go well beyond those of a royal commission, and you could say the same about APRA and, of course, the Reserve Bank. They are highly regulated. Of course ASIC is undertaking prosecutions and investigations. It is banning people from being financial advisers. It has all of the levers that it needs to deal with people who have done the wrong thing, and it continues to do it. Of course, the critical thing for people who have had a raw deal from banks or financial advisers is to get some compensation, or to get some recompense or recognition. A royal commission can do none of those things. Dr Chalmers 37998 Is this Trio all over again? The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Rankin is warned. Mr TURNBULL 885 So we are focused on action. We want people to get a fair deal. We are focused on action and we are taking action. What the Labor Party is proposing is just another long inquiry. We talk about ASIC. The ASIC is a tough cop on the financial services beat. It has very, very substantial powers. What is missing at the moment in the construction sector, which employs over a million Australians, is a tough cop on that beat. Well, there was one—the ABCC—and the Labor Party abolished it. What have we seen? We have seen an increase in disputes, a decline in productivity, small businesses being frozen out, cost of projects going up, taxpayers getting ripped off, lawlessness prevailing and over a hundred CFMEU officials before the courts on more than a thousand breaches of industrial law. So we say what the construction sector needs—it has been demonstrated. We are the tough cop on the beat. Labor took it off—a failure. Now we want to put the tough cop back on the beat in the construction sector. The rule of law must prevail again. Dr Chalmers interjecting — Mr Husic interjecting — Ms O'Neil interjecting — The SPEAKER 00APG Just before I call the member for Petrie, the member for Rankin has been warned. I remind him to cease interjecting. I would also ask the member for Hotham and the member for Chifley to cease interjecting. Economy 55 14:29 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer please update the House on how the government is supporting the transition from the mining investment boom to a more diversified economy? Is the Treasurer aware of any threats to this transition and what impact higher taxes would have on hardworking Australians who are working, saving and investing in our new economy? 14:30 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for Petrie for his question. He knows that the Australian economy is performing well in a very difficult global economy. It is performing well, because it is transitioning well from the investment phase of the mining boom through to a stronger economy, a new economy, with more jobs—three per cent growth last year; higher than the US, higher than the UK, higher than Germany, higher than New Zealand, higher than Singapore and double the growth rate of comparable economies like Canada. More than 440,000 jobs have been created since the last election and, importantly, in the last 18 months, more than 50,000 jobs for young people saw the youth unemployment rate to go below what it was at the last election. The budget that will be brought down on 3 May continues to focus on jobs and growth, ensuring that we have a targeted and sustainable tax system to support the commitments that the government must undertake for the long term and ensure that we stay on a consolidated path to budget balance by getting expenditure under control continually and growing the economy to grow revenues. There are alternatives to that plan, and they are put forward by those opposite. They are simply this: to increase the tax burden on the Australian economy by $100 billion over the next 10 years. That is their figure, and they boast of it. They boast of the claim that they will increase the tax burden on the Australian economy by over $100 billion over the next 10 years. They are not doing it to reduce the deficit; they are doing it to try and chase the money they are throwing around with even higher and higher spending. So, from those opposite, what you get are higher taxes, higher spending, a bigger deficit and a bigger debt. That is the proposal of those opposite in comparison to the path that is being pursued by those on this side of the House. I quote the former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who said— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Jagajaga has been warned. Mr MORRISON E3L He said: 'I don't think Australia is in a great position to be increasing the tax burden to any significant degree.' I would call an increase in the tax burden of over $100 billion in the next 10 years by the proposals of those opposite with no proposal to reduce tax, no proposal to reduce spending, no proposal to reduce the deficit; just to see higher debt and higher deficits as a result of their policies. What you have in the opposition leader is nothing new. We have seen it all before. We saw it in those six years where they took a $20 billion surplus and turned it into a $50 billion deficit. We have seen it all before: there is nothing new about this opposition leader. Banking, Financial Services 55 14:33 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon My question is to the Treasurer. Last night when asked, if the Treasurer had spoken to the banks about holding an ASIC inquiry into banks, the Prime Minister said, 'You'd have to ask him.' So can the Treasurer advise the House whether he or his office have spoken with any banks since Labor announced its support for a royal commission into the banking and financial services industry; and, if so, what was discussed? 14:33 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for his question. As he would know, as a former Treasurer, you are in constant engagement with members of the financial and banking industry. It is our job. In fact the Prime Minister spoke to a gathering for Westpac and, in response to that, we have the unadulterated populism of the Leader of the Opposition. The Prime Minister— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Gorton, that is your final warning. Mr MORRISON E3L raised the important issue of banking culture directly with the banks as those on this side of the Leader of the House do regularly. But what we see from those opposite is rank populism, and I will tell you why—and they may want to take a bit of advice from the member for Lilley, the member for Rankin's old boss. When he was presented by Laurie Oakes some years ago with a terms of reference that I previously tabled—a terms of reference for a financial systems inquiry, which they opposed—Laurie Oakes said: Now, Joe Hockey, tomorrow will take to Shadow Cabinet his terms of reference for his proposed Son of Wallis Inquiry into the finance industry. Why are you against such an inquiry? He said: … I think the last thing the system needs is another inquiry. That is what Wayne Swan said, the member for Lilley. He said: Crass populism doesn't not work… That is what the member for Lilley said. He said: What works here is methodical application, the detail, getting it right, then getting it in place so the reform is enduring for the long term. So why is it that, instead of taking the wise advice of the member for Lilley, the Leader of the Opposition is proposing a royal commission whose terms of reference is a blank sheet of paper. There are no terms of reference. There is nothing more than crass populism seeking to undermine confidence in the banking and financial system, which is key to jobs and growth in this country. If he actually had a proposal, as the former shadow Treasurer, who became Treasurer—he was prepared to put forward a terms of reference in opposition and make the case for a financial systems inquiry which we implemented in government. If he was prepared to do that, then fair enough, but what he has is complete hot air, appealing to crass populism. He should take the advice of the member for Lilley, which was: Crass populism doesn't work… Shipbuilding 56 14:36 Mr WILLIAMS 249758 Hindmarsh My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs representing the Minister for Defence. Will the minister advise the House how the government will secure a sustainable long-term shipbuilding industry in Australia? How will this vital important industry support Australia's interests both domestically and internationally? 14:36 Ms JULIE BISHOP 83P Curtin I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question and I acknowledge his passionate advocacy for Australia's shipbuilders and a sustainable shipbuilding industry in this country. Today the coalition government has announced details implementing our historic continuous shipbuilding plan that will protect Australia's national security while also providing for a sustainable long-term shipbuilding industry in Australia and boosting jobs growth in advanced manufacturing. The government has committed to a program of continuous build of surface ships in Australian shipyards, major warships in South Australia and offshore patrol vessels in South Australia and Western Australia and Pacific patrol boats in Western Australia. These decisions directly support Australia's national security. Up to 12 offshore patrol vessels to be built in South Australia and Western Australia will provide our Navy with enhanced border protection capabilities to maintain the security of Australia's borders and tackle the criminal people-smuggling trade that flourished under Labor. Up to 21 Pacific patrol boats, to be built by Austal ships in Western Australia—a great Australian company that builds ships for the US Navy—will support Australia's defence engagement in the South Pacific and enable our Pacific island partners to contribute to greater maritime security across our region, including combatting illegal fishing and the people-smuggling trade. These shipbuilding projects, as well as the project to build nine frigates, represent about $40 billion worth of investment in Australia's future naval capabilities and, in turn, in our own shipbuilding industry. These projects will ensure that Australia retains a sovereign capability to build and sustain naval vessels, securing more than 2,500 jobs in Australia for decades to come, securing the skills that this industry will need and will be required under our plan. Compare Labor's mismanagement of Australia's national security and the local defence industry, one of the most dangerous legacies left by a government in our history. First, Labor trashed our budget with wasteful spending. Labor then stripped $18.8 billion out of the defence budget, slashing funding as a percentage of GDP to the lowest level since 1938. True! Labor then failed to commission a single naval vessel from an Australian shipyard in their entire six years in office. Ten per cent of workers in the Australian defence industry lost their jobs because of the inaction and incompetence of the Labor government. Only the coalition can be trusted to safeguard Australia's defence industry and to ensure local jobs in a local industry. (Time expired) Financial Services 56 14:39 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin My question is to the Treasurer. Dimity Hirst is a mother of four children in the electorate of Lyons. Dimity says that ANZ tried to sell her and her husband's farm out from under them. Just before Christmas in 2013, Dimity says she got a phone call from ANZ telling her that her locks would be changed and to, 'Pack your bags and get out.' Dimity says she has not defaulted and not missed a payment. Is the government so out of touch that it will deny a royal commission into the banks for ordinary Australians like Dimity? 14:40 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for her question, and I would be very happy to receive the details from the member and have them referred to ASIC, who has the powers and authority to investigate into these matters and follow them up. Alternatively, these matters can be taken up with the Financial Ombudsman Service. I encourage the member to put the constituent in contact with the financial ombudsman, and my office would be very pleased to assist with that. The member may also like to know that ASIC, in relation to ANZ in more recent times, started legal action against ANZ for alleged rigging of the bank-bill swap rate in March of 2016. In the same month, following an ASIC probe, ANZ will conduct an independent review of its one-part subsidiary after ASIC found 1.3 million customers were affected by breaches requiring $50 million in refunds in compensation. In March as well, an ASIC investigation forced ANZ to pay penalties of $212,500 for breaching responsible lending laws on offers of overdrafts. My point is this: ANZ has been required, in relation to actions by ASIC, to undertake recompense in relation to these matters. ASIC is the cop on the beat that is doing the job that is required of it. Each day in our communities, we see things that happen that we prefer would not happen. That is why we have law enforcement authorities. But that does not mean you have a royal commission every time there is a break-and-enter. What you do is ensure the police are well sourced and well focused on doing the tasks that we entrust to them. It is our job as a government to ensure that ASIC is equally focused, tasked and resourced to do the job. Those opposite increased the efficiency dividend for ASIC from 1.25 per cent to 2.5 per cent in one of their last acts as a government. We have initiated a capability review into ASIC, which we will be announcing our response to shortly, which will address the issues that will enable ASIC to be able to even better deal with the issues that come up in the banking and the financial system. We take these issues incredibly seriously—so seriously that, last July, we initiated that capability review. There was no call from the opposition to do that. They had just finished voting against a royal commission in the Senate at the time. There was no call for a royal commission when the FSI response was provided by this government. There was not a whisper from those opposite. But, as an election comes, they propose a royal commission which is designed to help only one person—the Leader of the Opposition. It is not intended to support bank consumers and customers; it is just intended to bolster and prop up the stocks of a Leader of the Opposition who is focused on one Australian—himself. Workplace Relations 57 14:43 Mrs WICKS 241590 Robertson My question is to the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister outline to the House the government's commitment to ensure that employer and employee organisations always act in the best interests of their members? What policies are being implemented by this government to ensure the future prosperity of all Australians by promoting jobs and growth in our economy? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches? 14:44 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I thank the member for Robertson for her question. She, like all members of this side of the House, knows that Australia's economy needs reform of the building and construction industry, it needs economic stability and safety in the road transport industry, and it needs to support honest union leaders. The opposition is undermining all three. The Leader of the Opposition abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission when he was in government as a minister. The Leader of the Opposition presided over the RSRT's introduction and the sordid deal with the TWU for $220,000 of taxpayers' money for a so-called education campaign which, three years later, is yet to be launched. Of course, the opposition does not support the Registered Organisations Commission, which would support honest trade union leaders and make sure that dishonest trade union leaders were rooted out of the system. Only a Turnbull government will establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Only a Turnbull government will pass the Registered Organisations Commission into law. Only a Turnbull government will support owner-driver truck operators in Australia—35,000 individuals whose livelihoods rely on being able to get on with their job free from interference from the RSRT. The last time we had the Australian Building and Construction Commission productivity in the building and construction industry rose by nine per cent—consumers were better off to the tune of $7½ billion a year—and industrial disputation fell in the building and construction industry. By contrast, in the last December quarter, since the abolition of the ABCC, industrial disputes in building and construction represented two-thirds of all days lost in our economy—two-thirds of all days lost in our economy in the December quarter were in the building and construction industry. There is a lawlessness at large in the building and construction industry. An opposition member: Rubbish! Mr PYNE 9V5 'Rubbish,' they say. Who was the brave soul who said, 'Rubbish'? The Heydon royal commission made it all up, I assume! There are 108 CFMEU officials in front of the courts right now and this brave soul says Dyson Heydon made it all up in the royal commission. What a disgraceful interjection. The truth is that, if we bring the Australian Building and Construction Commission back, we will improve productivity in the building and construction industry, we will have less industrial disputation and we will have safer worksites where workers are looked after and small businesses are not bullied by standover merchants in the CFMEU. The Leader of the Opposition must break his umbilical cord like attachment to the CFMEU. (Time expired) Budget 58 14:47 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer take Moody's advice last week and accept the need for both spending and revenue measures or will the Treasurer deliver a budget which puts Australia's prized AAA credit rating at risk? Mr Pyne interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the House will cease interjecting. The Treasurer has the call. 14:47 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for her question. I find it puzzling that the member for Sydney would seek to be offering fiscal advice to the government, given her role in the previous government, which turned a $20 billion surplus into a $50 billion deficit. If in 2007 you had knocked on doors, as I did and others did—the Leader of the Opposition entered the House in 2007—and said, 'If you vote Labor at this election, if you vote for Kevin Rudd, they will turn a $20 billion surplus into a $50 billion deficit, they will let 50,000 people turn up on boats illegally and they will set fire to your roofs as well,' they would have never believed you. They would have said, 'That is just crazy talk.' Ms Plibersek interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Sydney has asked her question. Mr MORRISON E3L But it was true, it happened and it is a matter of record, so I find it galling that those opposite who were responsible for that fiscal madness would come into this place and lecture those on this side of the House about how you repair a budget. This is how you repair a budget: you get control of your spending and you reduce your expenditure as a share of the economy. You also focus on growth and on jobs and the thing that supports investment to support growth in jobs, because that is what this revenue is. Those opposite might want to take a licence and a leave pass to justify why they want to put a $100 billion tax burden on the Australian economy at this sensitive point of our transition. If they think that is a good plan, go and tell the Australian people that, as they have. But do not mislead them and say that you are going to reduce the deficit, because you are not. You are going to increase spending to chase their taxes. Over and above that, because their taxes can never keep pace with their appetite for spending, we will see higher deficits and higher debt under the reckless management of those who sit opposite. The Australian people remember those six years. It was not that long ago. They know there is nothing new about this mob. National Security 58 14:49 Mr BRIGGS IYU Mayo My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister update the House on the measures this government is taking to strengthen our border security capability? How will these assets continue to keep the people smugglers out of business? 14:50 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson I thank the member for Mayo most sincerely for this very important question. He, like all of my colleagues on this side of the parliament, supports a very strong border protection policy. He knows, like all Australians know, that it was only a couple of years ago that Labor had completely lost control of our borders. If you do not have secure borders in the modern age, you cannot have a safe society. One of the biggest achievements of this government has been the fact that we have been able to restore security to our borders and to our community. We have been able to stop the boats. We have been able to stare down people smugglers. Those people opposite laugh, but 1,200 people drowned at sea when Labor lost control of our borders—1,200 people drowned at sea when 50,000 people came on 800 boats. We do not want a return to those days. It means we must have first-class efforts both in terms of our personnel and in terms of our assets at sea and in the air. That is why I am very pleased that there is a very strong relationship between the Australian Border Force and the Australian Defence Force. I welcome very much the announcement by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence today, in relation to the defence white paper, of 12 new and more capable offshore patrol vessels that will be acquired. Importantly, from the Australian Border Force perspective, they will have aerial surveillance capacity. At the moment Australian Border Force operates eight Cape class vessels, a Bay class vessel and two large-hulled vessels—the Ocean Shield and the Ocean Protector. We invested in those assets. Labor pulled money out of the Australian Border Force, out of Customs, because they were determined to support the people smugglers. For some strange reason they thought that having people arrive illegally by boat was somehow a way to run your border protection policy, and it was a complete and utter failure. The Australian public realise that, when it comes to this election in a very short period of time, they can trust this government to secure our borders. They know that Labor, over six years in government, demonstrated to the Australian public that they do not have that capacity; they do not have the guts to stand up to people smugglers and to secure our borders. We have stopped those boats. At the same time—while Labor had 8,500 children in detention—we have reduced the number of children in detention down to zero. That is something this government is very proud of. We are not going to allow the Labor Party to pretend to the Australian public, during the election campaign, that somehow they will not unwind these policies, because they will. They have said very clearly that in relation to temporary protection visas, which have been at the heart of the success in stopping the boats, they will abandon that policy. Under Labor, the people smugglers will be back in power, and Bill Shorten, as was demonstrated with Kevin Rudd, will be the greatest friend that people smugglers have ever had. The SPEAKER 00APG I remind the Minister for Immigration to refer to members by their correct titles. Donations to Political Parties 59 14:53 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs My question is to the Minister representing the Special Minister of State. The New South Wales Electoral Commission recently found that that the New South Wales Liberal Party was required to disclose the identities of donors to the Free Enterprise Foundation, regardless of whether they were prohibited donors or not. That disclosure was not made. As a matter of government policy, should an organisation that has been found to have breached New South Wales electoral laws by the New South Wales Electoral Commission be able to claim electoral funding from the Australian Electoral Commission for a federal election? 14:54 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook The member for Isaacs would be aware that the matters he referred to related to New South Wales electoral laws, not to federal electoral laws. Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal 59 14:54 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. I refer the minister to comments made by Toll Holdings recently. They said: … we don't believe the RSRT is the best way to improve safety for either big or small operators … Will the minister outline the government's efforts to improve safety in the heavy vehicle industry? Mr Perrett interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Moreton will leave under 94(a). He has been warned already. The member for Moreton then left the chamber. 14:54 Mr CHESTER IPZ Gippsland I thank the member for Page for his question. I note his long-running passion for road safety in his electorate and also his support for the small business sector in his community and his support for the heavy vehicle sector. What a great champion he has been for regional Australia in his role as the member for Page. I had the opportunity last week to be in Lismore and we met with representatives from the local transport sector. We met with drivers and vehicle suppliers, and they were all urging us to help protect them from the are RSRT and its rulings. Everyday Australians should not have to come to Canberra to fight for their jobs, but that is what we have seen in the last 48 hours. They have had to spend thousands of dollars of their own money to come to Canberra to fight to keep their own jobs—owner-drivers on the front lawns of Parliament House, fighting to keep their own jobs. We on this side want to fight to keep their jobs as well. We want to come in here and vote to protect their jobs. It remains to be seen whether those opposite want to come in here and sack them. That is what we are going to find out in the next 24 hours. We on this side want to fight to protect their jobs and we are about to find out whether those on the other side want to sack them. Every member of this place cares about road safety, but the RSRT has nothing to do with road safety. It discriminates against owner-drivers, who are the backbone of the heavy vehicle industry. Opposition members interjecting— Mr CHESTER IPZ Those opposite are quick to jump in. But I refer to the comments made by former TWU official Mr Michael Wong. Mr Wong said: … fundamentally, the union doesn't care about owner-drivers, it cares about its income and the political power it can achieve … It cares about its income and the political power it can achieve. Contrast this with the government's approach. Safety is at the basis of the government's plan for the heavy vehicle sector. We are working with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator that is in place, and we want to expand its role. We have $50 billion allocated to the biggest infrastructure investment program in Australia's history in safer roads around our nation, with the Black Spot Program being rolled out across the nation, and heavy vehicle rest areas—all practical measures to improve safety in the heavy vehicle sector. Now, the NHVR already has a comprehensive work strategy in place. It is utilising technology to address the issue of fatigue management. It has programs in place for inspections of the heavy vehicle sector and for enforcement across Australia. We acknowledge that there is more work to be done; work on road safety is never ending. In public life, we all make mistakes. Once in a while we make mistakes, and those opposite can choose to help fix them or they can try and continue to block our efforts to clean up the mess left behind. I urge those opposite to be part of the solution—to help us get behind Australian owner-drivers, help get them back on the road and help them to do the job they do safely, on behalf of the Australian community. Donations to Political Parties 60 14:57 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs My question is to the Minister representing the Special Minister of State. According to reports, the Millennium Forum was established as a vehicle to conceal the identity of Liberal Party donors. The Millennium Forum has never declared a donation to the Australian Electoral Commission, despite some individual donors confirming donations to the forum. Given the Millennium Forum was in operation during the Treasurer's time as director of the New South Wales Liberal Party—a time in which he signed AEC disclosures—has the Treasurer advised the Prime Minister of any conflicts he has in representing the Special Minister of State? 14:58 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I notice they have gone away from their banking questions today. I am not going to dignify the misrepresentations of the member opposite, particularly not from the party of Eddie Obeid and all the other ski-lodge hosts of those opposite. If they want to have a discussion about the New South Wales Labor Party that they were all part of, that put them all into the benches that they sit on opposite us, they should go right ahead—because there is not a hole dark enough that the New South Wales Labor Party have not been in. They are the party that wrote the book on corruption in New South Wales under Labor, but they have the gall to come into this place and throw this sort of muck around. Those opposite are the party of Craig Thomson—the party of Craig Thomson. Has the union got its money back yet from Craig Thomson that he used for the brothel? I do not think they have. This is a bankrupt party. When it comes to these matters, they are in no position to lecture anyone. Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal 60 14:59 Mrs GRIGGS 220370 Solomon My question is to the Minister for Small Business and the Assistant Treasurer. I remind the minister that small business is the lifeblood of the local economy in my electorate, but there are a number of small trucking businesses in my community that are concerned about their futures. Will the minister please outline what action the government is taking to protect the livelihoods of small business people and their communities? 15:00 Ms O'DWYER LKU Higgins I would very much like to thank the dedicated and hardworking member for Solomon, who is a very strong advocate for the more than 8,000 small businesses in her community. Like her, I have been hearing from small business and family enterprises who are in the trucking industry and who tell of their despair at Labor's attacks on them through the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Like them, the message is very clear: they want to see this tribunal abolished. Why do they want to see it abolished? Because in 2012 the Labor government at the time, at the behest of the union movement and under the guise of improving safety in the transport sector, established a tribunal to damage these small owner-operators who are part of the nonunionised small business and independent contractors in the trucking industry. Everyone in Australia agrees that there should be fewer injuries and fewer fatalities on our roads. We all want to see safer roads. But if that were the real purpose behind Labor's change—if that were really their intention—they could have instead strengthened the powers of the actual regulator on safety, the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator. What is very notable is that in this recent payment order by the tribunal, set up by the now opposition leader, is that it only applies to independent contractors. It only applies to owner-drivers. It does not apply to other parts of the industry that just so happen to be heavily unionised. On 7 April I met with a group of owner-drivers from right around Australia. One owner-driver told me of his despair. He wants to support his daughter to go to university, and his business is severely under threat. He has already been told by his regular clients that they will no longer require his services as a result of this payment order—as a result of the mandated changes in this payment order. I spoke to another about the impact on his local community and he said that if he went under that his broader community would suffer, with tyre fitters and mechanics losing out, threatening the jobs in his local community. Another operator told me that it would impede his ability to grow his business. Neither the Labor Party nor the Transport Workers Union can point to any direct improvements in safety as a result of the order. In fact, there have been two independent reports by PricewaterhouseCoopers and by Jaguar that both said there is no relationship to safety. They have recommended the abolition of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. That is what this government will do. We have introduced legislation in the House, to get rid of this tribunal which will damage small businesses. We are sticking up for family businesses, we are sticking up for owner-drivers and we are sticking up for enterprise in this country. Donations to Political Parties 61 15:03 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs My question is to the minister representing the Special Minister of State. The New South Wales Electoral Commission recently stated that Senator Sinodinos was the honorary treasurer at all material times that the New South Wales Liberal Party breached New South Wales electoral laws. Section 7 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act states that the Australian Electoral Commission may report on electoral matters referred to it by the minister. Will the Special Minister of State direct the AEC to report on whether any organisation that received donations from the Free Enterprise Foundation complied with all Commonwealth electoral laws? 15:04 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for the question. I am happy to take the question and refer it to the Special Minister of State. Defence Procurement 61 15:04 Mr HASTIE 260805 Canning My question is to the Minister for Defence Materiel. Will the minister advise the House how the government's continuous naval shipbuilding plan, built upon today, will create jobs and growth in Western Australia, South Australia and North Queensland? 15:04 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon I thank the member for Canning for his commitment to our armed forces and to the nation's security. Today, the Turnbull government has secured a sustainable, long-term Australian shipbuilding industry and Australian jobs. Today, the government announced 12 offshore patrol vessels to be built in South Australia and Western Australia; 21 Pacific patrol boats built in Western Australia; and nine future frigates built in Adelaide. Today, the Turnbull government has committed to $40 billion worth of investment in Australia's Navy and in our shipbuilding industry. It is a commitment that will deliver more than 2½ thousand jobs—more than 2½ thousand jobs! It will generate thousands of additional jobs with local suppliers. This government is continuing to deliver for local defence businesses. It started with the Defence white paper, which includes a $1.6 billion investment in Australia's defence industry. Funding includes: $230 million for the Centre for Defence Industry Capability, $730 million for research into emerging technologies and $640 million for a new Defence Innovation Hub. Defence industry employs 25,000 Australians. There are 3,000 Australian small businesses in the defence industry. Many of these businesses will benefit additionally from today's announcement. It will mean an investment of $500 million and over 130 jobs through the Pacific patrol boats. It will mean an investment of $3 billion and over 400 jobs in Adelaide and Henderson through the offshore patrol vessels. It will mean an investment of $35 billion and over 2,000 jobs in Adelaide through the future frigates build. Today, the Prime Minister has done something that the Labor Party could not do in six years— Opposition members interjecting— Mr TEHAN 210911 In six years you could not do it! We have commissioned a ship that will be built in Australia. Right now on the shipbuilding scorecard— Mr Husic interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Chifley is warned. Mr Husic interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Chifley has been warned. Mr TEHAN 210911 Listen to this. I am trying to get Buffoon over here to listen. The scorecard reads 'Coalition 42, Labor Party 0'. This is good for Australian shipbuilding, it is good for jobs and it is fantastic for Australia's national security. The SPEAKER 00APG The Minister for Veterans' Affairs used an unparliamentary term. I have just waited till the end of his answer to ask him to withdraw. Mr TEHAN 210911 I withdraw. Donations to Political Parties 62 15:08 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs My question is to the Minister representing the Special Minister of State. I refer to the minister's previous answer. Will the minister report to the House before question time tomorrow on whether the Special Minister of State will direct the Australian Electoral Commission to report on whether any organisation that received donations from the Free Enterprise Foundation complied with all Commonwealth electoral laws? 15:08 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I will consult with the Special Minister of State and I am sure he will report in accordance with the normal practice. Building and Construction Industry 62 15:08 Ms PRICE 249308 Durack My question is to the Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia. Will the minister update the House on how re-establishing the ABCC will promote jobs and growth in Australia's vital resources sector, including in my electorate of Durack? Is the minister aware of any alternatives to this approach? 15:09 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong I thank the member for Durack for her question and note that she has not only the biggest electorate in the country but also one of the most productive when you consider the state of the resources sector. It was a great pleasure to join the Prime Minister last week in visiting Durack and the US$54 billion Gorgon facility and to hold a roundtable with community and business leaders in Karratha. Without the resources and energy sector in Durack, Australia would not be the largest exporter of iron ore in the world or soon to become the largest exporter of LNG in the world. In addition to Gorgon you have Pluto and you will soon have Wheatstone. You also have the Prelude floating LNG facility, the Roy Hill facility, other BHP, Rio and Fortescue assets as well as Port Hedland, which is the largest bulk exporting port in the world. But I am asked: are there any alternatives to this approach? The greatest alternative comes from those opposite, because they are the great threat to the prosperity of the people of Durack. They are actually dancing to the tune of the union piper with their position to block the reinstatement of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and to block the passage of the registered organisations bill. This is despite the Heydon royal commission finding that in 2008 the developer of the Blacktip gas reserves near Darwin paid $1 million to the MUA to keep the peace, that dredging companies in WA made payments to the so-called 'MUA training funds' for 'no appreciable benefit to the company other than to have a working relationship with the union' and that the AWU got $25,000 from a contractor working on a gas platform as a price to end unlawful picketing. It is no wonder that Kathy Jackson described the Leader of the Opposition, when he was going to become the Minister for Workplace Relations, as 'Dracula in charge of the blood bank'. She said of the Leader of the Opposition that he is 'an international grandmaster in the process of using unions as chess pieces in ALP factional warfare.' But nothing tops what happened in Fremantle in February 2013, the day after Chris Cain, the Secretary of the MUA in WA, addressed the union's militancy conference and told the gathering, 'Laws need to be broken; you're going to get locked up.' Then none other than the Leader of the Opposition the next day went and addressed the MUA and said: There's no other place I'd rather be today anywhere in Australia and I mean that with all my heart … I wish we could bottle a bit of the spirit here and spread it on perhaps some members of the Labor caucus … The Leader of the Opposition and his union policies have— (Time expired) Mr Turnbull 885 Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: ADDITIONAL ANSWERS 63 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: ADDITIONAL ANSWERS Tasmania: Health Funding 63 15:12 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth I wish to add to and correct an answer that I gave to the member for Denison. I referred to the new heads of agreement between the Commonwealth and states and territories on public hospital funding from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2020. That agreement retains activity based funding as the main financing mechanism, including the use of the national efficient price, and caps national growth in Commonwealth funding at 6.5 per cent a year. It is estimated that states will be significantly better off by approximately $2.9 billion over the three years of the agreement. DOCUMENTS 63 DOCUMENTS Presentation 63 15:13 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. BILLS 63 BILLS Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2], Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 [No. 2] 63

Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2]

Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 [No. 2]

Consideration of Senate Message 63 Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016, Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016 63

Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016

Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016

Second Reading 63 15:14 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo What an extraordinary question time—again the government denied the link between pay and safety when it comes to roads and what has been decided by the tribunal. Let me remind the government what the Australian Productivity Commission report found in 2016. This is a government that is happy to support the Productivity Commission when they recommend cutting penalty rates but is not willing to support the Productivity Commission when they say there is a direct link between pay and safety. The cherry-picking of this government is extraordinary. And that is not the only report that linked pay to safety on our roads. There was another report, by Jaguar Consulting, in 2014. There was the National Transport Commission report in 2008. The Productivity Commission recognised in 2014 and 2016 that RSOS will result in a '10 per cent to 18 per cent reduction in the number of crashes'. This is on page 86, if government members would like to check it out. Perhaps they should read up on it before they make a statement in this House stating otherwise. The road transport industry has the highest fatality rate of any industry in Australia, with fatality rates 12 times higher than the average for other industries. That was on page 6 of the Productivity Commission review. Let me just state that again: '12 times higher'. Let's be real about our roads network. It is the workplace of Australian truck drivers. It is the responsibility of this place to do everything it can to ensure that safety is paramount on our roads, yet all the government plans to do—what they believe will improve road safety—is just build roads. That is not enough. It is not enough to just build roads. You also have to look at who is driving on our roads and the pressure on our truck drivers on our roads. In my previous statement I listed example after example of trucking accidents in my electorate. The Bendigo electorate has a vast network of highways. It is important that we have tribunals like this that are independent of government, that are making orders to ensure that we have safe freights and road safety. Since it was created in 2012 the tribunal has made two rulings that have been evidence based, and which people have had the opportunity—like with the Fair Work pay commission, like other tribunals—to have an input into. That is the purpose of an independent tribunal. The first ruling was to mandate 30 days minimum payment for transport workers. The second was to set a minimum rate of pay for owner-drivers. Both these rulings were made after many years of consultation and investigation by the tribunal. The tribunal acts like any other tribunal that has been established by this parliament. It acts to consult. It acts to make decisions. It is independent of this place. What we have seen, though, in the last few days, if not weeks, is this government completely trash that independence. I agree with the member for Chifley when he says that this is a stunt. This is a government that continues to chop and change its position on this issue. In consideration in detail upstairs in the Federation Chamber, I asked the then minister for transport: 'Can the government today rule out scrapping the RSRT? Can the minister commit to supporting the RSRT?' That was on 18 June 2015. What the minister at the time, the Deputy Prime Minister, said was: 'We haven't got any plans to get rid of it.' Less than 12 months ago, this government said, in consideration in detail: 'We haven't got any plans to get rid of it.' It cannot get any clearer than that about how this government chops and changes their minds over and over again, trying to save their own jobs. But the minister is not the only one who continues to chop and change his position on this particular bill. When the current Deputy Prime Minister was in the Senate he also stood up and defended the creation of the tribunal. He said that he did not have a great problem with it. He did not see a problem with it. Whilst he was voting against the bill he did not really have an issue with it, and did not think it would have a big impact. What has happened? What has changed? Again, this is a man who is desperate to save his own job, who is putting a scare campaign out there, who is denying the purpose of this. He is misleading people in the Australian community that this is about ensuring every hour that is worked is paid and that there is a rate of pay that everybody receives. This is a government that is not committed to road safety, despite all of their rhetoric. If they were, then they would listen to report after report that directly links pay to safety. These are our roads, and fatalities on our roads are higher in this industry than in any other industry. Yet what we have is a government that is not serious about road safety. If they were, they would be working with the opposition on how to improve the tribunal going forward and how to ensure that we continue to improve road safety. Instead, what we had was a stunt where they just want to abolish it. That just demonstrates how narrow-minded they are when it comes to this legislation. It is now crystal clear that, when this Prime Minister gets a decision from an independent umpire that he does not like, he will just trash it. What happens next? What happens if the fair pay commission recommends a pay rise for some of our lowest paid workers? Will he recommend abolishing the fair pay commission? What happens if Fair Work Australia does not follow his advice and cut penalty rates? Will he abolish Fair Work Australia? It is not fair on people working in this industry, some our lowest paid workers that this government will not stand up for. We know that our roads are not always safe. And we acknowledge that a lot needs to be done to help improve road safety. What this tribunal was established to do was to try to ensure that at least our truck drivers are not being forced to race by supply-chain pressures. This ensures that drivers are not undercutting each other because of pressure from big clients. When I have spoken to people in my electorate about this issue, they have been clear. They want the undercutting in the industry to stop. They want people to be paid for every hour that they work. Even if you do a backload or a return trip just to cover the cost of petrol, you have undercut the next truck driver who would have done that. My family actually has a history in trucking. My uncles both worked in long haul, and so did my cousin until his wife begged him to give it up and take on a job that was more of a local run, where he would be home every night, because she was pregnant and worried about what was happening on our roads. Every family that has truck drivers in the family has stories of worry because of the pressure that is being put on them through the supply chain. Earlier this year I met one driver who has been to 52 funerals of workmates—52 people involved in the trucking industry who have lost their lives. Find a person in another industry who has had to attend 52 funerals of workmates. This government is not interested in road safety, despite its rhetoric. They are not interested in the reports that link pay rates to road safety. They have whipped up a fear campaign amongst the trucking community that, quite frankly, is just unfair. (Time expired) 15:24 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina I just listened closely to the member for Bendigo for 10 minutes, and I would advise her that she should start sticking up for her electorate. She should start sticking up for the family-operated mum-and-dad truck drivers in her electorate. I tell you what, Mr Deputy Speaker, I think the people of Bendigo would have been listening; they will judge her harshly at the next election. I also hope that those who were going to put a '1' beside Senator Stephen Conroy's name will think twice. What a disgraceful example he gave in the Senate this morning. When the Governor-General, of all people, was trying to make his statement, Senator Conroy said, 'A strong Governor-General would never have copped this.' That is what he said when the Governor-General was addressing the joint houses of parliament. Then Senator Conroy referred to his speech, saying, 'How embarrassing this must be for you.' He should go into the Senate and apologise forthwith. That is disgraceful. It is undignified. It shows a lack of respect for tradition and for what this parliament stands for. But that is typical of Labor. I listened very closely to the transport minister, Darren Chester, at the rally this morning and I did not see too many Labor members there. I listened very carefully to Minister Chester's comments. I appreciate that the member for Bendigo just referred to road safety and the number of accidents. Of course, none of us in any seat in this place or in the Senate wants to see any accidents. It is dreadful. I appreciate that driving a truck is a dangerous occupation. Minister Chester said, when addressing the rally this morning: Let me just say a couple of things about road safety, because that seems to be the way the TWU is trying to hide what was clearly a plan to drag in more members to their union rather than anything else. There is not a person here who does not care about road safety. And he is right. He said: It's tragic when someone dies on our roads. You've seen it; I've seen it. We've lost friends and we've lost family. You want to get home safely to your family and friends. We want to make sure the roads are as safe as they can possibly be. That is why we have the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator in place, working with industry already. It's already doing the enforcing fatigue measure. There are already coppers on every corner enforcing speed. There are already issues around making sure your vehicles are roadworthy. The government is investing record amounts of money in road infrastructure—not enough, I accept that; there is never enough—and new rest areas. We are getting on with the job when it comes to safety. This tragic loss of life on our roads is something we all need to deal with, but there is another tragic factor the TWU never wants to talk about. In most of the accidents involving heavy vehicles the heavy vehicle driver is not at fault. The heavy vehicle driver is not at fault in the vast majority of cases. It's a sad and it's a tragic fact, but it's true. Minister Chester is right. He is so correct. I drove here to parliament today, very early in the morning, with Clayton Thomas of West Wyalong. It was his birthday; he turned 41 today. His wife, Naomi, and he have a 19-month-old son, Isaac. They invested heavily in a brand-new rig last October. It has already done 87,000 kilometres. He is getting on with the job, from West Wyalong, of carting goods around our country. As well as driving me here this morning as part of the anti-RSRT convoy, he wrote to me and he said: As owner-drivers of a one-truck company this new legislation eliminates our work. We are currently working on a full-time basis with a large company, and we have been told that following the introduction of this legislation we will no longer be required for the job as they won't be paying the additional fees for their subcontractor owner-drivers. This effectively means our only means of income has been slashed, and our company will be out of work come 4 April. As parents of a 17-month-old baby— bear in mind that it was a short time ago that he wrote to me— with two mortgages and a five-month-old truck, this is obviously of massive concern to us. These rulings are discriminatory against the owner-driver and implement an uneven playing field within the transport industry. They have resulted in us being unable to secure any future work despite extensive and exhaustive efforts to do so. Small families and rural communities rely on the lifeblood of the owner-driver. He comes from West Wyalong, a junction of the Mid-Western and Newell highways. It is a vital transport hub. It is a vital corridor of activity and commerce in this nation. Clayton wrote: Any assistance you can provide in overturning or obliterating this ridiculous legislation that unfairly targets the owner-driver would be greatly appreciated. His wife had even more to say, as some of these really concerned wives of truckies do. Of course they want to see their husbands come home; they want to see their loved ones back safely. She said: We have been in business for eight years. We have worked towards having our own business for 13 years. … This is something we believe in; this is our livelihood. I said: I drove in your rig this morning in your convoy; it is brand-new so this is not about road safety. She said: Not at all, owner drivers have probably the biggest interest in making sure that safety is adhered to. It is a priority that the trucks are in good working order; it is our livelihood. He piped up and said: It is our income. We have to make sure it is right, we have to make sure it is going and we have to make sure we get home. I asked: If Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, was here, what would you say to him? Naomi replied: Wake up, have a look at what you are doing to the people of Australia, the ones who are out there every day working hard to earn an income. They are not sitting back taking a handout. Just have a look at what you are really doing. If you value the Australian people and their votes, have a look. But Mr Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, does not care about those particular votes. He does not want to have a look. All he cares about is being beholden to the unions. We heard the minister for resources in question time today say how Mr Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, got up at a union conference and said, 'These are the people I love being around,' just a day after they were talking about breaking the law, about union thuggery and about doing whatever it takes to get their point across. These people are workers. These people are doing their darndest to ensure that they get home safely and that they get paid a fair wage. They are happy with what they are getting. They are doing a good job. Why is Labor getting in the way? I have heard from Shearers Road Freight of Wagga Wagga and they said the same thing. I have heard from Wayne Lewis from Coolamon, who was particularly concerned. He is a long-term truck driver who wrote to me on 18 March and said: I attended a meeting in Wagga Wagga last night which was attended by close to 150 owner-drivers or contract drivers. The general mood, I felt, at the meeting was one confusion and total disbelief that something like this order could be brought into law. I have to say that particular meeting to which he refers had 150 owner-drivers. It takes a lot of to get 150 owner-drivers off the road and to a meeting with very short notice. But they turned up in droves. Wayne Lewis said: This order will without doubt increase the price of commodities that have travelled over 500 kilometres on the back of a truck in Australia. There are not too many objects that people use in their everyday lives that have not spent some time on the back of a truck. This order will also affect families whose breadwinners help to keep trucks on the road. It will affect insurance companies, it will affect finance companies and the list goes on. We heard the Deputy Prime Minister this morning talk about the fact that it would affect so many other direct businesses such as mechanics—those people who keep the trucks on the road. Wayne Lewis said: Have you people on this tribunal really given any in-depth thought to what you have created? They probably have not because even though they are at arm's length of government, this was a Labor inspired, Labor conspired, Labor set-up tribunal. Wayne Lewis asked me: Why does everything have to be so complicated? Why not just have an ombudsman that people can go to if they have a grievance about unsafe rates? It would be a lot more simple than this order that is now unfortunately law and that you have given birth to. I suppose we have the TWU and the Labor Party to thank for this fiasco. Wayne, yes, you do. He said: Speaking of the TWU, I cannot really believe that an organisation such as theirs could hate a group of people, owner-drivers and their families, so much that they could instigate something as woeful as this. If they are trying to get owner-drivers on-side, I suggest they go back to the drawing board because this type of bullying will never make me want to be part of their little gang. How do I explain to a hirer that, instead of a tonnage rate or a cubic rate which they now pay, they are going to have to pay a kilometre rate and an hourly rate as well? What happens on a journey if the truck is held up through no fault of the driver, for example, for a flood, roadworks, accident or even law enforcement officers? Does this mean that I have to go back to the hirer and say to them that they owe me more money because the trip took longer because of these unforeseen circumstances? It is a good question. This order is going to create a lot of unnecessary paperwork, which is something the transport industry already has too much of. Thank goodness for this side of politics, the government, which has been getting in and getting rid of much of the regulation in the red tape burden and the bureaucracy that bogs down small business. The reason we do that is because we want government to get out of the way as much as possible from business getting on with the job of moving goods around Australia, getting on with the job of hiring more people. There were 301,000 more full-time jobs created last year because the Liberal-Nationals are in government. The other side just want to create more red tape. The other side just want to be beholden to their union mates to make sure that they get elected again because most of them are former union officials. Most of the people on our side of politics are former small business people. We understand business. We understand how important it is for the economy to make sure that the lifeblood of the nation, those truck drivers driving up and down the arterial roads, are getting the goods to market, to make sure that those mum-and-dad operators are able to continue to do the job that they have been doing so well for so long. In 2012 the Labor government introduced a Road Safety Remuneration Act based on very limited, very dated academic research suggesting that if you pay a truckie more, they will drive slower and work fewer hours. I was in a truck this morning with Clayton Thomas, and the trucks are governed to not go over 100 kilometres an hour. If you go down into Victoria, where they are very stringent on these things, and you drive 103 kilometres an hour even downhill, even with a full load, they will book you. So we know that this is not about road safety; this is about being beholden to the unions. I heard the member for Ballarat having a go at Minister Chester during a division this morning about a particular truck accident, not knowing all the facts. It was not the poor truckie's fault. When this bill, as it should, gets thrown out of parliament and the Senate actually agrees with the coalition government on this, I hope, if there is a future accident, that Labor does not use this as a political plaything and say, 'There you go; that death was your fault because you removed the Road Safety Remuneration Act.' I do hope that does not happen because road safety should not be a political plaything. This is a union plaything; we know that. When the act passed parliament the member for Maribyrnong said that the Labor government: … is committed to ensuring the long-term viability of the road transport industry but that does not have to be at the expense of truck drivers, whether employees or self-employed, having a safe and fair workplace. We want truck drivers, owner-operators, mum and dad truckies to have a fair and safe workplace. We want to make sure that they are paid at the rate that they ought to be paid at. But after almost four years of operation, it is becoming very clear that the rationale that Labor or relied on to convince the parliament to pass the act is just not true. Senator Nick Xenophon, who voted in favour of this legislation, said at the rally this morning, 'I was sold a pup.' He admitted he was wrong. I will not say he begged forgiveness for having voted in favour of the legislation, but he did say that he was sorry. He told the truck drivers—good people—this morning. As Minister Chester said, at this very spot in question time, 'In public life we all make mistakes'. Labor should come in and admit they have made a mistake, but they will not, because they are so rusted on to their crony union mates. I can say that. I was a member of a union for 21 years. I know that unions play a part in society, but everything should be in moderation—and this is not in moderation! This is not about moderation; this is about screwing down the mum and dad truck driver owner-operators in the Riverina, in New South Wales and in Australia, in getting them off the road and getting more members in the TWU. What a disgrace. That is why we are here debating it. That is why we need to throw this legislation out. The member for Bendigo and all those other regional Labor members—thank goodness there are not many of them—should get on board with us. 15:39 Ms BIRD DZP Cunningham I rise today with great frustration to express my complete opposition to the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 before the House today. I have spoken on the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal on many occasions in this House, and, indeed, I was the chair of the parliamentary committee that reviewed this bill before it was introduced. I have spent a lot of time looking at the issues around road safety. It would not surprise members that I would do so, given that my seat has a major trading port—the port of Kembla—in our region. We deal with a lot of truck movements across our entire region, and, in particular, areas like the Mount Ousley Road. The issue of road safety is a consistent one in our community. We have had decades of looking at really serious issues that we experienced around truck-based accidents on the roads. Of course local members like me and the member for Throsby, who was also a member of that committee, are going to take a serious and in-depth interest in anything to do with road safety. So I find it extremely offensive, cheap and rather pathetic that people opposite would attempt to characterise our engagement in this debate as motivated by some sort of control by unions, or would pass judgement on our motivation and link it to being controlled by others. It is cheap, it is easy, it is lazy and it is wrong. I live in a region where we have had many decades of dealing with truck-related fatalities. I took it very seriously when I chaired the committee that reviewed the legislation, when I was looking at what was structurally happening in that industry that may be problematic for the safety and wellbeing for those who are driving trucks—which is, of course, important. I come from a mining family. I know only too well that the issues around how you structurally deal with safety can drive a particular type of behaviour, and, hopefully, improve the likelihood that people will return home to their families. That is important. But truck drivers, uniquely, are an industry that spend the vast majority of their work time sharing their workspace with us—the rest of the community. All of us are out on our roads and using our roads to do our own work, move around with our families and participate in community life. We need the assurance that those who are using our roads as their workplace are doing so in the safest and most effective way in order to ensure that we can all use the roads safely. I absolutely find comments by those opposite, who have taken shots about the motivation of those on this side, a really poor and sad reflection on the standards of debate that should happen in this place. I always find it frustrating that on this side of the House—in my own area, I meet with my trades and labour council, I meet with my business chamber, I meet with peak community groups. I treat everybody with the presumption that their motivation is to represent their organisation, their members and to do a good job, even though we will not always agree. But in this place those opposite consistently seek to run a demonising campaign about the trade union movement in this country—and we are seeing it being ramped up and ramped up as we head into an election. That is what we are doing here this week, so the Prime Minister can get a double dissolution election by once again going back to the standard, repetitive, conservative tradition of running an election campaign by demonising the trade union movement. We even had a little bit of 'stop the boats' thrown in today for good measure. It is a really legitimate question to ask why they bothered changing leader at all, because it is back to the same songbook. Anyway, as frustrated as I am with that, I am going to bring to my contributions some reflections on why I think the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is a significant and important contribution to the road safety of the country. It is the case—and many members opposite have made the point, and it is a good point—that there are many ways in which to address road safety. Obviously, laws around behaviour and the use of roads is one of those. Organisations like the road safety National Heavy Vehicle Regulator and so forth are in place to ensure that the sorts of laws we require people to comply with can be enforced. The previous member, the member for Riverina, spoke about how 'trucks do not speed because the police catch them'. That would be nice if it did happen all the time, but it does not. Police cannot be everywhere all the time. So, if you look at the history of road related truck accidents, you will consistently find issues to do with truck drivers having made decisions that lead to deaths on the road, accidents and injuries. Often those relate to speeding. They relate to the use of illegal drugs. And they relate to failure to maintain and look after the vehicle in a way that ensures that it is road safe. You take that issue, and you can go in one of two directions. I suggest that those opposite are taking one, and we are taking another. One direction is that that individual is personally responsible and must be prosecuted. I do not think anybody in here would argue that, if people break the law, that should not be the case. But the other thing you can do as a broader society and indeed at least as a government is to ask: is there something systemic happening here, in that so many of those individuals are making those decisions? We have heard a lot of talk about the owner-drivers that those opposite have met with, and I would say that, across the board, truck drivers are not somehow different to everybody else and more prone to illegal activity by the very nature of who they are. They are being driven to this by the way their industry is structured. The reality is that a power imbalance occurs where those at the top of the chain are able to screw down and drive contracts that push the pressure and the responsibility further and further down that chain until the people who are sitting in the truck have to make decisions that are absolutely unacceptable. I do not believe it is sufficient for a government to say, 'We are okay with addressing this issue by pursuing the individuals, but we're not okay with pursuing the structural problem in the industry that is pushing those decisions onto those individuals.' We will continue to see the structural problem occur. We will continue to see cases where trucking companies are involved in truck accidents because the trucks were not maintained. And sadly, too often, others on the road die in those cases as well. It is true that you can improve infrastructure. Of course you can. We can get better roads. Finally the New South Wales state government have got around to spending the $4 million we gave them before the last election to put a new truck stop on the Mount Ousley Road. I have been banging on at them for ages to get on with it. It is great that it is finally underway. Of course the infrastructure is important. Of course getting better regulations in place, such as requiring people to take rest breaks and so forth, is important. Of course laws that require people to act in legal ways—such as not using drugs, not abusing drugs, not driving excess hours, not failing to maintain their vehicles—are important. But we have been doing all that for decades, and we continue to see this industry have the highest death rate of workers of any industry in this country. We have seen about 25 deaths only recently, over recent months, on our roads. We continue to see this as an industry with excessive rates of suicide amongst the workers because of the pressure under which they work. I come, as I said, from the mining industry. We fought hard over generations to stop the sorts of practices in the mining industry that were causing death. It was a very dangerous industry. Mr Katter HX4 One in 30. Ms BIRD DZP One in 30. And of course at the time people would have put arguments about how that cost impacted—that is, how higher safety levels might impact on the business arrangements at the time. They are never easy decisions. They are never easy processes. But no-one in our community would argue that loosening up the safety requirements we put in place in that industry because of its horrific death rates is the right thing to do. The time has come for the trucking industry. The workers in that industry deserve the same systemic approach to their industry to make it safe, not only for them but, uniquely, because they share their workplace, for the rest of us on the roads. I have been to many, many briefings on this particular issue since the change of government. I have met with the widows who come here to talk to these parliamentarians. In one case, it was about the lady's husband. In another case, the lady's husband was killed on the side of the road; he was not the truck driver. I have talked to truck drivers. There is the gentleman who has gone public saying he has attended 52 funerals in his working life. It is incomprehensible. If there were 52 people killed in any other industry, we would not be tolerating continued structural arrangements that allow for that level of death rate. That is how serious this is. I do not bring anything to this dispatch box other than a really genuine and serious concern that we have an industry that is crying out for us to do something about it, and we have communities who share their roads with that industry saying to us, 'There is a bigger problem here, and it needs to be addressed.' We did. As a result of the evidence that came forward—and I refer honourable members to the advisory report on the bill, which the committee did, and there is a dissenting report in there—we came to the view that the most effective way to do that would be to establish the tribunal and task it with the job of looking at the industry and at particular sectors of the industry to see whether there was a chain-of-command problem that was putting pressure unreasonably on all levels of that chain so that the cascade effect was that you ended up with unsafe practices. Decisions are made by tribunals. Sometimes they are difficult for one part of the community, and we work as parliaments and governments to find transition methods and how you would manage that and do it effectively. It looked initially like that was what the government were going to do, but then they decided to just jump and abolish the tribunal. I think that is a really short-sighted decision to have made. I think that, if they had wanted to discuss—as indeed our shadow minister said—how these things could be implemented and managed in ways that took people's concerns into consideration, we could have at least continued to progress the issue of the structural problems around safety in the trucking industry. But they have not; they have decided to abolish the tribunal—and they have done it with a whole lot of rhetoric. I hope not all speakers on the other side fall into the trap of simply union bashing. They believe that we, because of generations of understanding the role of unions in protecting people's wellbeing and safety at work, somehow bring dirty hands to this debate. I will not tolerate that. It is an unacceptable assessment of what the debate is about, and I am not going to allow that sort of comment to stand unchallenged. It is beneath people in this place. We can have differences of opinion about how to improve road safety, but I think it is pretty cheap to question people's motivations when it comes to safety. I say to the government: talk to the opposition; talk to the key players in the sector, certainly. Let's see if we can find ways to make this a manageable issue for those who are having problems. But we need this tribunal. We need it because over decades it has been proved that the other measures—infrastructure improvements, rules and regulations, laws and enforcement—while important, are not enough. There is a structural problem. It is impacting the safety of everyone on our roads. This tribunal needs to be allowed to do its job, and this bill should be removed from this House. 15:53 Ms LANDRY 249764 Capricornia Last Monday I climbed aboard a big blue rig and joined local truck owner-drivers on a convoy rally through Rockhampton city. With horns blasting, they were protesting against the controversial Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Today I joined the rally in Canberra. I joined Dave Duck, from Rockhampton, who is an owner-operator and is very concerned about the consequences of the RSRT. And today I stand on the floor of federal parliament in Canberra ready and eager to cast my vote to abolish this controversial tribunal once and for all. That is what I pledge to those truckies and their families back home, and only the cold, cruel hearted Labor MPs in this House would dare to stop it. Today our coalition government, by seeking to repeal the operations of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal in this session of parliament, are moving to protect owner-drivers from being driven out of business. Our aim is to provide certainty to tens of thousands of small business owners across Australia. I thank Rockhampton locals Tony Hopkins of Hopkins Brothers Transport and Laura Francis from Francis Freighters for their perseverance in bringing this issue to the attention of politicians. The RSRT imposed a controversial fixed-rate contract order that industry groups, farmers and truck drivers say will destroy jobs and livelihoods. Following pressure from truckies and the government, the tribunal sought industry feedback to determine whether it would push the start date of this order back until 2017, but in doing so it forced mum and dad truckies to appear before an arrogant panel of tribunal members over the Easter long weekend, a holy weekend which is traditionally set aside for family activity. I condemn the head of the tribunal for such a tactless attitude. Local owner-drivers involved in these Easter hearings have described the president of the RSRT as a person of intellectual arrogance. Given our geographic make-up and the vast distances that separate our towns and cities, much of the food, freight, fuel and fibre that moves around this great nation is transported by trucks. Truckies are the lifeblood of our nation. We cannot allow the Leader of the Labor Party, a man who wants to be Prime Minister, to let his party's mistake kill off as many as 60,000 jobs. Labor's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal must be abolished, and it must be abolished immediately. By introducing this legislation today, the Turnbull-Joyce coalition are showing that it is the Liberal-Nationals who are listening with an open heart to mum and dad truckies—people who fear they will lose their livelihoods because of fixed contract regulations imposed by the tribunal. Our government has been listening to its country MPs, including me and Ken O'Dowd, who is sitting next to me, and that is why we are talking about this bill today. The tribunal, set up by Labor, is a toy for the Transport Workers Union, and its fixed price contracts will have no impact on road safety. So how did it come about? Last week, one respected trucking company owner in Rockhampton sat down in my office to explain how he sees it. He said that when Julia Gillard was trying to fend off a bid from Kevin Rudd to take back the Labor prime ministership she had to seek the support of a powerful union faction, the Transport Workers Union. The trade-off was that she was forced by the union to set up this pathetic tribunal under the guise of road safety. We cannot allow this country to be controlled by union thugs. When, last week, I joined local truckies in a protest rally against the tribunal and the unions, I was moved by their stories and their genuine fears for their livelihoods. Grown men were moved to tears by the stress of not being able to meet the demands of this farcical tribunal. These mums and dads work hard to provide for their families and provide jobs for other families in our community; it is plain wrong that a tribunal lorded over by union thugs should try to send them broke. The bills today are a test for Labor in helping to fix the mess they created and protect the jobs of down-to-earth local people. But are they up to it? Let me warn the truckies of Capricornia that a vote for Labor's candidate in Capricornia is a vote to kill off small businesses, trucking operations and jobs in the region. I am not making this up; this is factual. Richard Easey, from Easy Haul in Central Queensland, says he has already had to let drivers from his family company go because of the RSRT. He says that, coupled with the downturn in coalmining in Central Queensland, the series of destructive orders the tribunal has imposed on the industry will make business even harder. Laura Francis, who with her husband operates a trucking business called Francis Freighters, says the flow-on effect in the community is huge, with large trucking dealerships also fearing for their future. That means jobs in the truck maintenance area, including apprenticeships, are at risk. Jobs in the truck tyre supply sector are also at risk. And fewer truckies on the road will mean less fuel, so servo jobs will be hit as well. Labor's previous legislation, which we aim to repeal today, is flawed. If they force mum and dad trucking owners out of business, they risk an entire industry. One transport industry expert predicts that, when you take into account the cost and mortgage required for a prime mover, a collapse of mum and dad operators would mean $70 billion worth of new trucks and parts would become obsolete overnight. To quote him: 'They would be useless and left to rust. That is why dealerships are also worried.' He continues by suggesting that the RSRT would not reduce accidents but in fact increase untimely deaths. He explains this by saying that, by putting truckies out of business, the owner-drivers still face paying off the bank debt they borrowed for their rigs. He said: 'This financial stress will lead to mental health issues, family stress, possible domestic violence and, in some extreme cases, suicide.' We must abolish a tribunal that risks pushing men and young fathers to commit suicide. The Deputy Prime Minister has described the situation facing small trucking businesses as catastrophic. The National Farmers' Federation warned that: … new minimum rates for owner drivers will drive up freight rates for smaller consignments of livestock or other rural commodities by as much as 350 percent. Last week the President of the National Road Freighters Association, Tony Hopkins, called for a royal commission into who, why and how the tribunal came to be set up. He feared there were underlying sinister manoeuvres by the Transport Workers Union to force mum and dad drivers out of business. They would then be forced to work for large multinational freight companies as hired staff and by doing so they would be forced to join the Transport Workers Union—a union, according to reports, which has provided at least $8 million into the pockets of the Australian Labor Party. Last week on the trucking convoy through Rockhampton, I held up a sign saying: 'I support truckies.' Today, as their representative and voice in the Australian parliament, I repeat that slogan loud and clear: I support truckies. On that note, I commend the bills today to the House to effectively abolish the controversial Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. 16:02 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy This is one of the very few times that I have had to equivocate on this legislation. I have been very enthusiastically in favour of having some action taken. As the member for Cunningham said, we have a lot of deaths that can be avoided and it will get a lot worse unless something is done about the situation. It was precipitated, in my opinion, by Woolworths and Coles. Both sides of this parliament have allowed them to go from 51 per cent in, I think, 1991 to around 90 per cent of all food and grocery items sold in Australia today. So they hold a hugely powerful position. When you deregulate the dairy industry you go down from 60c a litre to 40c a litre on the day that you deregulate. This industry has never been regulated, so what happens is that the Woolworths and Coles of this world can just simply by having a Dutch auction watch the race to the bottom. Of course, many of our drivers will suffer as a result of now having to drive very excessive hours indeed. In the of livestock-hauling industry we have one very big operator. It was a long time ago now—maybe 30 years ago, in fact—that he was offering rates 50 per cent less than everybody else. He was going broke but he was going to take an awful lot of the rest of us down with him. It was obvious to me that we needed some sort of minimum pricing in the road hauliers industry. We fought very hard for it at the time. We fought very hard for a minimum pricing arrangement in the beef industry as well. What has happened over the last 29 years is that we have seen all of these things removed. It is with the deepest regret today that I feel forced to vote for the removal of regulation. But I give an undertaking to my truckies back home and to the Transport Workers Union that, if we have a newly constituted body that will bring in the protections we need, I most certainly will be supporting it, as I supported the original legislation on this. I owe it to Tony Sheldon and the TWU to do some defending of them here. I know what the original motivation was—there was some self-interest; there is no doubt about that—in the sense that the TWU felt that they were a very powerful organisation and could provide protection and useful involvement by people such as the NRFA and the LTFA and all of the livestock hauliers and the small operators throughout Australia. Whether those people saw it that way or not, I do not know. But all of us who read history books are very well aware of what happened in the United States. There was Jimmy Hoffa's famous comment about Bobby Kennedy, who was trying to put him in jail. He said: 'Where was Bobby Kennedy when we were driving up the road into trees doing 80 hours a week at the wheel? Where was little Bobby when we were having our legs broken by the strikebreakers? Where was little Bobby Kennedy when it came to the highest death rate of any group in American society? He was out sailing his yacht at Hyannis Port. That is where he was.' Many of us know the history of the union and what happened over there. I deeply regret voting for the legislation today in the sense that there was never any doubt in my mind that the intentions of the union and Minister Albanese were entirely good. They were well intentioned in the initiative. I most certainly supported the initiative that they were taking. It was quite right what the member for Cunningham said: 110 years ago in this country one in 10 of us who went down the mines never came back up again but died of the terrible miner's phthisis. In my state we only had gold and sugar cane 110 years ago. Those were the only two industries we had in my state. Funnily enough, or tragically enough, one in 30 that went into the cane fields also died, never came back out again. Whether it was Weil's disease or snakebite or whatever, we needed protection. So if these people here are asking for protection—I share the view of the member for Cunningham, who made an excellent contribution, that we do need protection. But what has happened is that the initiative has run completely off the rails. There is no doubt in my mind that this tribunal was so arrogant, one-eyed and determined not to see the point of view of the small operators that it antagonised them beyond belief. It not only antagonised them but, because it did not listen to them, it put forward proposals which were absolutely flawed. Let me be very specific: the advantage that a small operator has is that he fixes his own trucks. In a big corporation they have to get people in to fix the trucks for them. A small operator fixes his own trucks and he drives his own trucks. He is an owner-operator. His family drives the trucks. And, yes, some of them work very, very hard—maybe even work longer hours than they should—but they do this to stay alive and to be competitive. The competitive advantage they had was being removed by the tribunal's decision, and the tribunal acted in an excessive and insensitive manner. Those of us who may have studied a bit of law in our lives would know—unfortunately, most of those who have studied law do not appreciate this—the habeas corpus rule says, 'You can't take the body.' It is Latin for 'can't take the body'. What it really said was, 'You can't grab a person off the street without a due process of law.' Due process of law is always depicted by Madam Justice—she has a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in the other, what we would call a beam balance, and she has a blindfold on. Well in this case there was no blindfold and there were no scales. There was a big heap of weight on one side and there was nothing on the other. We did not get to have our say. So because of the arrogance and insensitivity of this tribunal, a person like myself, who started off, very enthusiastically, backing the TWU—and I still will back them in their endeavours—now cannot do anything else now except get rid of this tribunal. It has engendered such an arrogance and a refusal to listen that it has no credibility out there whatsoever. It will not be trusted now or in the future by the owner-operator class in this country—and they are not a class of blokes that get revved up. Mick Pattel, a young man from the famous Pattel family that got us the 20 per cent advantage in volumetric loading in Queensland, and his dad were there at the meetings with Russell Hinze, and we got a tremendous breakthrough that saved us 20 per cent of the cost of carting cattle in Australia. But Mick tried to get a national organisation going and no-one was prepared to stand up—or stand out, I suppose. Eventually, even though we had a lot of initial success, it just petered out. What I am trying to say is that these are not militant people; they are not people that get upset. Even when we try to get them upset for their own purposes, we cannot get them to act. Even great leaders of men with very gifted intellects, people like Mick Pattel—his extended family of cousins, second cousins and uncles would be amongst the biggest livestock hauliers in Australia. Curley Cattle Transport is probably the biggest livestock haulier in Australia these days. But Mick Curley got to where he is today by driving those trucks himself again and again and on numerous occasions, and as often as not fixing those trucks himself. But we were able to achieve, through a bit of unity in the livestock hauling industry, this tremendous breakthrough. I am sure that we can do it in the future. I urge representatives of the trucking industry to have a look at getting into some sort of arrangement with a powerful group like the TWU. Yes, they make contributions to the ALP—so does the CFMEU—but if there is ever a group that fights for the ordinary Australian and for the things we believe in, it is the gold miners union. All right, there was an amalgamation; they had to take in other people, and they have done their very best to get good people in to fix that up. I am not saying that everything is perfect, I am certainly not saying the union is perfect and I am obviously not saying that I am giving financial support to the ALP, but, having said those things, there are bigger issues at stake here. The member for Cunningham was dead right in referring to the mining laws, which I am well aware of. For anyone who has read my book—which is out of print; we have sold them all, which is a good thing I suppose—I go into the details of how one in 30 people went down those mines and never came back up again. In my home town of Charters Towers, in the southern part of my electorate, there were 23 miners killed in one explosion. We needed protection from excessive behaviour in the marketplace. It is all right for people to compete, but it is bad when they compete and someone gets killed. We want to make rules so that there is minimum pricing in the industry. In the northern part of the Kennedy electorate is Mount Mulligan, where 72 people were killed in one explosion. That is 100 people in just two mining incidents in the Kennedy electorate. I am not including my own land, which is the Cloncurry-Mount Isa area, where similar events occur with regularity because it is an intrinsically dangerous industry. So whilst I regrettably say that I will be voting with the government on these two bills, I do so in the knowledge that the intentions and the initiative taken by the TWU were laudable—not justified, but laudable—in my opinion, and I most certainly hope they do not give up the fight. I am just terribly sorry that this whole thing has run off the rails in the way that it has. I congratulate the Transport Workers Union for the initiatives they have undertaken. I deeply regret that the people that I represent have been hurt inadvertently by a tribunal that simply would not listen and would not hear the other side of the debate. A tribunal is supposed to deliver fairness. It is supposed to have a blindfold on and have the scales evenly balanced. You cannot completely ignore that and say you know everything about everything and not listen to the people who say, 'We are going to be hurt,' and refuse to acknowledge that they are going to be hurt badly. What will we end up with if we continue down this path and nothing is done here? I am not saying that what has happened here has been good, but something needs to be done because you are running pell-mell into a Woolworths-Coles situation. I find Lindsay Fox a good bloke—other people may not, but I do. Les Blennerhassett has had a lot of public criticism. I have never had a single person who works for Les Blennerhassett offer the slightest criticism of him. Again this is a man who worked his own trucks. He carts most of Australia's bananas in Australia. Darryl Pedersen, who has never been political in his whole life, rose up. And there are people I do not know all that well—Phillip McMahon and Lee McArdle. These are people who have never taken an interest in public affairs in their lives and yet they are burred right up. They are really scared. If they are really scared then I am really scared. Unfortunately, that distrust now does not allow me or other people to do anything else but vote the way we are voting, in spite of the fact that we were responsible for the initiatives that have come to a bad end here today. I commend this to the House. I urge the House to listen to the problems that exist out there, which the member for Cunningham outlined previously in this debate, and acknowledge that something needs to be done because this race to the bottom will result in people being killed, as it always does. Greed will drive people down to levels that will cause trouble at the end of the day. To go forward with another tribunal, or a differently constituted tribunal, that will listen to all sides of the argument and move forward intelligently— (Time expired) 16:17 Mr CRAIG KELLY 99931 Hughes It is truly with great pleasure that I speak this evening on the repeal of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Firstly, I will give some background. We know when the Labor Party were previously in government that they had a plan with their carbon tax to put a 7c per litre tax on diesel fuel, affecting every single truck and transport operator across the nation. We also know that the Transport Workers Union gives millions—$7 million or $8 million in recent years—to the Labor Party. We also know that over recent years there has been a massive decline in trade union membership, from something like 40 per cent of the workforce in 1992 to less than 15 per cent today. Let us add all these things up. During the last parliament we had the so-called Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal set up. When that was set up I do not think anyone could have envisaged the evil that it has done. It has put in a policy that discriminates against owner-operators in the trucking industry. It put in a pricing order that fixes prices. The prices that are fixed for the independent owner-operators do not apply to trade union members or to big trucking firms. This attacks one of the fundamental freedoms that we should have in this country. It should be a fundamental freedom for any citizen in this country—if they have the will and the desire to have a go—to start and to run their own small business. This disgraceful order from this tribunal undermines that very freedom that is part of our country. Members of the Labor Party have rolled in one after another during this debate and claimed that this is all about road safety, but we know it is simply nothing more than a recruitment campaign for the trade union movement. If this order is allowed to go ahead, it will force independent owner-operators out of business. The only way they could continue to operate in the transport game would be to become an employee of one of the large companies as a unionised member, with of course their union fees flowing into the TWU and that money flowing down to finance the next Labor Party election campaign. I disagree with many things that Senator Lazarus has said before but he was 100 per cent right when he said that blind Freddy could see that this has nothing to do with road safety. It is despicable and disgraceful for members of the Labor Party, under the guise of recruiting more members for the trade union movement to try to get some payment out of them to help fund their election campaign, to cite that this is all about road safety. Do not take my word for it; Michael Wong, a former TWU employee from 2009 to 2012, belled the cat when he said: Fundamentally the union doesn't care about owner-drivers, it cares about its income and the political power it can achieve. The practical effect of the RSRT is to push owner-drivers out of the market. That is exactly what it does. I will give you some quick examples from a document presented to the High Court Chief Justice on 15 April this year in the application of Independent Contractors Australia for an injunction against the RSRT. Greg, a transport operator in Queensland, said: Having to use the calculated pricing structure of the RSRO I am now required to charge between 18% and 30% more. He went on: … this sort of loading under the RSRO will have me priced out of the market. So we have the tribunal ordering small business owner-operators to increase their price between 18 per cent and 30 per cent but, lo and behold, that does not apply to the large companies with their unionised workforce. What an absolute disgrace. As I said, this undermines one of the most fundamentally important freedoms that should be guaranteed in our Constitution. As for the tribunal, those tribunal members should take a good look at themselves—the arrogance that they have displayed in this order. They are either completely commercially naive or stooges for the trade union movement. It is in the act. Section 20 of the act says, 'matters the tribunal must have regard to'. It is not 'may have regard to'; it is 'must have regard to'. Section 21(a) is the need to apply fair rates and fair treatment of road transport drivers. How can driving these guys out of business be classified as fair treatment? Section 21(b) is 'the likely impact of any order on the viability of businesses in the road transport industry'. We know what it does to the viability; it pushes independents out of work. Another one is 'the likely impact of any order on the national economy'. We know that this order is going to cost billions of dollars to the national economy. Section 21(i) is 'the need to minimise the compliance burden'. You are tying these guys up in red tape. I have a few more quotes, again from the documents filed in the High Court. This one is from Justin: I am an owner-operator and do sub-contract work for a local company carting general freight. That was until Friday! I now don't have any work because the local company cannot afford to pay me to do the subcontract work under the new RSRO!! … I WAS a proud owner-driver … Now my truck is parked in the shed and I'm left wondering HOW, HOW, HOW am I going to pay for it without any income???! … I WAS proud to call Australia home, but it has become a dictatorship, even trying to tell me how to run my own business. Up until now I managed perfectly well to make the payments on my truck and to have some $ to spare to make it all worthwhile. NOW I have a truck, but soon I will have NOTHING! The bank will move in and take my truck, then it will take my home, my farm, my family, my life. We have members of the Labor Party that are voting against this. Shame on every single one of you. It is an absolute outrage that you would not join the coalition and get rid of this disgraceful tribunal. After the arrogance that that tribunal showed by ordering those people on Easter weekend to attend hearings, under threat of six months in jail if they did not give evidence, this tribunal deserves to be abolished, and the tribunal members should hang their heads in shame over this disgraceful order. We are all concerned about road safety—every single one of us in this place. Many of us drive on country roads to make it to Canberra. But what this order does is actually makes road safety worse. The reason it does is that independent owner-operators have a better safety record. That is exactly what the 2014 report by Jaguar Consulting says. It said: … research on the relationship between employment type and accident involved consistently shows that owner drivers have either lower rates of accident involvement or, at worst, similar accident levels to employee drivers. The Jaguar report also cites a study by Hunter & Mangum, which found that non-union firms had lower accident rates than unionised firms. A study by Williamson in 2001 entitled Driver fatigue: a survey of long distance heavy vehicle drivers in Australia,found that it was employee drivers in large trucking companies that had the highest rate of accidents. So, if you take these independents off the road, if you steal their business, if you put them at a competitive disadvantage—which is exactly what the tribunal is doing—and you have their work replaced by unionised operators in large trucking firms, you will get worse road safety outcomes. That is the ultimate disgrace of this. It will do exactly the opposite of the sham argument about road safety that has been put up. There are many of my colleagues who wish to speak on this this evening, so I will leave my comments at that. But I am very proud to stand with them and say that we are here to abolish this shocking and disgraceful tribunal. This is a completely un-Australian act. We stand for the fundamental freedoms of anyone in this country who wants to have a go in their own small business. To those members of the Labor Party using road safety as a reason: shame on every single one of you. With that, I commend this bill to the House. 16:28 Ms O'NEIL 140590 Hotham It is a real pleasure to be able to make a contribution to this discussion today, and it is a really important one. I note that it has been the practice in this debate so far to refer only tangentially to the legislation that is actually before the House, so I am going to take a pretty novel approach and talk about the bills that we are discussing today! They are really important bills that protect truck drivers in this country and protect all of us who share the road with people driving trucks. I am aware that there is probably some confusion out there about exactly what it is that we are debating today, because a few weeks ago probably no-one outside of the trucking industry had ever heard of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Certainly, we had not heard much from the federal government about it, even though the order that is under discussion today was made in December last year. Just for the purposes of helping people understand what it is that we are discussing: this is a remuneration tribunal that was set up to set rates and terms of pay for truck drivers in our country. The reason that it was established was because there are extremely clear links between the rates and conditions that truck drivers work under and their safety practices on the road. I will talk a little about the very clear links and the clear evidence that we see from studies that have been done all over the world. Some time ago this tribunal made a decision about rates of pay that owner-operators of trucking companies in this country have told us they are going to find it very difficult to implement. We are very happy to sit down and talk about how we can resolve that discussion. But, instead, four months after this decision was made by the tribunal the federal government has come really out of nowhere and said, 'Well, that's it—we're going to abolish this tribunal without any public discussion.' For that reason we are opposed to this measure. It is a complete overreaction to the order that was given by the tribunal. As I have said, the tribunal is actually a very important one; it performs a really important role in protecting drivers and in protecting all of us on the road. One of the really essential features of living in such a big country with such a small population is that trucking is still a way that goods are moved around. It is just a fact of life for us in Australia. Anyone who is driving on the Hume Highway or on the south-eastern in the Murray Valley out in my neck of the woods in Melbourne is going to share that road with people who are doing long-haul driving and who are driving trucks that can cause serious damage if accidents happen. We see the evidence of the additional danger in having a road system like this very clearly. If there is one thing that I want people to remember coming out of the discussion today, it is that truck drivers are 12 times more likely to die at work than ordinary Australians. This is actually the biggest death rate of any industry in this country. It is actually one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. Something else that everyone should remember is that in last month alone 25 people died in trucking accidents. What is crucial to understand about this is that of those 25 people, many were not truck drivers. So, although this is called the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, and although it deals specifically with truck drivers, the reality is that this is a piece of legislation that protects all of us because we do share the roads with people who are truck drivers. For all the reasons I have just described, this tribunal was set up in 2012. Its critical role is to set rates and conditions for truck drivers around this country. The reason that the tribunal was established is because, as I mentioned, there are extremely clear links between the rates of pay and the conditions for truck drivers and their safety on the road. In all these debates, the best thing for us to do is to go back to the evidence. I say to people who are interested in this issue: do not listen to those on the other side. Do not even listen to us when it comes to evidence; try to find an authoritative source. And we have a really good one. The Conversation website, which, as most would know, has as its core business checking facts that are used by politicians, has looked into this link between rates of pay and safety on the roads in recent weeks. What it has found—and I am quoting from the upshot of their review is: … there is persuasive evidence of a connection between truck driver pay and safety. The evidence that The Conversation considered when it looked at this critical question about the links between pay and road safety came from a series of studies that had been done in particular in Australia and in the US which, like Australia, is very dependent on trucks as a way to move goods around the country. Some of the studies that have been done in Australia show very clearly that the amount and, in particular, the way that drivers are being paid significantly affects their sleepiness and, in addition, the speed at which they travel. That is a crucial issue for safety on the road. In fact, one study talked about different methods of paying truck drivers: when they are paid on a per trip basis, truck drivers drive 15 kilometres faster on average. That is a serious amount of speed that truck drivers are using to get around when they are using this type of payment system. The Conversation looked at some international studies. One that I do want to mention is a pretty substantial American study that was done by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. That study looked at long-haul drivers—so, drivers who were doing mainly interstate travel. They found that driver pay had a significant effect on safety on the job. And it was not just looking at things like the outcomes—for example, people being injured in accidents. It looked at the practices that those drivers had to adopt when they were not being paid enough to keep their families going. There were things like use of drugs to stay awake and to stay alert, undertaking excessive hours, speeding and working for longer than the safe number of hours. These were all things that were associated with lower rates of pay. So there is some really good evidence out there about this question. Again, I would encourage those who are interested in understanding this issue a little more to have a look at The Conversation's review of this. But I would just make the point that all these studies show us something that is pretty simple and pretty logical, and that is that if people are not getting paid enough to make a living to support their families then they are going to have to do things that make their incomes higher. If the rates of pay for truck drivers are set too low for them to make a living using safe practices then people are more likely to use unsafe practices. That is just the logic of how this operates. Just in thinking of what this is about: I talked a little about fatalities when I opened my discussion today, and this is absolutely about truck driver safety. But it is also about those of us who share the roads with people who are driving trucks. The reality is that all of us in this chamber have families and all of us represent people who use our roads. I know that as a parent I do not want to put children in a car knowing that we will be driving down the freeway next to someone who has had to adopt unsafe driving practices just so they can make a living. That is just completely inappropriate in a country like Australia, where we are so dependent on our roads as a means to get around. Based on what I have said, of course the question is: why would the government want to abolish something like this? There is a complication that the industry and the government are going to need to deal with. I mentioned that the tribunal has made a decision that threatens the viability of some owner-operators. That is a very serious issue. Of course we do not want to have a tribunal that puts truck drivers out of work and that puts under threat businesses that have been going concerns for long periods of time. I respect the people who have come to Canberra to talk to us about this issue, who have seen generation upon generation of people in their families driving trucks and who see the order that was given by the tribunal as a threat to their livelihoods. There is a lot of sympathy for the people who are in that position, and Labor wants to talk with them and to represent them in this parliament. It is not, though, a good reason to abolish a tribunal. Tribunals make decisions all the time. Just because we do not like one of them or it is not suitable for the current commercial context, it does not mean that we abolish the tribunal. What would a good government do in the face of such a challenge? I think a good government would sit down with the relevant parties—with the drivers, with the owner-operators, with the big trucking companies who, as it turned out in question time today, are also very concerned about this, and with the union representatives who represent many of these drivers—and discuss how it is that this can be managed. I do not think anyone wants to be bloody-minded about this. The point of this tribunal is of course not to threaten the viability of businesses; it is to try to make us safe on our roads. If the balance has not been got quite right there, let's address that situation. But it is not a reason to abolish this tribunal. This is a good piece of public policy that is based in really good evidence. We should support it and modify it if needs be, but I definitely do not believe that what has happened is grounds to abolish the tribunal altogether. I think the reality that we face here is that the attempt to abolish the tribunal has been very reactionary and has really come out of nowhere from a decision that was made many months ago. Actually, in mid-last-year a question was asked of the Deputy Prime Minister about whether the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal would be abolished, and the government said, 'No, we're not going to go down that path; we don't think there will be public support for such a proposal.' I guess the question for us is why out of nowhere this has suddenly become such an urgent national priority. It is something the government was not talking about at all a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly they have people on the phone, trying to drum up protests and this sort of thing. Why would the government be doing this? I think it is a really good example of the current situation that the government is in. What we see on the other side of the House from issue to issue is a government that is in search of a mission. I have to say as a member of parliament that it is staggering to me that a group of people who have worked their whole lives to be in a government just like this one get there and have no idea what they want to do with that political power. What has the member for Wentworth been doing for the last years that he has been a member of parliament but thinking about what he might do if he ever got to be Prime Minister? And yet we see that he gets into the role—probably a lifelong dream for him—and he is frozen. He cannot create an agenda. He cannot think of what his government should stand for. So we see him sadly—very sadly—grasping from issue to issue. Some of the journalists in the press gallery are calling this 'government by thought bubble' because from week to week the ogre against our economic growth in this country changes. We saw the tax mix at one stage be the big problem facing the country. Then we had the structure of the federation. We have had the union movement as the big issue. We have had tax burden on the middle class and then tax burden on companies. We need to get something resolved here. One of the things that is really notable out there in my electorate at the moment—and I am sure other members of parliament are hearing this—is that, whether I am talking to people who are senior in business or people who are on a street corner who have come to talk to me about a local issue, they are all saying the same thing: they want leadership. It is almost a matter of 'just lead us somewhere, just in one direction, just for a few months, so we understand what this government is about'. Instead, from week to week we just get different stories and different sets of objectives from this Prime Minister and his Treasurer. Politics is politics, so I am not going to get too upset about a piece of legislation coming before us that perhaps would not be prioritised under other circumstances, but I have to say one thing that I am finding very frustrating about the current situation. The country actually faces hugely significant problems that need the attention of the national parliament. We have an education system that is falling behind education systems around the world. For the first time in as long as we have known, children who are living in Australia right now are getting a lesser quality of education than children who are living in Shanghai. This is a crucial national problem and something on which the government has nothing to say. We have a healthcare system that is under pressure form an ageing population. We have a standard of living in this country that has not improved for five years. These are problems that are worthy of recalling the national parliament, but we are all here, the whole House of Representatives and the whole Senate, and have gone through the charade of going into the Senate and hearing the Governor-General give another address—what an absolute farce this has been—and are doing it because the government just cannot think of anything better to do. It has brought us here to talk about pieces of legislation that for sure are important and raise issues that matter to many Australians; but, Deputy Speaker Kelly, if you think that the bills being debated in the upper house at the moment are the most important issues facing the country, that just shows how out of touch you are. I am standing with Labor today. We will not be supporting the repeal of this tribunal. The reason we are not supporting the repeal of this tribunal—apart from the craven manner in which this has been done—is that this tribunal actually performs a crucially important role. It is called the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal because it is about road safety. It is about protecting truck drivers, who are 12 times more likely to die on the roads than Australians who work in other industries. It is about protecting you, Deputy Speaker, the people at home and me when I am on the road with my family. I do not want to be on those roads, thinking that I might be driving next to a truck driver who has had to work too-long hours, skip his breaks and use drugs, caffeine or other things to keep him awake just so he can make a living for himself and his family. It is not far, it is not good for road safety and it is not something that Labor will support. 16:43 Mr O'DOWD 139441 Flynn I rise to speak on the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016. I would like to acknowledge the harrowing future faced by drivers impacted by enacting the road safety remuneration order of 2016. As you know, many Australians do not know how the goods and services they require arise so spectacularly each day from an unknown source. The unknown source, of course, is the trucking industry. It could be big trucks—haulage from large companies—but, mainly, the further west you go or the further you go out of the big cities, it is the small owner-driver who delivers services such as food and the like. The bill that had been introduced would apply on 4 April 2016. That would have put the grocery prices up alarmingly. Owner-drivers drive all night according to their logbooks. They deliver the food and clothing not only for the people out there who need these services but for their own children. Mum-and-dad truck operators are the life and breath of Australia. It is absolutely true that truckies keep Australia moving. That saying has been around for a long, long time. These owner-drivers are not only drivers; they are small business owners. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and we need to stop them from being preyed on by damaging regulations like the RSRT. They are not just good drivers; they are professional drivers. They do not want to damage their trucks. They do not want to have accidents on the roads. But they have to be aware of the other people on the roads, and I would say they are more likely to cause accidents than the heavy-duty driver. I can go back to when I used to own trucks and have a fleet of trucks. We were a group of fuel distributers. We were all members of APADA, a group that looked after fuel agents. There was a perception out there then that we were dangerous drivers and that our trucks needed to be double-insured. As we got together as a group, we formed our own insurance company—called OAMPS, which is still around today—and we then were able to prove to the insurance companies of Australia that we were in fact the safest drivers in Australia. Consequently, our insurance rates dropped by at least 50 per cent and we also got dividends from the profit that we made out of the other people who used OAMPS. That was a separate story, but it was started by the perception that we were the most dangerous drivers in Australia. It is not true. I have been approached by several operators in my electorate who are just beside themselves, worried about the new order. They are worried about how they are going to pay for the leasing of their trucks and their premises, and the wages for staff. The mechanics and the fuel distributer have to be paid. The maintenance has to be paid for. The brake linings on the trucks, all the stuff comes into it. I have had people from Monto, Gerry and Sandra Morgan; Kirk Porter from KJP Haulage in Gladstone; and Julie Just, who was down here today. She did not want to be here but she had to be here. Her husband is not all that well. He has not experienced good health over the last few years. She virtually runs the business and she had better things to do than come down here today for the rally yesterday and the rally this morning. There are other people out there. There is grain haulage. There are furniture removalists who have the owner-driver truck situation. There are the guys who cart cattle and sheep all across Australia. They are very badly affected by these new rules. That is why the new rules have to go. You cannot have a two-tier pricing system—one for the big guys and one for the little guys. What happened to price fixing? It was against the law to fix prices. I do not know what has happened with that law. In my day if you tried to fix the bowser price, you would be thrown into jail. If that is not price fixing, I would like to know what is. I am sure that the ACCC would not approve. Big Brother, having to know what you have to charge for your freight—that is unfair, when you do not know what he is charging for his freight. He can charge anything he likes. But he knows that you have been told what you can charge. I have never seen a system like it. It will just put small businesses completely out of business. And it has already happened. Inside a month, there are people out there who have lost their trucks, had their contracts cancelled by the big operators. The blokes who are subbing have lost their contracts because the big guy said: 'I can't afford your rates anymore because you are governed by the RSRT.' I have never seen anything like it. And if you do not comply, you can cop a fine for $54,000 and a jail term. Who is going to risk their family and their life? The whole business is up in the air. We have to bring certainty back to these people and bring it back to them today. It is just totally unfair the way this has panned out. Talk about safety! Everyone is involved in safety. Everyone cares about safety. But can you tell me what is fair about a logbook system where—because of your logbook you drive according to what your logbook tells you—you might be in the back of Woop Woop, the back of Broken Hill, and your time is up to have a rest. So you pull your truck over on the side of the road. There are no toilets. There are no showers. There is no food. And you are stranded in the cab of the truck for eight hours while you have a rest. Then you are expected to get up and drive for your next turn. If you can imagine yourself in that situation, can you imagine waking up fresh and alert after spending eight hours in a truck in fifty degree temperatures with no food, and just a wash out of the tank on the side of the truck? I do not think that is a good idea. Why doesn't the regulator look at those sorts of issues? When a small truck goes into a depot in the port of Melbourne, he is told he can load at eight o'clock in the morning. So he gets there and he plans his day; he plans his night and where he is going to stop. Then all of a sudden a Toll truck or a Lindsay Fox truck comes in in front of him. He has been pushed back. What does he do in the meantime? He sits around. And then a Toll truck comes in and goes to the head of the queue again, and the small-time operator gets pushed back again. No wonder he ends up tired. Fatigue has not been looked at by the tribunal, and that is a real safety issue. As the coalition government we are spending money on our roads. Roads are the workplace of these drivers. We have invested $50 billion in the Black Spot Program, bridge renewal programs and Bruce Highway improvements in Queensland, but here we are still looking at safety issues. They can be improved. There is no-one on this side of the House or that side of the House saying that they cannot be improved. They can be, but we have to work together on this. We cannot do it by flattening our small-time operators. They are not the problem. It is the system that is the problem. That is why the tribunal should be sacked—because it is not looking at the real issues. Our heavy vehicle drivers are professional drivers, and they are not at fault. The tribunal is at fault, and that is why we must abolish it. I commend this bill to the House. 16:53 Mr PERRETT HVP Moreton Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, I know you have a passion for cars, but, with your indulgence, I am just going to acknowledge the many truck drivers that made the journey to Canberra for this Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill discussion, and also those that might be listening on the radio—although, I think, if you are doing a long-distance haul, listening to parliament might actually be a dangerous thing to do, because it could make you doze off! Thank you to those who have taken the time to be involved in this political process. It is a privilege to serve my constituents of Moreton in this House, and I do take that privilege very seriously. There are sometimes debates in this House that are so important to the everyday lives of people in Moreton and around Australia that I wonder who the people on the other side of the debate are really representing. This is one of those debates. The safety of our roads affects every one of my constituents. It is an issue that crosses all socioeconomic divides, cultures and age groups. Moreton, in the southern suburbs of Brisbane, is a transport hub. We have the Acacia Ridge goods yard, with the standard gauge rail line going all the way through to Perth, and trucks converge on that node. We also have at Tennyson the goods yard there, which is the beginning of the train line transporting goods all the way up to Cairns, all the way north. Next door to that, at Rocklea, we have the Brisbane Markets, where trucks come in from all around Queensland and Australia and then go out, taking the fruits and vegetables. I have 18,000 businesses in my electorate, many of them connected to trucking businesses and/or using transportation involving trucks. Transport businesses, like MiniMovers, are even based in my electorate of Moreton. As the stickers say, Australia relies on trucks. It is interesting that Australia has a similar land mass to that of the United States, yet only about half or a third of our goods are actually carried by rail. That is not a topic for this debate, but it is important to note. I grew up in a small country town out in western Queensland, and we used to say it was the biggest town in Australia not on the train line. In fact, St George was serviced by the train lines at Thallon or Dirranbandi. I grew up across the road from a trucking business. I have had trucks in my life for many years. It is sad to hear the statistic that 25 people died on our roads last month as a result of heavy vehicle accidents. We know that it is a dangerous business. We know that people who drive trucks also know that and have to be alert all of the time. They are in charge of big pieces of equipment, often with tight time frames and tight budgets. Just yesterday, four people were killed in a horrific crash between a car and a truck. We know that fatalities for the trucking industry are 12 times the national average. That is why, when Labor were in government, we did something about trying to make roads safer for all Australians, and the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was introduced. We knew that there was a problem, so, in consultation with the trucking industry, the union movement and stakeholders, we did what we could to fix it. Labor established this tribunal specifically to stop these accidents which cause so much death and injury. I have been lobbied by people in truck stops in my electorate. Just down the road from my house, I have the truck stop that sells more diesel than any other service station in Australia. I went in there once and I remember being lobbied by a bloke who was not connected with the TWU but who was upset because one of his friends in the trucking industry had died. So I know that this issue is personal in the place that I represent. The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal does good things. I know that those opposite are doing their best to politicise this. We had one speaker refer to the tribunal as doing 'evil' work. We have seen the Prime Minister try to politicise the process whereby he is trying to destroy this tribunal. Why? Because it made a ruling that the member for Wentworth did not like. So what does he do, rather than say, 'All right, let's hope the next decision'—like in a game of footy—'goes our way'? He wants to kill the tribunal. He takes out the umpire because he did not like the call the umpire made. When I played footy, I might have got upset with the referee, but I did not sack the referee if I lost a footy match because of their decision. In a court of law, if you do not like the decision, you can appeal it, and an independent arbiter or a higher court will review it. When you have the judgement from the highest court, that is the final decision. You do not dismantle the courts, and cloak it in populism, because you do not like a decision. That is a step down the road towards fascism. This is a worrying decision by the Turnbull government here today. It does not bode well for future determinations by other bodies, under the Turnbull reign. There are many determinations that we could expect from other independent bodies which may not accord with the ideals of this Liberal-National party government. One that springs to mind is a decision to increase the minimum wage. We can easily see how the Turnbull government might be opposed to that determination. What about a decision by the Fair Work Commission on penalty rates? We know how this government abhors penalty rates. We have heard so many speeches against penalty rates being paid to low-paid workers, who give up their weekends to work. What decision would be safe if the government are prepared to just trash the body making it when they do not agree with the decision? Some toff from Point Piper, his money parked in the Caymans, attacking a minimum wage increase for truck drivers does not pass the pub test at the pubs in my electorate where the truck drivers go to have a drink—an appropriate drink, obviously. This particular decision of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is very important to all of us. It will make our roads safer. There is an enormous body of empirical evidence, not political evidence, that links pay rates and safety on our roads, the roads that I drive on, the roads that the people in Moreton Drive on. PwC, in their 2016 report, recognised that the road safety in relation orders will result in a 10 per cent to 18 per cent reduction in the number of crashes. That is good for business, that is good for lives but it is also good for the nation. PwC is not exactly a radical left-wing entity, I would stress. An academic paper in 2006 based on a survey of 300 long-haul truck drivers found that owner drivers and drivers working for smaller firms reported more injuries than those employed by larger firms. The same academic paper found that owner drivers had a slightly higher crash rate. This bill, brought on urgently by the Turnbull government, is nonsensical. I guess there are not a lot of long-haul truck drivers living in Point Piper who had a chance to lobby their local member. Not only is this a reckless and dangerous decision by the member for Wentworth, it flies in the face of what he said just a week ago. Just last week the Prime Minister said that he would abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal if he was re-elected. A week later, we are debating a bill to abolish it. There was no mention of this in his letter to the Governor-General in terms of proroguing the parliament. We should not be surprised that the member for Wentworth's position has changed. This Prime Minister changes his position almost on a daily basis. He stands for nothing but political expediency. We thought that captains calls were a thing of the past with the member for Warringah but they are continuing in this divided government. To quote from my favourite political show, Veep: This is a government of continuity with no change. Deputy Prime Minister Joyce said in 2012 about the introduction of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal: Without labouring the point, we are not emphatically opposed to this. We oppose it but we are not going to town on it. We understand and have strong sympathies with owner-drivers. We understand the complexities and the discrepancies and the corruption and the mechanisms by which they should be paid a fair rate for what they do. He also said in his speech today, rather bizarrely I thought, 'Owner-drivers treat their trucks better than those employed by trucking companies.' I do not know where he got that information from. Maybe it is because this is a guy who, when he was given a taxpayer funded $80,000 Land Cruiser, drove it into the water and wrecked it. Maybe that was his basis for that statement. It was a bizarre statement and I think he should apologise to employee truck drivers. Senator Williams, one of those opposite who was a truck driver, said in his speech on the introduction of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal: I back up what my leader, Senator Joyce, said. We are not overly concerned about this legislation. Even though we are not voting for it, it is one of the things I am certainly not going to die in a ditch over. Let us talk about road safety. We are talking about safe rates and we are talking about what truckies are paid, especially the contractors when they are unloaded at Coles and Woolworths. I do not have a problem with what you are proposing. That was from one of the few people opposite who actually knows how to drive a truck. The former LNP member for Hinkler, who is also a National Party member, Paul Neville, is very well loved by both sides of the chamber. He chaired the committee which reported in October 2000 on a lot of these issues. He said in his report: When you get to a point where no-one is responding properly to these manifest inefficiencies in the transport industry, you can understand why a section of the industry is asking for a tribunal—so that at least someone independent can say what is a fair thing. There seem to be a lot of prospective and hopeful attitudes put forward, but they do not improve the lot of the young guy behind the wheel of a truck— Peter Biagini from the Transport Workers Union in Queensland said today when my office spoke to him that the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal has already made a difference to the safety on our roads. I contrast this with the contribution by the member for Hughes, who said that the tribunal 'does evil work'. Let's look at some of the things that they have done. The 2014 order implemented three important rulings: a mandatory drug and alcohol testing policy—how can that be evil work; all drivers trained in workplace health and safety; all drivers must have a safe driving plan before embarking on a trip. How can this be bad? The orders from this tribunal, the independent watchdog, have more substance than a desperate, whimsical 'captain's pick'. The full bench of the tribunal in its recent decision said: The making of the 2016 RSRO has followed an extensive process that has been outlined in this decision. The decision to make the 2016 RSRO, and the terms set out in it, has been based upon comprehensive consultations, research, evidence, submissions, comments and hearings. After a proper process of consultation, research, consideration of evidence, submissions and hearings, the tribunal has come up with an order. With the polls collapsing around him, the member for Wentworth decided to make a politically motivated captain's call to try to ram this surprise legislation through. Good government consults with the affected parties—the employers, workers, unions, owner operators. That is the opposite of what the member for Wentworth has done. We were told more than a year ago now that 'good government starts today'. We are still waiting. If the LNP gets its way, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal—I say that deliberately; I am not going to say 'RSRT' because those opposite have been told not to say the full title—will be abolished and the roads will be less safe for all of us—for the truck drivers, for other road users, for pedestrians and for the people of Moreton going about their daily business. The government might be happy compromising on road safety to save a buck but Labor believes that safety on our roads is paramount. Labor believes that it is unacceptable to have people dying on our roads because our truck drivers are overworked. Labor is happy to have discussions with the government about a sensible compromise around the pace at which the new minimum conditions are rolled out. The member for Gorton has already stated that. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? That is not a decision of a sensible, consultative government. The Prime Minister might be participating in great photo ops with truck drivers and their rigs but he really does not, I believe, fundamentally care about truck drivers or about what their remuneration is. He is doing what he thinks is the politically best option for himself. Just like his photo series on public transport—I think it was called 'selfies near poor people'—he is taking advantage of a political situation. This week we are seeing the real Malcolm Turnbull, a bloke prepared to spend taxpayers' money to recall parliament to debate legislation that a week ago he said he would deal with after the election. Now he says it is of 'great importance'. It is of such great importance that Mr Turnbull and his government, just a few weeks ago, voted against debating one of them, and the other, which has already been rejected three times by the Senate, was no longer even in the parliament. The only thing the member for Wentworth values is power. We have seen that. He took power from the democratically elected member for Warringah, and now he is doing all he can to manage and control this divided party opposite. The member for Wentworth has shown this week that he will do and say whatever it takes to make that happen to cling to power, even if it means that it puts people who are using our roads at risk. I ask those opposite to try and remove the politics from the situation. We know that this floor—F-L-O-O-R—can be well below the enterprise bargaining rates. Let us remember that. It is a complicated process, but sometimes it is above the award rate and sometimes it is below the award rate, depending on the distance being travelled. Do not listen to the political spin coming from those opposite. This is an attempt to abolish an independent umpire, rather than sitting down, dealing with stakeholders and doing the right thing by this nation. 17:08 Mr WILSON 198084 O'Connor I rise today to speak on the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 as the member for O'Connor, and as a farmer and a client of some of the hundreds of owner-drivers in O'Connor whose family businesses would be destroyed by the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal findings. This order from the tribunal affects my electorate—all 908,000 square kilometres—more than most. The order from this tribunal creates a great deal of uncertainty for all owner-drivers, whether it be the subbies on the Goldfields, hauling general freight to mine sites; the grain truckers in the Wheatbelt; or the livestock transporters in the South West. Having lived and worked all my life in a small regional town, I know how critical owner-drivers are to our economy, and how hard they work.    Service providers in O'Connor that support the owner-drivers sector also include tyre service shops, diesel mechanics, fuel suppliers and auto-electricians—to name a few. But equally important is the produce trucked to markets or the ports in my electorate: whether it be gold ore to the processing plant, nickel to the Esperance port, grain to Albany, livestock to the abattoir or horticultural produce to Perth. I believe that I am in a unique position in this debate, as one of the few members in this place holding a multi-combination driver's license—you may have one yourself, Deputy Speaker Mitchell; I know you have been involved in the trucking industry. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M3E I have been for over 20 years. Mr WILSON 198084 I know the member for Flynn, who spoke before me, certainly does, and the member for Wright, who will be following me, certainly does. It gives you a great perspective of what we are discussing here today—particularly as having a road train licence enables me to tow three trailers. And as someone who has driven a road train, I understand the fatigue management protocols in place, the maintenance matrix and the driver scheduling, which were already mandatory aspects of our heavy vehicle safety requirements. We have discussed safety here a lot today, and I have found that while most truck drivers are very professional in the way they drive on the road, some of the car drivers that interact with road trains on the road leave a lot to be desired. Just to put a bit of perspective on what this legislation is all about, I want to quote Mr Michael Wong, who worked for the TWU from 2009 to 2012 and who helped deliver the political campaign for the establishment of the RSRT. He provided a remarkable insight into the TWU's mindset and priorities. He said: Fundamentally the union doesn’t care about owner-drivers, it cares about its income and the political power it can achieve. The practical effect of the RSRT is to push owner-drivers out of the market. These owner-drivers work incredibly hard, often with a spouse or partner contributing to the family business. Like all small business owners, they have many reasons why they have chosen their vocation. For some it might simply be that they just want to be their own boss. Others may be striving to be the next Lindsay Fox. I am proud to know owner-drivers from both ends of the spectrum, and all points in between across my electorate. I would like to provide some evidence of the impact the RSRT rates will have on owner-drivers within WA, and those servicing the east-west freight route across the Nullarbor. Coolgardie-based small business B&C Parsissons Transport co-owner Bryan Parsissons is one of the owner-operators opposed to the RSRT order. He said in the Kalgoorlie Miner last week: The order would decimate his business if introduced, and could have massive impacts on the cost of transporting goods between the Goldfields and Perth. "Prices could eventually triple" he said. "Every single thing, except the water from the pipeline, every single thing could potentially triple." Another driver I would like to quote is Glenn Kendall, aka Yogi. Some may recognise Yogi from Outback Truckers;he starred in several episodes. He also has a regular spot on ABC Drive radio. But Yogi and his wife, Amanda, run a family business. He has provided me with some examples of the effect on his business. He said: Example 1: Currently we are paid $2904 to move a machine from Fremantle to Esperance one way. Under the RSRT if the client requires me to come straight back to get another load, they now have to pay both ways. So we now need to charge a total of $3321.62. That equates to 35 hours work time at $31.26 for every hour I am loaded, including rest breaks and overnight sleeping. The client also needs to pay $1.54/km. Which is a 1452 km round trip at $1.54 = unemployment. Because as you can clearly see … by being paid for every hour and every km, we are not viable and will not be used. The three or more truck company can charge whatever they like. Example 2: Based on the current market for freight from Katanning WA to Wangaratta Victoria the rate is approximately $6,000. Under the RSRT we need to charge for 3,415km @ $1.54/km = $5,259.10 + 84 hours @ $31.26 = $2,2625.84. With a total of $7,884.94. Again this is our set safe rate, which as you can clearly see is $1,884.94 above the current market value. Once again, I reiterate, the big company can charge whatever they like. This two-tiered pricing system punishes the owner-driver sector for no demonstrable improvement in road safety. My experience is owner-drivers are extremely diligent with the maintenance and roadworthiness of their trucks. The reason for this is they cannot afford to have their truck off the road due to a breakdown. A larger trucking company can schedule maintenance and absorb the costs of having a prime mover off the road. An owner-driver cannot do that, and has to put in the hours ensuring their own truck is roadworthy and will not fail them on a job. I would like to quote from owner-driver Yogi again, to underline the professional approach that these businessmen and women take. Yogi said: Just the ridiculous notion of getting a safe rate which will in turn make me, as an owner driver, SAFER is beyond thinking!! We run a very strict safety program because of the sheer nature of my work in country Western Australia and operating interstate. I cannot afford to have a maintenance issue stuck half way between Katanning and the eastern seaboard. The cost alone to ship parts to the truck would financially kill us!! We run a full maintenance program which includes servicing every 10,000 km of the truck and trailer. We also have the vehicle fully inspected every 50,000 km which includes truck and trailer 'over the pits' to inspect everything. It has clearly been shown that there is no evidence of safety provided by the tribunal. There is no sound evidence showing that employee truck drivers are less likely to be involved in an accident than owner-drivers. The analysis, in fact, shows that road safety in the heavy transport sector continues to improve. Despite a steadily increasing number of large road combinations carrying out more movements each year, road incidents involving these trucks continue to trend down. Deaths from heavy vehicle crashes in Australia have fallen by more than 20 per cent in the last decade, from 262 in 2005 to 192 in 2015. This is still too many, but this coalition government is taking steps to improve road safety. The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator will be better resourced, with the $4 million from the RSRT redirected to improve road safety for all. The coalition government has committed $50 billion to improving road infrastructure across the nation. Just one of those investments includes $36 million of federal government funds for the Great Eastern Highway, one of the key highways in O'Connor and also one of the key links between the east and the west of Australia. Last week the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport announced over $5.6 million in black-spot funding in O'Connor, and we have previously seen $3 million invested in road safety pull-overs across the electorate. Some of the programs this government is rolling out include the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, the Black Spot Program, the Roads to Recovery program and the Bridges Renewal Program. In conclusion, I implore the members of this House and those in the other place to support the passage of the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 and support the hardworking truckers in my electorate of O'Connor and across the nation. 17:16 Ms BUTLER 248006 Griffith The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal—as you know, Deputy Speaker—is an independent national body with functions relating to the road transport industry. According to the tribunal, its functions include: making road safety remuneration orders approving road transport collective agreements dealing with certain disputes relating to road transport drivers, their employers or hirers, and participants in the supply chain conducting research into pay, conditions and related matters that could be affecting safety in the road transport industry. As you also know, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was established in 2012 and commenced operating on 1 July of that year. It is worth, I think, talking a little bit about the decisions and orders of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal that have attracted some controversy and that have been briefly discussed by some of the speakers in the debate today. In the decision that led to the making of the Contractor Driver Minimum Payments Road Safety Remuneration Order 2016, the tribunal noted that, in 2013, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal had issued an order providing 'certain minimum conditions, but not minimum payments' for contractor drivers, and in that decision the tribunal had 'summarised the various submissions that had been made to it on minimum payments' but had 'declined' to make a minimum payments order at the time, saying that it would do so subsequently after further information had been obtained. Specifically, what they said at the time of making this decision in late 2015 was that the decision that had been made in 2013 had referred to the research material presented to the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal 'on the relationship between remuneration and safety in the road transport industry and material presented from government-initiated and other inquiries into the road transport industry, as well as the evidence before the RSRT concerning the relationship between remuneration and safety'. They said that, in the proceedings that had preceded this decision in December 2015, there had been some people who had attempted to bring into question—or further question—whether there is any relationship between remuneration and safety or who had otherwise tried to suggest that the material that they had referred to in 2013 was now dated. But the tribunal found that nothing persuasive had been put to them to lead them to conclude that the substance of the material was not relevant to the decision that they then made in 2015. So it is worth, I think, referring to the 2013 decision and the work that was done in relation to that decision that referred to the links between remuneration and safety. That decision in 2013 was about the 2014 order, which went on to set out requirements regarding payment time within 30 days of received invoice for contractor drivers; written contracts for road transport drivers, which could be in electronic format; contracts between supply chain participants; safe-driving plans for long-distance operations in heavy vehicles; training in work health and safety; drug and alcohol policies; dispute resolution; and adverse conduct protection. As I said, they decided not to deal with rates in that order but to do some work subsequently on rates, which is how we ended up with the decision of December last year. In that decision in 2013, as I said earlier, there was a lot of work done to canvass the connection between road safety and remuneration. At the time, they said: Road accident data relevant to the road transport industry was presented to the Tribunal by ARTIO. Research material was also presented by the TWU … This included empirical research reports on remuneration factors and safety-related outcomes including crashes, onroad performance in general, stimulant use and fatigue and speeding. In saying 'stimulant use', of course, I am talking about illicit drugs as well as legal drugs. They went on to canvass a number of different studies. Firstly, they were referred to an inquiry initiated by the Motor Accidents Authority of New South Wales, which reported in 2001. They went on to cite substantial parts of that inquiry's report from the 2001 inquiry, including: During its own investigation the Inquiry discovered earlier inquiries, coronial inquests and commissioned research into the road freight industry since the 1980s that identified a strong association between commercial practices and safety. They also referred to that inquiry's findings that there were a number of tendering practices common in the industry that were not conducive to safe operation—for example, taking little account of how a task was to be completed or other safety related issues and instead quoting an all-in price, which placed cost burdens even for events beyond control or due to customer inefficiency. And they went on to cite further parts of that inquiry from 2001, which ultimately found that there was a combination of commercial and industry practices and structural features that constituted a significant underlying reason for unsafe practices and for the industry's overall poor safety performance. One of the recommendations in that inquiry was to have minimum safety based payments for owner-drivers. They then went on to canvass an inquiry initiated by the Victorian Minister for Industrial Relations in 2004, which was called Report of inquiry: owner drivers and forestry contractors, which went on to draw connections between the real financial pressures that led to working unduly long hours with consequent fatigue. Of course, for those who are questioning how there could possibly be a link between remuneration and safety, it is fairly obvious that commercial practices are connected with those financial pressures to work unduly long hours with consequent fatigue. In that second inquiry to which reference was made there was substantial information about minimum payments to owner-drivers being a serious issue, since those drivers are under particular pressures, which are referred to in the decision. Thirdly, they referred to the 2006 decision of the full bench of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission and went on to cite provisions from that. They noted that Professor Quinlan, who had been in the 2001 inquiry, had given evidence before the full bench of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. Fourthly, they referred to a 2008 report, prepared for the National Transport Commission, entitled Remuneration and safety in the Australian heavy vehicle industry: a review undertaken for the National Transport Commission. The report, by Professor Quinlan and the Hon. Lance Wright QC, included substantial discussion about connections between remuneration and safety, which are cited at some length in the 2013 decision. Fifthly, they referred to the 2008 inquiry established by the Australian Transport Council as part of the National Transport Policy Framework. The report of that 2008 NTC inquiry said: Although considerable work has been undertaken to this point to demonstrate the link between safety outcomes and truck driver pay rates or methods, the new report— referring to the other 2008 source that they had referred to— by Professor Michael Quinlan and the Hon Lance Wright QC draws all this information together, and, with the addition of new evidence from stakeholders, conclusively determines the existence of this link. They helpfully included in the decision—which anyone can get; it is on the internet—a very helpful table showing, in a graphical and diagrammatic way, the consequences for truck drivers of a failure to have appropriate levels of remuneration. They talk about the root causes and economic pressures leading to safety concerns in the trucking industry. The tribunal also, in their 2013 decision, canvassed the evidence that had been given by several individuals, including Dr Michael Rawling, who outlined some of the research surrounding supply chains in the road transport industry, and Mr Michael Caine of the TWU. They went on to say that they had had research from Mr Paul Clapson, an owner-driver; and Mr Mark Trevillian, a road transport driver. I think they also had, if I remember correctly, Mr Eric Pickering, a road transport driver; Mr Brad Statham, a chartered accountant who advised owner-drivers; Mr Frank Black—someone whom I have met—an owner-driver who gave evidence that most times companies tell him the rate of payment. They were some of the people to whom they made reference in the decision, having canvassed five or six substantive and serious reports in relation to connections between road safety and remuneration. The 2014 order was made and the 2016 order was made subsequently. It is not the only work of the tribunal, of course. If you have a look at the four annual work programs they have produced to date, you will see that they have been looking at the retail sector, the livestock sector, the bulk grain sector, the interstate long distance sector and intrastate long distance sector. In the current annual work program, for example, which is the fourth annual work program, the tribunal propose to inquire into the road transport and distribution industry; long distance operations in the private transport industry; sectors in the cash in transit industry; the oil, fuel and gas sectors of the road transport industry; the wharf and port sectors of the road transport industry; and sectors in the waste management industry. A bill to abolish the tribunal ought to be considered in the knowledge that the work of the tribunal is serious and significant work that goes to road safety and safety generally across a number of sectors of our economy. It is not very rare for litigants to be upset about a decision. What is rare is for those same litigants to try to get the entire tribunal abolished because they are not happy with the decision. We say, as you know, Deputy Speaker, that it is important to maintain the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal because of the connection between road safety and remuneration. As you know, trucking is Australia's deadliest profession, with drivers 15 times more likely to die than people working in any other profession. It is a serious and significant issue. You would also be aware that it is an issue that has been debated with some emotion by people across both sides of the House, but some of the arguments have been very unfortunate. The member for Capricornia attempted to draw a link between domestic violence and the order of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, as if to say that somehow domestic violence was caused by minimum rates in an industry. The member for Hughes got up and said, 'Isn't it outrageous! People are expected to comply with summonses and turn up at a tribunal when they are ordered to turn up.' We are here in Canberra this week because people on the other side of this chamber want to debate and enact a bill that will actually remove the right to silence of people in the construction industry, and this same mob are saying it is outrageous that people have to comply with summonses in tribunals. It is just hypocrisy and it ought not to go unremarked. To go to the very recent decision, it is true to say that participants in the industry have raised concerns about a number of issues. Those issues include backloads, split loads, rise and fall fuel and whether there should be specific exclusions from the order. Of course, the proper way to deal with a tribunal's order with which you are unhappy is to seek to engage, to persuade and to vary that order. That is precisely what is happening. There was an application to vary made recently, and in deciding that application the tribunal took the opportunity to comment on some of the things that have been said about the current order and the tribunal itself. They set forth something of a myth-busting paragraph. Paragraph 2 of the recent decision on the application to vary said the following: The correct position on the issues covered by the myths is as follows: The 2016 RSRO allows a hirer to pay a contractor driver differently to that set out in the 2016 RSRO provided that over a period of 28 consecutive days the contractor driver receives at least what they would have received had they been paid in accordance with the 2016 RSRO. The 2016 RSRO sets minimum payments for full or part trailer loads driven by a contractor driver, but allows for one-way trips and does not require a hirer to pay a contractor driver the minimum payments for a round trip where the return trip involves no trailer load. The 2016 RSRO does not prohibit a contractor driver from retaining a related individual, such as a family member … The 2016 RSRO does not require that a quote a hirer provides to a customer must reflect the method of payment in the 2016 RSRO. As they said: To the extent any peak body has created and perpetuated myths about the application and operation of the 2016 RSRO, or failed to alert their members as to the opportunity to put submissions regarding the draft RSRO— which was published— they have done their members a great disservice. They went on to say that it is true that some still appear to think it is un-Australian for the order to place restrictions on market practices that are a root cause of death and serious injury on our roads. Here we find the nub of the issue: do you believe that you ought to deal with safety issues by dealing with the root causes, or do you believe that you ought to just wash your hands of it, turn a blind eye and get rid of a tribunal that has been set up for safety purposes? It has been suggested that the tribunal is somehow a creature of the TWU. Anyone who reads the recent decision on the application to vary will be left in no doubt that the tribunal is very independent. The TWU comes in for some pretty significant criticism throughout the course of that decision. Similarly, if you read that decision you will see the amount of engagement and discussion that the tribunal engaged in with industry. There were 60 days of consultations, conciliation conferences and hearings. It published two reports on those conferences. It published a significant amount of research material. It commissioned a KPMG research project and published it. It implemented a Q and A process. It published the draft order so that people could make submissions. It put a draft payment calculator online. It published numerous statements and considered more than 100 written submissions and comments. Those are not the actions of a tribunal that is somehow not operating in an independent way and is not engaged with the sector and industry. It is simply the case that the people who are seeking to raise concerns about this ought to engage with the tribunal and continue to press their issues. But, as the tribunal said, the order was made on 18 December and everybody knew that the first date of operations would be 4 April. Yet the Australian Long Distance Owners' and Drivers' Association did not put in any application to vary until 3 March. The Australian Industry Group did not put theirs in until 9 March. We have had people in here complaining that there were hearings over Easter. They did not put their applications in until the beginning of March and the second week of March for an order that was to take effect on 4 April. What do they expect the tribunal to do? Of course they are going to have to continue to engage and afford natural justice to people involved in the sector. It is also worth noting that the decision is very, very clear about a number of the procedural issues. I am very concerned about these attempts to silence the tribunal. (Time expired) 17:31 Mr BUCHHOLZ 230531 Wright It gives me great pleasure to stand and give my comments on the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 in this cognate debate. Before I start, I want to acknowledge the owner-operators in the gallery. Thank you very much for your commitment. It gives great weight to the debate to have you in the chamber to witness firsthand the frustrations and machinations of this House. It gives you the opportunity to see the quality of debate from both sides of the House and how disconnected it can be from the reality of the issue that is before you. I want to pick up on the comments of one of the previous speakers in the House who I have regard for, the member for Moreton, when he said that there was almost no experience in the House. Well, this year I celebrate my 24th year in the transport industry. I employ 10 drivers around the state. My wife runs that business successfully today. My brother is in the industry. My grandfather before us was in the industry. He had the sole contract on the railway yards at Rockhampton. In addition, he had a furniture removal business. If you are ever in Toowoomba, take the opportunity to duck into the Toowoomba heritage village where you will find a Cobb and Co. style horse-drawn carriage labelled 'Buchholz Transport'. So transport is in my family's blood. Transport is still the vehicle that allows me the privilege of standing and defending an industry which I think has been harshly dealt with. The legislation that I intend to speak to today I believe not only disrupts the industry but also is disgraceful in its intent where it discriminates against a group of owner-drivers in the way it was prepared. At every step since the bill came into the House in 2012 I have spoken against it because I saw the damage that it would do to the market and the ramifications that that would have for owner-drivers, their families and the sector. Without owner-drivers in that particular sector, taking that competition out of the market, Australians would be worse off in having the larger companies slowly ratchet up their prices. Do not take my word for it. In the last 48 hours we have seen over 200 protesting drivers here in Canberra making their point. This morning there were another 40 drivers. Forty was the number because it was limited by the Australian Trucking Association, which held a function here in Canberra. It is a small world. When I went down to the showground this morning to get into a truck—lo and behold!—there was an operator who delivered product on a nightly basis to one of my Toowoomba depots 15 years ago. It was great to catch up with him. I thank Tony Curtis for the work that he has done in leaving his family and coming down here. He was in two minds as to whether or not he would travel. But he was happy that he had made the journey because he knows that he is making a contribution to the national debate. In addition to the conversations that are happening here in Canberra on the national debate, the state of Queensland is also alive with owner-operators voicing their concerns. I know it is happening all around Australia. We have seen rallies conducted right around this great country of ours. In my electorate alone, a number of people have contacted my office. I am just going to give a quick overview of the style of commentary that people have given so that from the Hansard people can get an idea of the flavour of what the owner-drivers think of this piece of legislation. Keith Davies said, 'Get rid of it.' Anthony Dodds said, 'Why?' Paul Spring said, 'How can this happen?' Luke Rickuss said, 'It must go.' Glenn Smith said, 'I'm worried.' Ken Wilkie said, 'I'm gone.' Bob Ward said, Paula Lee and Geoff Silcock said, 'This is a joke.' Warren Ahern said, 'You've got to do something about it, Scotty.' Denis Peta Fisher, Wayne Schultz, Sioban Banner and Steve Greer said, 'This is crazy legislation.' Steve Smith has contacted my office on over 10 occasions. There have been dozens more. Hansard would not allow me to repeat some of the colourful commentary that has been delivered by such enthusiastic representatives of the owner-driver industry. Why are they so upset? Why would an industry explode virtually overnight? It is because they know that this terrible piece of legislation which has come into effect as of 1 April as an order by the tribunal is going to be unworkable and will price this particular sector out of the market. The government gave evidence at that tribunal and tried in its capacity to give evidence to push the remuneration start date back out to 1 April next year. You have heard commentary today about how we should enter into a more conciliatory and conversational dialogue with the tribunal. Let me assure you that that dialogue has happened, and that the dialogue from the owner-operators and peak industries has fallen on deaf ears. We heard one of the crossbenchers, who was in here before and who previously supported the application, talk about a heightened level of arrogance from the tribunal and how that had forced him to change his position. He is now supporting the industry. In addition to that, the online rate remuneration calculator was published not 28 days beforehand, and it was on the back of that we, as a government, made the decision that we would push this start date back out. As the energy in and around this movement became greater and greater, we could not support anything other than abolishing this tribunal. I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister for his nimbleness and agility—to be able to see this problem, address it and nip it in the bud. Senator Cash, from Western Australia, has done an outstanding job in leading the charge. The sector, I can assure you, are terrified. They are worried about the financial pressures that this tribunal will place on their businesses. How are they going to make their truck payments? I know that there are drivers now who are already touching base with their banks, looking for extensions on payments and being knocked back. That truck is often the first and only source of revenue for a household; mortgage payments and school fees are linked to that revenue. This tribunal does not save lives; it destroys lives. It destroys lives and it destroys businesses in our economy. That is what motivates me to stand here and speak against it. One of the downsides of the tribunal is that the remuneration calculator only affects owner-drivers. When you have two sectors of the market, company drivers and owner-drivers, and only owner-drivers are forced to quote an inflated rate, even if you look at the minutiae of how a rate is calculated—historically, an owner-driver would quote to a potential client a per kilometre rate for a long haul trip, the deal would be done and away you would go. Under the current rate remuneration tribunal online calculator, effectively you are unable to deliver a quote until you get home. That does not work for small business. The variables that have been imposed in the market are unworkable, and it is those very points that have generated a level of enthusiasm in the sector for them to rise up and say that this is unfair. And it is unfair, because it does not allow the market forces to play out in their own right. When you have owner-drivers compelled to quote an inflated rate but the rest of the market can quote a much lower rate, then you can only make the assumption, and support the cynic's point of view, that the legislation was designed for no other reason but to drive the owner-operators out of the market. That is not good for Australian business, it is not good for our nation and it is not good for our country. How can those on the other side say that they are supporting the sector by introducing a fair rate tribunal, when all this tribunal is doing is sending owner-drivers broke? Effectively, yes, you will save lives, because there will be no iron ore operators left on the road. This single policy is up there with some of the worst policy positions that we have seen from those on the other side of the House. We saw the mining tax that raised no money. We saw the insulation program that burnt many hundreds of homes to the ground. We saw the effect the policy of that side of the House had on the live cattle export ban—devastating hundreds and hundreds of small businesses. We saw the effect the policy position of those on the other side had when over 50,000 illegal immigrants came to this country via our shores. I have had no-one—not one person—reach out to my office, either in Beaudesert in my electorate or here in Canberra. I have not had one person from the sector ring me up and say: 'The Safe Rates Remuneration Tribunal must stay. It's wonderful for the industry'—not one. Too many drivers are now parked up, not earning a brass razoo and uncertain of what their financial security looks like. That is why there must be an element of urgency around eliminating this tribunal. I encourage the government, when considering getting rid of this tribunal, to remember that it does not only affect the owner-drivers but that there also is a flow-on effect that goes with it. You have your mechanical services. I had the opportunity to speak with Rod Smith of Smith's Mechanical from Peak Crossing the other day. He suggested that if this order was to come into effect and this tribunal was not to be abolished, then he would lose up to 30 per cent of his business as an unintended consequence of owner-drivers being forced off the road. That would result in him having to put off workers in a local area where he is, potentially, the largest mechanical workshop in the district. No-one should stand in this place and put their hand on their heart and say that that is good for our country. I will vote to abolish this tribunal. I will keep fighting for our owner-drivers because transport is in my blood. I want to acknowledge the crossbenchers and, in particular, the bravery that was shown by those crossbenchers in this House who initially supported the bill. They have seen a light at the end of the tunnel; they have seen the failings of this. While those honourable members on the other side of the House had good intentions, the execution of this tribunal has led, potentially, to the death knell of a sector that deserves to be treated better, that deserves the economic freedom to be able to operate on our roads legally and profitably. I will condemn those from the crossbench who do not support this industry, who make the conscious decision that owner-operators should be forced off the road. I will condemn them because this industry has a role to play in our economy. I want to acknowledge the crossbenchers in the Senate who made the journey down to the front lawns this morning and who, in some cases, supported this tribunal in previous circumstances. I offer them my thanks for changing their position to bring this terrible tribunal to its finality. Unfortunately, this tribunal in its current form destroys lives. I will finish up by saying there is work that needs to be done on safe rates in this industry. I will work with the industry to try to find what those nuances look like into the future. But we need to give the industry some breathing space and the opportunity not to have over 20,000 second-hand trucks pushed back onto the market and not to have banks screaming at homeowners who are forced out of their homes, which will be repossessed as a result of the homeowners' only source of revenue being taken from them. That enthuses me to walk into this place every day. While I have breath in my body, I will fight for this sector. I believe in it. It has been very good to me. It has been very good to my family over many generations, and I know that the people who operate in this sector are decent people and deserve the right to be heard. I commend this bill to the House. 17:46 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith The Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 is a Liberal government bill to effectively abolish Australia's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, and I think that really says it all. We are abolishing the body specifically established by this parliament some years ago to improve safety on our roads by improving the safety and conditions of owner truck drivers in the industry that is the most dangerous industry in our nation. What is occurring here is quite troubling, and many people have asked me over recent weeks why the government is actually doing this—why the government is seeking to abolish the body that was specifically established to improve safety on our roads by targeting the area that causes the most accidents. The question that we need to ask ourselves is: why do we need a Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal? It is because of these quite shocking facts: firstly, that the fatality rates for the trucking industry are 12 times the national average. Those driving trucks on our roads are 12 times more likely to have an accident than the national average. Last month alone, 25 people died on our roads as a result of heavy vehicle accidents. It is not just those owner-drivers that are at risk, because, as we know, many people share our roads, and often it is innocent victims that are killed by truck drivers who are driving in unsafe conditions. It is the families—the men, women and children—who may be killed by an unsafe truck driver. It is the cyclists. It is the pedestrians. It is others who are innocent victims of the shocking rates of safety in this industry. This is quite simply the unsafest, most dangerous industry in the nation, and the facts establish this. The facts establish that there is a serious problem with road safety when it comes to the trucking industry. Any government worth its salt—any government that looks at problems in our nation and how you fix them—would be derelict in not looking at the issues associated with this industry and doing something about it, and that is what Labor did when we were in government. We accepted the advice of experts. It was independent advice from organisations like the Productivity Commission, from academics and from international studies in other nations like the United States that pointed to the fact that there is a direct link between the rates of pay of truck drivers and the safety outcomes on our roads. This government wants to trash the tribunal specifically established by the previous government to stop accidents which cause serious death and injury on our roads. It is illogical and it is downright dangerous—dangerous for every Australian that uses our roads. Why is the trucking industry so dangerous? Again, we know the answer to this. We know what the facts tell us, because there have been numerous studies and investigations into this industry. We know that truck drivers are forced to drive for long, unsafe hours by big multinational companies that they work for just to make a living. I know we have some owner-drivers in the audience here today, and I know many truck drivers, including many owner-drivers, and I have to say I feel for them, because they are forced to sweat the assets which they own, to skimp on maintenance, to drive overnight for long periods, to avoid taking breaks and to drive fatigued just to earn a quid. But it should not be like that, and we should not abolish a body specifically set up to ensure that we lift the rates of everyone that works in the industry and that no-one is disadvantaged by lifting the minimum bar to improve safety conditions in this country and stop the situation where owner-drivers literally have to undercut each other in a dog-eat-dog world to make a living. It is a fact that there have been literally hundreds of investigations, coronial inquests and reports from police which have stated that a free market rate for truck drivers compromised safety. Quite simply, there is a direct link between the minimum rates of pay for truck drivers and safety, fatality and accident figures in this country and indeed throughout the world. There are literally hundreds of studies and inquiries that have been conducted into this issue, particularly over the last decade, and almost all have concluded that there is a significant link between scheduling pressures, unpaid waiting times, insecure rewards and access to work and hazardous practices such as speeding, excessive hours and drug use by drivers just to make ends meet. A 2001 Australian study found that drivers who were paid in terms of the amount of work they did reportedly worked more fatigued, and worked fatigued more often, than those who were paid in terms of the hours that they actually work—an hourly rate, like most workers throughout the country. The United States National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, in a 2002 report, demonstrated that in the USA there were widespread unsafe driving practices and regulatory noncompliance, and there was a direct link between a free market for owner-drivers in terms of what they were paid—undercutting and a dog-eat-dog world—and these safety results. The US Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which also reported in 2002, demonstrated that higher compensation led to significantly safer truck driver performance. For every 10 per cent more in truck driver mileage pay rates, the    very large American truck load carrier found that the probability that a driver would have an accident, or a crash, declined by 40 per cent. I am not an expert in this field, but I have done a bit of research over the course of the last week in preparing this speech and there is also my work as a lawyer in this area of occupational health and safety over the last decade. All of the studies that I have read and all of the cases which I have been involved in—unfortunately, some of those were serious workers compensation claims for death and serious and permanent impairment—have demonstrated that there is a direct link between the rate of pay that people get and the safety outcomes in a particular industry. It is a simple fact, it is simple common sense, that if you pay someone a fair and decent wage to ensure that they can get by, work a reasonable amount of hours, live, feed a family, send their kids to school and are able to buy the necessities of life off that wage then they are not going to work ridiculous hours where they become fatigued and engage in unsafe work practices just to make ends meet. So there is a direct correlation between rates of remuneration for drivers and safety accident rates. The commentary over the last couple of weeks has been that some owner-drivers say they will be put out of business. I want to make it clear: I do not want to put any owner-driver out of business. We do not want a situation where owner-drivers are forced to undercut each other on the rates that they offer to businesses just to make ends meet—but the solution is not having any minimum rates. The solution is not abolishing this body and ensuring that there is no minimum standard to which people are paid and which they work by. It has been shown in industries throughout the world that that develops into a dog-eat-dog system, where it is a race to the bottom. When you are talking about the most dangerous industry in the country, you simply cannot allow that to occur. It has been shown that there is direct link between the rates of pay that someone is paid and safety on our roads. This exact system is the reason why the trucking industry is the most dangerous in Australia, and it is precisely because of this dog-eat-dog system that has existed in the past that people have been dying on our roads. It is precisely why studies recommend a minimum rate of pay for truck drivers as the best way to improve safety. A pure market without minimum conditions will result in more accidents and more deaths, and that is exactly why Labor is opposing this legislation which effectively abolishes the body that has been put in place to ensure a minimum standard into the future. Removing minimum standards, removing minimum rates of pay for owner-drivers, will, in my view, result in more unsafe practices in the trucking industry and ultimately more deaths on our roads—and that is not something that we want to be encouraging here in this parliament. The minimum conditions that are established by the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal are undertaken and reported in determinations after that body conducts an inquiry. It just does not come up with a figure and hand down that figure overnight. It conducts inquiries, takes evidence, looks at the studies that are being quoted by me and many other speakers and makes determinations. Importantly, it provides a lead-in-time to these determinations so that things are not occurring overnight. The current determination, which has been the subject of some controversy, has been out there for a while and this has given the operators an opportunity to adjust to it. Instead of a knee-jerk reaction from the government, instead of seeking to merely abolish this body, if there are issues with this determination and how it will operate for owner-drivers then why doesn't the government sit down with the tribunal, with the owner drivers, with the Transport Workers Union, with the opposition and with the crossbenchers to try and work on modifying the system? Labor have certainly said that we will sit down and negotiate to modify this system. We would be happy to compromise to ensure that we get an effective determination so that owner-drivers do not feel that they will be forced into unfinancial situations by it and, importantly, that we are not undercutting a minimum set of safety conditions existing in this industry. But, instead, the government has refused to negotiate. The government have refused to even countenance sensible negotiation, a sensible compromise, to ensure that we can continue to set minimum standards of safety on our roads. Nope, they have just moved to abolish this body. That, I think, is unreasonable, it is unfair and it flies in the face of all the evidence that has been presented over the course of the last decade, through independent inquiry after independent inquiry, to governments of all persuasions here in Australia and indeed throughout the world about the need to do something about safety in the trucking industry. The statistic I quoted earlier that the trucking industry is 12 times more dangerous than other industries throughout the country is something that we simply cannot ignore. As legislators with an obligation to look at this and improve road safety, we must do all we can to ensure that we keep a body that has effectively been established to ensure that minimum conditions do prevail and that we do not implement a system where drivers are undercutting each other and forcing each other to work in unsafe conditions. So it is on that basis that I and my Labor colleagues will be opposing the repeal of this important body, because it does set minimum conditions and those minimum conditions ensure that our roads are safer. 17:59 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey I rise to speak on the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 and the associated bill, the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016, which, as a fallback position, would defer the implementation of rulings of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. I was listening to the remarks from the member for Kingsford Smith and am given to reflect that most of his speech was actually spent talking about things which have very little to do with the current ruling from the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal which affects owner-drivers. But you have got to hand it to the unions and the ALP—they have this uncanny ability to make a cup of poison sound like it is really good for you, that it is as good as a serve of roast duck, for instance. They can dress up almost anything to make it sound as if it is a good outcome. The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is certainly an instance of that. It is a Labor-union fit-up that is totally committed to unionising the full industry so they can control it from top to bottom. I must turn to the remarks by the shadow minister for employment and workplace relations at the opening of this debate. He made an absolutely disgraceful linkage with a tragic accident that happened in my electorate yesterday, near Crystal Brook on Highway 1. He went through the details of those fatalities, the age of the driver and the kinds of things you find in the newspaper, with absolutely no background understanding of the accident at all. Then, after making that very strong link between the RSRT's current rulings and the accident, he said, 'Of course, you should not jump to any conclusions that it was the truck driver's fault.' That is a disgraceful linkage, something that a member of parliament should not be drawn into. If they do not know anything about a particular incident, they had best keep their head down. My informers tell me that it is highly unlikely that the truck driver was at fault in this case, but it does not make it any less a great tragedy. I think it would have been better if we had left that debate alone. The heart of this ruling is that the RSRT singles out owner-operator truckies as being more dangerous than those they may employ to put in their truck cabs. The premise is that they must charge more if they or their family are sitting on the operator's seat. If the owner-operator is sitting on top of his $450,000 investment, the very suggestion that he or she would be less careful with that investment than an employee would just beggars belief. I have been speaking to numerous truck families since this ruling came to bear down on us in the last few weeks. I have a bit of a list here. I spoke to Joy and Colin Plane, from Price on Yorke Peninsula. Joy has been a fearless campaigner. She has been tracking all over Adelaide, she has contacted all the crossbenchers and she was here yesterday for the rally in Canberra. They have spent 33 years in transport, with one truck. Their son is now operating as an owner-driver. This ruling by the RSRT is destined to drive them out of business. I also spoke to Don Davey, another truck operator, in the Ardrossan area on Yorke Peninsula. Scott and Rodney Quinn, from Cleve, operate a pretty big business. I think they run about 30 trucks, but they employ 30 subbies as well, and those subbies are mainly owner-operators. Rodney rang me up when the deferment came through a week ago and he said, 'The court has just saved me the job of picking up the phone on Monday and telling seven owner-operators their services are no longer required.' This is serious stuff. I also spoke to David Smith, from Smith Haulage in Tumby Bay; Leteesha and Michael Burke, from Port Pirie; Belinda Wheare, from DJ and JM Wheare on Yorke Peninsula; Rod Moore Transport, from Peterborough; and Natasha and Craig Landorf, from Booborowie. I also sat down with some local truckies from my home town: David and Barb Phillips and Don and Annie Beinke. They are all just bewildered that the government or any body of the government could do this to them. They cannot understand why someone would do it. Why would they make the supposition that (a) they are more dangerous drivers and (b) they will have to charge more for their services than if they put an employee in the seat? The why is pretty simple. I explained it to them. It is because the owner-operators are a disparate lot, an independent lot, and they are virtually impossible to unionise. The unions are very comfortable with the big companies. The big companies allow them access to their workforce so they can sign them up to the union. I do not know, but I would be surprised if the big companies did not supply some funding to the unions to help them in this task, but I do not know that for sure. The trucking companies, of course, are willing to deduct membership fees for the unions—more members, more money to pour back into the ALP campaigns, more numbers on the conference floors and more ability to influence selections of people who may be elected to parliaments around Australia. No wonder the TWU hate owner-operators. Australia is a free country. Surely a legislated minimum price on product and service is a restraint of trade. Certainly it is anticompetitive. Imagine if we put a minimum price on shampoo—not something I use all that much of, I must admit!—or pies or plumbing services or anything else you care to turn your mind to. Firstly, this puts a great restraint on the economy. It is almost guaranteed to take away a competitive edge and that spirit of entrepreneurialism that we should foster in Australia, where people stick their neck out and have a go. If you legislate this flat line across the economy, it does not matter what you do it with, you upset that balance. So we absolutely should allow people who run their own businesses to set the fees for their own services. It is the way our economy should operate. PricewaterhouseCoopers has reported that this ruling by the RSRT is likely to cost $2.3 billion—$2,300 million—to the economy over the next 15 years and threatens the jobs of 3½ thousand workers. That should be enough to make anyone draw breath. In the part of the world that I come from, the regions of South Australia, the bulk of the trucking task, apart from the interstate movements which run right through the electorate, is carried by owner-operators. There are links that go back into the grain industry. Some might argue that the grain industry is short-haul; it is not necessarily. In fact, my farm is situated 240 kilometres from the port. Is a round trip a long haul? Is a second trip during the day a long haul? Is a primary product like wheat or milk that is en route to the supermarket because it is en route to the manufacturer along the way? There are so many unanswered questions for those people trying to run trucking businesses at the moment. One of the truckies I was talking to thought he was doing the right thing, but when he ran some sums on his business he concluded that his freight rate for trucking grain was going to have to increase by 25 per cent, which would immediately put him out of business. An extra few dollars to the grower means: 'We don't utilise that truckie. He's finished.' I have received reports from the trucking retail industry that their order books have just dried up and that some operators have cancelled orders for the delivery of new trucks. The uncertainty has meant that they have put them on hold until this is cleared up and they know they have a business into the future. They are the kinds of signals that tell us there is something terribly wrong with this ruling by the RSRT and, by extension, probably with the RSRT itself. It is dominated by people who have past union links. In fact, the head of it comes out of the ACTU. It is also an interesting read to look at their salary packages. There is somebody in the transport industry that is doing all right and certainly those Fair Work commissioners are among those, with salaries in excess of $400,000 a year. I lot of my truckies would dearly love to get their hands on that kind of money. They have used an ingenious method to pass the penalty on to the truckies. The fines are not actually aimed at the truckies; they are aimed at the people who utilise the truckies. While the truckie might think, 'I might take a risk' or 'I might do this or I might that;' in fact there is a very little they can do because their customer says to them, 'I can't afford to take a risk with you, so consider your services terminated.' That is exactly what has been happening. I have seen some truckies upset over the time. I talk to them regularly; a number of operators whom I go to for sage advice on the transport industry, particularly in South Australia. I have never seen them so crook on anything. They are beside themselves. I think back over a number of other issues they have come to me with and they have been grumpy, but I have never seen them like this. They have just said, 'This will destroy the industry.' We saw some of that passion out on the lawns in front of Parliament House this morning, with the truckies making the effort to come to Canberra. As I pointed out, one woman who came to the rally yesterday had made the very long trip from York Peninsula to Canberra. They know this is so important to the industry, and it is so important to my constituents. Anything that significantly drives up the freight rates in regional South Australia, significantly drives up the cost of living in South Australia. We are absolutely freight dependent. We pay freight on objects. We pay freight on the things we produce and sell. We pay freight on all of our inputs. We are absolutely dependent. As a past grain grower, I can tell you about the ever growing cost of freight into that final wheat cheque. It is hard to contemplate that it costs more to get my wheat down the road 200 kilometres than it costs to take it to the other side of the world once you have it on a boat. I am not saying in any way that we are being ripped off in the system; I do not think we are, as they all have expenses to meet. But the very idea that we would put a minimum price into the system that would raise that cost for everybody is an absolute threat to all of our businesses. With those remarks, I will round up. I am very pleased to hear that it sounds like we have the support to get this through the Senate. It might be worthwhile for those who supported it in the first place who have now changed their mind to contemplate how that came about, and maybe they might take more care over legislation that comes before them in the future. 18:13 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne Last month was the hottest March on record. But does the government bring us back here, summoning everyone from across the country for a special sitting of parliament, to debate the threat of climate change? No. People have lost their houses because rogue banks have been giving them advice that was actually in the bank's interest but not in the individual's interest. Does the government bring us back here asking, 'What can we do to make sure that people around this country are not getting ripped off by the banks?' No. The government says we must all come back for a special sitting of parliament, using a section of the Constitution that has not been used many times at all, because it wants to attack people's rights at work and the unions who represent people when they are in work. First up, it says that it so concerned about so-called corruption, but it does not want to establish a national federal independent commission against corruption or a national anticorruption watchdog; it would like a body that is able to look at one side of the political fence in one industry. And it says that we have to come back to debate the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation. Then, because it realises that that is actually a bit thin and that most people around the country, if you asked them, would not accept the proposition that the only place that wrongdoing and corruption exists in our society is there, it wants a national watchdog that looks into politicians and public servants, and looks into employers as well as, including employers like the company that bribed Saddam Hussein's regime. Instead, they come back in and say, 'Well, no. The next piece of legislation we want to pat out the agenda is one that will make our roads less safe and will remove people's rights at work when their workplace is the roads that we all share. What is this legislation that we are debating? What is it that we are being asked to repeal? We are being asked to repeal legislation that enshrines a pretty simple proposition: if you are working on our roads, which we all share, as a truck driver, then there should be minimum rates of pay that apply across the board and that do not just apply if you are an employee but they also apply if you are an owner-driver. There is a reason for that: if you look back over study after study, we know in an industry like this, like many others, that are characterised by lots of intermediate contracting chains, where there is often a large distance between the person who might receive the delivery or contract—they might be a supermarket, they might be Coles or Woolworths—and the person down the bottom who actually does the work. What happens is that every time you take a step down that contracting chain, the money and the reward goes up, and the risk and the pressure flows down. It ends up being the case that the person at the bottom of the chain is the one who is under the most pressure and told, 'I'll give you this job, but you have to deliver it in 12 hours time. I can't promise you that you won't be waiting a couple of hours before the job is loaded. But it's going to be your responsibility to get it there on time and, if you don't do it well, we're going to impose a penalty or you might not get paid at all.' What does that do? We know what it does. In this industry, there are a lot of people who spend a lot of time waiting without any payment at all for their goods to be loaded so that they can then do the delivery. What we know is that some of that waiting might stretch for as long as a whole shift of work and they do not get paid for it. But they are expected at the end of that long period of unpaid waiting time to be as bright as a button and deliver the load in what might be less time than they originally thought they might have to deliver it. What happens when you put that kind of pressure on people? When you put that kind of pressure on people, you don't have to be Einstein to work out that when someone takes to the road in a B-Double, a semitrailer—who is are not well rested, is under extraordinary pressure to deliver on time and is told by the person who is one step up the contracting chain, 'Well, if you don't do it, I'm sure I can find someone else who will'—people take risks that put themselves and other road users at risk. We know that, because study after study of Australian drivers has told us that. One 2001 study found that drivers who are paid in terms of the amount of work they did—at piece rates; so not being raid hourly rates—reported fatigue more often than drivers who are paid for the time that they were working. Another Australian study that was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2007 said: … the strongest predictors of drug use were payment based on the amount of work completed and fatigue reported as a major problem … The strong association of payment by results and low pay with drug use among Australian long-distance truck drivers is consistent with other research suggesting that economic factors are an important influence on health and safety in the workplace. Just to underline that: …economic factors are an important influence on health and safety in the workplace. That is why in response to that, legislation was passed through the last parliament which the Greens supported, because it makes our roads safer. There will be less pressure on people to drive when they are tired, less pressure on people to drive when they are on drugs and less pressure on people to drive when they are not well rested, if they are paid properly and there is a uniform floor that applies across the sector so it applies whether you are an employee or an owner-driver. That has been part of the problem up to now: for constitutional reasons, we have had the ability to regulate what employees do but we have not had, until this piece of legislation, the ability to regulate owner-drivers in the same way. If you have a floor underneath industries that are characterised by high levels of contracting out, like the cleaning industry or the textile industry, it means you cannot have a race to the bottom on the amount that people get paid. At the end of the day, that is what is the variable factor in a lot of these contracts that get signed. When you put a floor in, you stop that. There has been a lot of complaints where people have said: 'The people who are paying me aren't going to be able to afford this.'. To what extent have people asked and to what extent has there been an across-the-country push, including from the government, to say, 'It's the law and now we have to comply with it'? No, the government has not gone out and said, 'This is the law of the land now, and people are just going to have to work out how to incorporate this cost and potentially pass it onto consumers or customers at the end of the day. But there is going to be an increased cost as a result of increased wages—of course there has to be; you have to work out how to do it.' No. They have allowed—in fact, encouraged—people to come up here and, effectively, blackmail by saying, 'I'm told that I'm not going to get the contract, so you should repeal the legislation.' If there are problems with the order that the tribunal has made, if there are some legitimate concerns—and I have heard some concerns expressed, for example, that it applies the same rate of pay if you are delivering a full load as if you are delivering a half load. There is a simple solution to that: go back to the tribunal and ask them to fix the order. That is something the government could have done on any occasion. On any occasion the government could have gone back to the tribunal and said, 'We need to fix this, because there are some unintended consequences.' Instead, what we have is the government standing up in this place saying, 'Oh my word—did you realise there are several truck drivers out the front protesting? We should listen to them.' They do not tell the parliament that it was the employment minister, Senator Cash, who encouraged them to come up in the first place—who said, 'Come up and take industrial action. Come up to parliament. I know what the government would be saying if other people clocked off work to come up here and protest out the front of parliament—but this was one that was actually encouraged by the government itself. It is not well thought that there is a long history of partnership between Greens and truck drivers. I have not met many truck drivers who have been prepared to go to the barricades for their right to vote Greens. It is not a natural partnership, one might think. But this is a bill that we are prepared to defend because it is about the safety of those truck drivers. And, crucially, something we have to recognise is that roads are something that we all share. I would suggest that most people, if they are driving along the highway late at night, when all they can see are the headlights, and a truck is doing 100 kilometres an hour down the other side of the highway—and it might not be a dual carriageway; you might not be separated by that much at all—would want to know that that person driving the truck has been well rested. You want to know that that person is not under pressure to cut corners for the sake of a dollar but that they have safety as their paramount consideration. When you are taking the kids home from school and you are in a suburban street and there is a B-double next to you, as often happens in my electorate of Melbourne, you want to know that the person who is driving it has not been forced to wait 14 or 15 hours, unpaid waiting time, and then they have just got this load and have been forced to go and deliver it. It is good legislation that should stay. If there is a problem with the order, go back to the tribunal and ask them to fix it. The fact that the government's first response is to come here and abolish the legislation in toto tells you everything that you need to know about what we are going to see over the next few months. This government has never seen a right at work it did not want to strip away. And here we are being brought back again, and what is on the agenda? Not the big economic matters of this country, not the climate challenges that we are facing and not the social issues that many people want resolved, but union bashing, pure and simple—and expect to see a lot more of it. But, when it comes to protecting people's safety at work and protecting the safety of our roads, the Greens will stand steadfast, and so we oppose this bill. 18:24 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That standing order 133 (deferred divisions on Mondays and Tuesdays) be suspended until the conclusion of the consideration of the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 and the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016. I move that suspension motion so that we can move to a vote on the RSRT at the earliest convenience of the House. Question agreed to. 18:24 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the question be now put.

The House divided. [18:29]
(The Deputy Speaker—Mr Vasta)

 79 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Briggs, JE Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Jensen, DG Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 57 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP Katter, RC King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Palmer, CF Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 18:35 The SPEAKER 00APG The question now is that this bill be now read a second time.

The House divided. [18:36]
(The Deputy Speaker—Mr Vasta)

 84 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Briggs, JE Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Joyce, BT Katter, RC Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McGowan, C McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Palmer, CF Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Wilkie, AD Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 54 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.

 Third Reading 95 18:39 The SPEAKER 00APG Is leave granted for the third reading to be moved immediately? 18:39 Mr BURKE DYW Watson No, it is not. We want to have a consideration in detail stage. It is quite reasonable to be able to have it. This legislation did not reach the parliament until today. It is being gagged already. People are entitled to give five-minute speeches on it. 18:40 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the motion for the third reading being moved without delay. 18:40 Mr BURKE DYW Watson I am opposed to standing orders being suspended, and Labor is opposed to standing orders being suspended here. All we are saying is we should be allowed to put our case to the Parliament of Australia. But those members opposite believe that somehow they have the right to just ignore that, to come straight over the top. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D The question now is that the motion be agreed to. Mr BURKE DYW No, I am speaking in that debate. I am speaking in the debate. I have got the call. Mr Pyne 9V5 Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, on a point of order— Mr BURKE DYW He is upset that he sat down and forgot to give a speech— Mr Pyne 9V5 I move: That the Member be no longer heard. Mr BURKE DYW Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, on a point of order: it is just been argued that I did not have the call, so how can he move that I be no longer heard? You have to give me the call now that that has been stated and then, if he is upset, he can move that I be no longer heard—but he cannot move it if I do not have the call. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D I give the Manager of Opposition Business the call. Mr BURKE DYW Thank you. North Korea would be proud of the Leader of the House tonight! They would be really impressed. 18:41 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the question be now put. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the question be now put.

The House divided. [18:46]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 84 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Joyce, BT Katter, RC Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 57 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Palmer, CF Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 18:49 The SPEAKER 00APG The question now is that the motion moved by the Leader of the House to suspend standing orders be agreed to.

The House divided. [18:51]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 82 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 58 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP Katter, RC King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD McGowan, C Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Palmer, CF Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 18:52 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG No, the member for Gorton will resume his seat. The motion requires the third reading be put immediately without debate. A division having been called and the bells being/having been rung— The SPEAKER 00APG I appoint the same tellers as per the previous division. Again, if members would remain in their seats during successive divisions, it would be helpful. If they did not vote in the previous division or are changing their vote, they should report to the tellers. Those who have changed their seats or come into the chamber: could they report to the tellers.

The House divided. [18:54]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 85 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Joyce, BT Katter, RC Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ Nikolic, AA O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Smith, ADH Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Wilkie, AD Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 55 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Palmer, CF Parke, M Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 18:55 The SPEAKER 00APG (In division) If members have changed sides or come into the chamber, they need to report to the tellers and indicate to the tellers— Mr Whiteley 207800 And they have. The SPEAKER 00APG and they have. Members cannot move now. Mr Burke interjecting— Mr Pyne interjecting— Mr Albanese interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Members should not move around during—let's be very clear about this. This is a matter for the tellers to be satisfied that people have reported to them. Mr Burke interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG As I have said, this is a matter for the tellers to satisfy themselves. I am not going to take interjections on the subject. Mr Perrett interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Moreton! The Clerk is conversing with the tellers, as you know. Mr Burke DYW Point of order, Mr Speaker. There has been a breach of the counting rules that have been carried by this House by the government whips. And this is a serious point of order, because the whips have put you in this position, Mr Speaker, and you have simply reported to the House what they have given you, but the numbers you have reported in terms of how many people have voted on the government side are not signed off on or agreed to in any way by the opposition whips. They are in direct contradiction to the rules that have been put in place by the Leader of the House. We did not like those rules when they were brought in, but the rules are: unless someone leaves their chair in an orderly way—they cannot do it in a disorderly way, which would put an obligation on you to consider naming them or removing them from the House—during the period when the doors are open, they must come up and report to the whips. We know that only happened with the member for Kennedy, and yet the count has changed by three. That is not possible as an outcome under the rules we have. Standing order 129 has been changed in this term of parliament. Standing order 129 now says: (c) Upon the doors being locked, the Speaker shall:       (i) state the question to the House;       (ii) direct the Members voting ‘Aye’ to move to the right side of the Chair, and the Members voting ‘No’ to move to the left; and       (iii) appoint tellers for each side. (d) No Member may move from his or her place from the commencement of the count until the result of that division is announced. Unfortunately crossbench members, told to do so by the government whip, were put in an impossible position as well, where all that had to happen was that your ruling be followed. As a result of your ruling being ignored by the government whips, you have now been put in a situation where the count you have reported is in direct contradiction to the standing orders. I ask you, Mr Speaker, to confirm what I have described as having happened and, if so, to ask the government whips to adjust the count. We have had occasions under this new rule where some people on the government side have left the room altogether, but when it is a one-minute division they still get counted as though they were still here. That is not a particularly democratic procedure. But it is how the House has voted to work and how it therefore operates. What just happened there was in direct contradiction to the standing orders that we have. I simply ask that you ask the whips to advise you in accordance with the standing orders, because otherwise they have put you in an impossible situation under standing orders 129, 132 and 131(b)(i). The SPEAKER 00APG I will hear from the Leader of the House. Mr Pyne 9V5 Mr Speaker, I do not want to delay the House unnecessarily and I do not want to delay you unnecessarily in sending messages to the Senate, but quite clearly the Manager of Opposition Business is trying on a juvenile pathetic debating point. The custom has become in this place over time that tellers need to be satisfied that someone has reported to them. Over the last few years— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Denison will resume his seat. He will not stand in the House. Mr PYNE 9V5 when these rules have been in place, the custom has become to catch the eye of the teller, to indicate that they have come into the chamber and that they are sitting on a particular side of the House. That has been the custom. It happens on every occasion. It is very rare for a member to come all the way to the tellers and tell them they have come into the chamber or changed their vote. Every member of the House knows that that is very regular. Ms Ryan interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG I am hearing a point of order. The member for Lalor will resume her seat. Mr PYNE 9V5 It is very regular for members to come into the House and wave at the tellers and say: 'I have arrived' or 'I have changed my vote; I am moving to the other side'—usually the crossbenchers in fact from that part of the chamber. So this is a pathetic try-on. Obviously the record should reflect the votes in the House of Representatives, and clearly the members for Kennedy, Denison and Indi indicated that they wanted to vote with the government on this bill. That is how they voted and that is what should be recorded. The SPEAKER 00APG I am going to hear from the member for Denison on a point of order. I am not going to hear endless points of order. Mr Wilkie C2T Mr Speaker, to assist the House, I can explain to the members exactly what happened. Before the doors were closed, I moved. I was careful to indicate to the member for Braddon that I had moved. I also indicated to the member for Braddon that the member for Indi had moved. He clearly recognised and understood what I had brought to his attention. So I cannot see why there is any problem here—other than perhaps drawing attention to the fact that I am wearing the South Hobart football— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Denison will resume his seat. Mr Burke interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG No. The Manager of Opposition Business has had a go. He can resume his seat, and I will let the Leader of the House and the member for Grayndler have a go.   I just want to address the point of order. I am entitled to do that. The reporting of the vote is a matter for the tellers. I have not made a ruling; I have reported what the tellers have given me. I have heard the Manager of Opposition Business. But the tellers report the result to me as Speaker, and I report it to the House. That is quite clear. I have not made a ruling; I have reported the vote to the House. That is what I have done. The other point I would make is that how members report to the tellers is a matter for the tellers, not a matter for me. I have patiently listened. I am not going to take further points of order on this issue. Mr Burke DYW Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The SPEAKER 00APG Briefly? Mr Burke DYW Briefly. Standing order 132 is there to deal with exactly this situation. Because of the arguments that were happening in the course of the division it is true that members, in a disorderly way, moved from their seats, which none of us are allowed to do. But that did happen in front of us all. Standing order 132 simply allows the division to occur again. That standing order has been put there for exactly this reason. I would simply ask you, Mr Speaker, for it to be used. The reason is that we should not have a situation where the government whips can report whatever number they feel like and the House has no recourse. Standing order 132 allows us to do it again. Mr Christensen interjecting— Mr Pasin interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Dawson will cease interjecting! The member for Barker will cease interjecting! Standing order 132 does provide for a division where there has been confusion. I think the sensible course of action is we will adopt standing order 132(a). I will call a division for four minutes and I would ask the tellers to do a full count. In accordance with standing order 132(a), the question is that the bill be now read a third time.

The House divided. [19:13]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 85 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KL Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Joyce, BT Katter, RC Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McGowan, C McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Wilkie, AD Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 53 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.

 BILLS 103 BILLS Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016 103

Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016

Second Reading 103 19:17 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I move: That the motion be put. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the motion be put.

The House divided. [19:15]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 81 AYES Abbott, AJ Alexander, JG Andrews, KL Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broad, AJ Broadbent, RE Brough, MT Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coleman, DB Coulton, M (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Griggs, NL Hartsuyker, L Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Henderson, SM Hendy, PW Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Hutchinson, ER Irons, SJ Joyce, BT Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Laundy, C Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF McNamara, KJ Morrison, SJ O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Pasin, A Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Prentice, J Price, ML Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Robert, SR Roy, WB Scott, BC Scott, FM Simpkins, LXL Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Sudmalis, AE Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Van Manen, AJ Varvaris, N Vasta, RX Whiteley, BD (teller) Wicks, LE Williams, MP Wilson, RJ Wood, JP Zimmerman, T 54 NOES Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Brodtmann, G Burke, AE Burke, AS Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Collins, JM Conroy, PM Danby, M Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Feeney, D Ferguson, LDT Fitzgibbon, JA Giles, AJ Gray, G Griffin, AP Hall, JG (teller) Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jones, SP Katter, RC King, CF Leigh, AK Macklin, JL Marles, RD Mitchell, RG Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neil, CE Owens, J Perrett, GD Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Thistlethwaite, MJ Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 19:24 The SPEAKER 00APG Is leave granted for the third reading to be moved immediately? Mr Burke DYW Once again, we support this bill, but we want there to be an in detail stage. Leave not granted. Consideration in Detail 104 19:24 Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR 00AN3 Gorton This is an important bill. It is a bill that, if enacted, will delay an order made by the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. This tribunal was established in order to ensure that there was a proper examination of the correlation between, on the one hand, rates of pay for owner-drivers, for employees who drive heavy vehicles, and, on the other hand, the incidents of fatality or injury on our roads. On this side of the chamber, we believe that there are concerns with respect to the order. We just voted against the proposition to abolish the tribunal. If we are serious about taking what is an unprecedented step to, in effect, by way of parliament, delay an order that is made by an independent statutory body—the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal—then I think it is incumbent upon the government of the day, the executive government, to explain exactly why this has to be done. For example, why there was no effort made by the government to make submissions to the tribunal in order to ensure that the merits of the case, whatever they may be, were put on behalf of the government. As you know, the government has a capacity, pursuant to the authority of the Minister for Employment, to intervene in matters that are before a number of statutory bodies including the Fair Work Commission and, indeed, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. We would have thought that if the government was serious about the consideration of this matter, then rather than seeking to entirely abolish the system and trash the tribunal, the Commonwealth last year, before the order was made, would have sought to intervene and make a submission indicating its views on those matters. We have had none of that. In fact, in August or September last year in this place, the former Deputy Prime Minister—the former minister for transport, Mr Warren Truss—indicated that there was no intention by the government to abolish the tribunal. He said so at that dispatch box in answer to a question. Indeed, subsequently other members of the Nationals also said that they were not in pursuit of the abolition of the tribunal. Nonetheless, they have now voted to abolish it; however, we do have to deal with this order. Labor does consider that this matter (1) is serious and that (2) the order does, in some cases, illustrate a lack of regard for issues that have been raised by some owner-drivers. For that reason I have made clear, after speaking with not only the Australian Trucking Association and the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters' Association but also the Transport Workers Union, that Labor would want to sit down with the parties, examine the legitimate concerns of owner-drivers in this matter, and see if we can forge a compromise in order to consider the real concerns of all affected parties. Unfortunately, that has not happened here today. That has not happened because the Prime Minister, in search of an agenda, elevated this matter and sought to trash the tribunal. This House has just passed a bill to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, and we would say, 'That was the wrong approach.' What would be the right approach is to now consider the manner and form of the order and look to see whether it can be mended. Our view is that that would have been the better approach. In relation to this order—it is an order that would 'delay until 1 January next year'—we would like to understand what that means. In particular, if the bill in relation to the tribunal that just passed this chamber failed to pass the other chamber, we would ask the government of the day to explain what they would be seeking to do with respect to the order—I will finish in a minute; I will not be taking up the full five minutes of this allocation at least—if indeed we are left with a tribunal in its place, an order that is delayed and yet no real certainty for the industry. The best way to have dealt with this matter, we believe, would have been to convene a meeting of all representatives of the trucking industry. No-one doubts the difficulties confronting truck drivers. Long-haul truck driving in particular is a very tough job. For those who have their own businesses, it can be very difficult. Some of the onerous contracts that they have to enter into to make ends meet are, quite frankly, very unfair. We believe that the system has really been against many owner-drivers because of the manner in which some of the large players in this industry—that is, those that are seeking the provision of truck driving, the large companies that rely on truck driving—have driven down the genuine capacity of truck drivers to enter into contracts that are fair. As a result of that, we believe that, just because the government seeks to abolish the tribunal and just because it seeks to delay the order, that will not fix all the problems in the trucking industry. Even if these two bills were to pass the Senate, that would not end the problems confronting this industry. Even in those conversations that I have had with those peak bodies—even those bodies that may want to see the success of both of these bills—nobody believes that the issues confronting the trucking industry will somehow disappear as a result of what happens in the parliament this week. There are fatigue issues. There are issues in relation to the payment of contracts. You have owner-drivers who are not getting paid, well after they have finished their trips. You have providers not being paid by the larger retailers in time to pay their owner-drivers. There is a whole combination of issues. We also understand, in relation to the order, that there are issues with it. Having listened to the Australian Trucking Association and, indeed, also having listened to the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters' Association, we are of the view that this order should be reconsidered. There are two ways for that to happen. It could happen by way of the tribunal. I understand that the TWU made application today in the tribunal to delay the order, and that was not opposed by any of the employer bodies. The AiG, ACCI, NatRoad and the livestockers were not opposed to that application to put on hold the operation of the long-distance rate. Indeed, as I understand it, Linfox and other drivers appeared around the country positively supporting that position. The reason that there should be a delay to the order is that we believe that following matters such as back loads and split loads; the client accountability to ensure that all employers are paid enough to pay their drivers, whether they are employee drivers or owner-drivers; the rise-and-fall formula to deal with the fluctuations in fuel price; and the maximum 30-day payments for all transport operators are really significant matters that will not be fixed by the success of these bills here or in the Senate. We need to sit down and deal with these matters. A real leader would not be just trying to abolish a tribunal and delay a matter, to kick this down the road. If Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, were interested in this issue in a genuine sense, he would convene a meeting and discuss those matters that I have just raised in relation to what affects owner-drivers and what makes it difficult for them. It would be a Pyrrhic victory for those who want to see the end of the tribunal and an order if we were left with no decent way to deal with fatigue and deal with the excessive driving which leads to deaths on our roads. I ask the government to respond to those issues because I think it is serious. They should take it seriously. Certainly Labor does. That is why we have discussed it with all parties and not just with one. (Time expired) 19:35 Ms MARINO HWP Forrest I rise to strongly support the abolition of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal and to support the cognate bill. I also write to support the thousands and thousands of men and women who are owner-drivers in Australia, around 35,000 of them, particularly the owner-drivers who still have customers, who are out there working right now. For those whose trucks are parked up waiting for the abolition of this tribunal, the coalition government have prioritised this legislation to get you back on the road as soon as we possibly can. I want to personally apologise to each and every one of you who has been vilified by the Labor members opposite. Some of the comments have been absolutely disgusting. I can tell you that I am proud to represent you here in the Australian parliament. I respect the work you do, your professionalism and the passion you have for your industry, your business, your family and your local communities. My father was an owner-driver all his life. His first truck was a 1948 Diamond T. His second truck was an International BCF180, which he drove for 37 years. My family still has both of those trucks. The Diamond is in mint condition, and the BCF could do a day's work every day. Why? It is because my dad was committed to the safety and maintenance of his trucks. His life depended on that maintenance every day. For my brother and I, who were frequently with him in the truck, our lives depended on that maintenance. And my father, like other owner-drivers, wanted to get home safely every night and see community members get home safely to their families every day as well. My father loved his trucks with a passion. They were his pride and joy. When he and my mother bought their house block in Brunswick, he did the earthworks but built the shed first because the trucks needed to be under cover. He loved his trucks, and he loved the work he was able to do with them. It was all about the job—just like all the great owner-drivers I have met recently. They take great pride in their rigs and their work. They just want to get on with their job, and that is what we are helping them to do. Like many of the drivers I have met recently, my father donated his time, his machinery and his expertise to countless local projects. My brother, Lindsay, like every owner-driver I know, is committed to the maintenance and safety of his truck. He is out on the road right now. He is the second generation in our family in this industry, and his son Shane is the third generation. Lindsay, like many owner-drivers, does his own maintenance. He started as a mechanic. Others, like Shane, started as heavy duty mechanics. In the time that I have left I want to thank all the drivers who have been part of the convoy to Canberra, including those I met recently who have already closed their businesses and are trying to sell their trucks. One man has already closed his business because of the order and has his trucks on the market. He told me he has put drivers off because he knew he would never be able to sell his trucks when so many owner-drivers were going out of business because of the order. One of the owner-drivers has had to put his house on the market as well. I want to thank all of the drivers—the men and women and their families—who have rallied to say no to the order and no to the RSRT. These are the people who simply want to get on with what my father did: start a small trucking business; put a roof over their family's heads; feed, clothe and educate their children; and help their local community. I want to thank Mark Talbot, Mark Sullivan, Stephen and Frank Marley, Shannon Dawson, John Mitchell, Darren Power, Baden Mills, Wayne Copeland and Jan Cooper of the Livestock and Rural Transport Association. These people are all part of the crew who were in Perth last week. I want to thank Lodehaul and especially Raquel Moulds, who has worked so hard to help save the industry and was part of the convoy-to-Canberra crew. I want to thank all of those who fronted up at parliament today. I will quote some of the words of Mark Sullivan, from Cunerdin, who said: As a rural transporter who gives a level of service so that we can get repeat business every season, all of a sudden— because of this order— we can't negotiate a reasonable rate to backload or look after our customers' needs. That is exactly what the owner-drivers are about: looking after their customers' needs. Mark also said: You will have to apply the minimum break both ways and what will happen is the price ourselves out of the market and customers will look elsewhere may lead to an operator who isn't caught up in the order. That is exactly the way it is. The complexity of the order, with owner-drivers unable to interpret the order without having to seek some form of legal advice, is another layer of red tape that these small businesses do not need. I support these fantastic owner-drivers in Australia and I am proud to represent them in this place. 19:40 Mr SNOWDON IJ4 Lingiari The seat of Lingiari is unique in this place in the sense that the trucking industry is the lifeblood of the community. Whether you are talking about live cattle exports, the mining industry, servicing Aboriginal communities or the tourism industry, without the trucking industry the place would grind to a dead halt. I have spoken about the trucking industry in the Northern Territory and across Australia previously in this place and I have indicated very strongly my support for the work they do—not only those people who are employees of major trucking companies but also the owner-drivers. Indeed, in a debate in this place in 2006 I read from a Transport Workers Union submission to an inquiry. In that submission they said: Owner-drivers are single vehicle operations the vast majority of which perform work exclusively for a single transport operator (principal contractor). Owner-drivers are highly dependent upon those with whom they contract. They said that owner-drivers are price-takers in the marketplace and that: This dependence leads to inequality of bargaining power and the associated potential for exploitation. That exploitation of owner drivers in the transport industry, of course, results in industrial instability, higher than average rates of bankruptcy and road transport accidents, and in the debate today we have heard examples that highlight the importance of understanding the relationship between people who are pressured as owner-drivers and road accidents. But we do not oppose this particular bill, because this is what the Transport Workers Union and others have been seeking to do: to delay the implementation of this order to allow people to discuss the significant number of issues that need to be talked about. That is what an informed leader would have done. Instead of rushing to judgement about the tribunal itself and abolishing it, he would have come into this place and said, 'Let's have a discussion about how we can defer the implementation of the order and sit down with all the participants in the trucking industry.' The owner-drivers, the TWU, the major trucking companies, ACCI, the Road Transport Association—you name it—could have sat down to discuss issues such as backloads, split loads, client accountability to ensure all employers are paid enough to pay their drivers, whether an employee or owner-driver, a rise and fall formula to deal with fluctuations in the fuel price, and maximum 30-day payments for all transport operators. These are very important things that need to be discussed, and it is very clear that the owner-drivers who are in the industry need to be guaranteed an opportunity to have their views properly expressed and heard in a way that delivers a result for them. I am not sure that the abolition of the tribunal will, by itself, deliver a result of them. It is a very hasty political decision. We have been brought back to this place because we were told there were very important pieces of legislation to be discussed in the other place. We heard the Governor-General's speech this morning. It did not address this particular issue, yet now we find ourselves in this place discussing the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016 and the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016 and having the debate gagged. What a travesty! The trucking industry of the Northern Territory and the people of the Northern Territory want to know what I think about this, but I have been told by the government that my right to speak has been gagged and that I cannot participate in the substantive debate. I have to use the ruse of this particular part of proceedings to be able to make a small contribution.   Let's be very, very clear: the backbone of the Northern Territory economy is very much in the hands of the trucking industry. Those people involved are long haul drivers, who are involved in much of the work that happens in the Northern Territory transporting cattle from properties in the Northern Territory to markets in the south and transporting cattle to the wharf at Darwin for live cattle export. All of the food that comes to the Northern Territory from Adelaide to Darwin is on long haul transport. Fuel that comes across to the Northern Territory is brought on long haul transport. These are very, very important things. I express my strong support for the trucking industry. (Time expired) 19:45 Mr HASTIE 260805 Canning I rise today to wholeheartedly support the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill. I stand with the many owner-operator truck drivers around Australia who oppose the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal's harmful and punitive measures that, left unchecked, will destroy many small trucking businesses across this great country. The Turnbull government stand shoulder to shoulder with small business. We stand for free enterprise. We stand for government that does not get in the way of everyday Australians earning an honest living. Government policy should make life easier for Australians, not harder. Today, once again, we find ourselves under the very long policy shadow of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. After almost three years in government and long after the pink batt fires have burned out, the coalition are still triaging the policy failures of the Labor government. Today, we are abolishing from Australian law the punitive 2016 payments order that came into effect on the fourth day of this month—and we are abolishing it not a moment too soon. The payments order—under the sneaky guise of road safety—sets mandatory minimum pay rates on a per-kilometre and hourly basis for contractor drivers working either in supermarket distribution or long distance operations. The 2016 payments order targets small trucking operators who service regional areas of the country and smaller independent supermarkets. What does this mean in the here and now for owner-operator truck drivers? It means we have an unnecessary tribunal creating uncertainty and damage to a vital industry in this country. It means that tens of thousands of owner-drivers across Australia will be priced out of the market and forced to close. It means that small independently owned supermarkets such as the many IGAs in Canning will have to pay more for their delivery costs as they absorb the economic costs of owner-operator truckies going out of business. That is right: small businesses in regional areas will have to pay more for the delivery of stock and goods to their shop floors. This is bad policy for owner-operator truckies and it is bad for the regional small businesses that rely upon their services. Let's consider the human cost for a minute. I spoke last week with an owner-operator in the city of Canning by the name of Glen Morris. Glen lives in Serpentine, which is in the shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale. It is one of the fastest growing local government areas in this country. It is aspirational. Glen is 62 years of age and he recently invested in a truck valued at $400,000. He has operated his own truck business for 30 to 35 years. He has two employees. He drives about 200,000 kilometres per year and spends $15,000 on fuel each month and $1,200 on services for his truck every six weeks. He pays licence and registration fees of $15,000 per year. He spends another $10,000 on tyres every year. His insurance is about $8,000 per year. His accreditation and permits are about $1,500 per year. All of these costs are before he even factors in super or wages for himself. The tribunal would make it more difficult for him to get ahead. It would make it more difficult for him to compete in this market. The government should be helping people like Glen, not harming their economic livelihood. Why was this road safety remuneration system introduced in 2012? Apparently it was for road safety. But two separate reviews, one by PricewaterhouseCoopers and one by Jaguar Consulting, have debunked this idea. Even Labor's own regulatory analysis completed at the time that the system was introduced acknowledged that insufficient evidence was available linking road safety and remuneration. So why then was it introduced? The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal members were appointed by the now Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, an esteemed member of the union aristocracy in this country. On the tribunal we have former Labor senator and former president of the Transport Workers Union Steve Hutchins—a fellow union comrade. The president of the tribunal, Jennifer Acton, is a former ACTU official—another union member. You do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to see union fingerprints and union DNA all over the RSRT policy framework. It is a cash grab at the cost of small business in this country. It is that simple. The Turnbull government opposes the RSRT for very good reason. It is anti small business, it is anti free enterprise and it compromises the economic security of many Australians. That is why I commend the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill to the House. 19:50 Mr MARLES HWQ Corio I stand here this evening as a proud former federal assistant secretary of the Transport Workers Union. I have heard a lot of discussion from the other side about representing owner-drivers. It is worth making the point that when I was the federal assistant secretary of the TWU—and I do not know if it is any different now—the proportion of the membership of the TWU that were owner-drivers was about a third. Owner-drivers comprise a significant number of people represented by the TWU because they have a particular need in what is a very dangerous industry. Owner-drivers not only deal with all the effective issues that employees in an industry deal with; they also bear the risk of running their truck. In the long distance industry that is a significant investment indeed. Because of the danger of this industry and the fact that you do not earn a lot of money in transport, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was a really important piece of public policy which sought to bring safety into an industry which is one of the most—if not the most—dangerous industries within the Australian economy. Twelve times the national average is the death rate experienced in the road transport industry. We support this specific bill which seeks to delay the implementation of this order until 1 January next year. It does so that there can be a whole lot of further consultation, which is really important, around the details surrounding the content of this order—issues such as back loads and split loads and the rise-and-fall formula, which deals with the fluctuations in the fuel price. I could go on. But rather than dealing with the legislation in this way, we ought to be leaving this to the parties. The parties, right now, are talking about exactly these issues: AIG, ACCI, the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation, NatRoad and the livestockers are all talking with the TWU about such a delay. Indeed, the TWU has made an application to the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal to see a delay in the operation of this order so that precisely the kind of consultation which is envisaged under this bill can occur. That is how it ought to be. It goes to the very fundamental point about why the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is playing such an important role in this industry: it is bringing parties together to discuss the issue of safety and come up with a structure of payment within this industry that promotes the safe cartage of goods around Australia. That is what is occurring. What we will see with the abolition of the RSRT, through the previous bill that went through this chamber, is, literally, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. All those conversations which are about promoting safety by virtue of the existence of this tribunal do not happen, or they do not happen in quite the same way. The idea which is being perpetuated on the other side of this House that there is no credible link between remuneration and safety in the road transport industry, frankly, beggars belief. The PricewaterhouseCoopers review of the road safety remuneration system makes it absolutely clear there is a connection. You can go to back to a Senate inquiry from 2000, which produced Beyond the midnight oil, which looked at the way in which this industry was structured, the existence of low hourly rates and the existence of trip rates that encouraged people to drive long hours and to drive in ways which, ultimately, made safety on the roads difficult to maintain and created danger for the entire public. Now, again, I know this firsthand, having run the 2002 reasonable hours case at the ACTU, where it was identified that road transport, and particularly long-distance driving, was one of the hot spots in the Australian economy in terms of long hours being worked and unsafe practices as a result. They are not only unsafe practices in respect of those drivers but they are also unsafe practices in respect of the Australian public. Over a decade we have seen literally thousands of people killed as a result of trucking accidents. It is why the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was so important, it is why we supported it on this side of the House and it is why the government's stance, in opposing it, is an utter disgrace. 19:55 Mrs McNAMARA 241589 Dobell I rise to support the 62,000 owner-drivers impacted by the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal's payment order. In providing my support to owner-drivers, I acknowledge the approximately 1,700 Dobell based owner-drivers who face financial ruin due to this heartless payment order. To the owner-drivers of Australia, this government stands with you in its resolve to see not only this payment order delayed but also for the repeal of the road safety remuneration system. Since it commenced operation, the RSRT has made two enforceable orders. The second order is the controversial Contractor Driver Minimum Payments Road Safety Remuneration Order 2016. No-one would ever dispute that road safety is vitally important, but what is disputed is the correlation between higher remuneration and safety. With regard to the safety argument put forward as justification for this order, NatRoad recently commented: The TWU cites safety as a requirement for this order as they quote the number of deaths on the road as proof. If you were to delve into the statistics I guarantee more than 90% of the crashes they think will stop after RSRT begins, involve drivers not caught under the order, eg. The infamous Mona Vale fuel tanker crash would not have come under the order for two reasons, 1. Employed driver and 2. Fuel transport. NatRoad further stated: To an owner driver it's more than a job it's a profession that is of their highest priority to carry out safely. Despite Labor identifying from their own regulatory analysis that the regulatory costs associated with their proposed road safety remuneration system outweighed any benefits and concluding there was no clear demonstrated link between remuneration and safety, they still went ahead and introduced the road safety remuneration system. Already we are witnessing the impact of this order on small business operators around Australia, including in my electorate of Dobell. Don Robb, an owner-operator, contacted me about this order. Not only is Don concerned about his own business, he is also extremely concerned for his son. Like many families involved in the trucking industry, sons and daughters of owner-operators follow their parents' career. Don's son has a near-new $350,000 Kenworth and three near-new road train trailers, all on finance. He has had his business for nearly 10 years. He can be away from home for up to eight weeks at a time. Owner-drivers, as it stands, cannot do part-loads and have to cart what the RSRT calculates is the price; if they do not, there can be heavy penalties. If this order goes ahead, Don's son, along with thousands of other owner-drivers, will be bankrupt. Because of this, many of them are now suffering depression and are suicidal. While Don is concerned about the impact of this order on his own livelihood, he is concerned about his children and their families—just as many others carry that additional burden of concern about their children and families. Don was so incensed with the heartlessness of this order he contacted the Leader of the Opposition directly. I share with the House a heartfelt plea of a father concerned for his son, a plea no doubt shared by all concerned families of Australian owner-drivers impacted by this order: My son is one-truck operator who road trains to and from Perth to the Eastern states—you are putting him out of business, all he wants to do is go to work, feed his family, pay his taxes and do the right thing, his mental health was perfect until this owner drivers order came into effect. I am very concerned about his well fair. I'm not sure whether he is suicidal or homicidal, if anything happens to him I will hold you personally responsible. Please have another look—Don Robb. Yvonne and James Taylor operate Taylor Transport. Yvonne has grown up in and around the transport industry as the daughter of and now the wife of an interstate truck driver. The Taylors have successfully operated their own transport business for almost 10 years. Yvonne is very aware of how the industry operates and understands firsthand how hard these men and women work, the long hours they put in and the extensive time away from their families—the families who fiercely support them to earn a living, doing a job they enjoy and want to do with professional integrity. The Taylors, like many others in this industry, are now—and I quote Yvonne—facing 'what has become the fight of our lives'. Yvonne shared with me this quote from a fellow transport operator: 'This order drives a dagger through the heart of Australia on a scale never seen before.' In Yvonne's words: 'That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell, as does the often seen bumper sticker "Without trucks Australia stops". All we want to do is keep Australia moving.' The Robbs and the Taylors are everyday hardworking Australians who represent the backbone of this country. They ask for nothing but the opportunity to go about their business and provide for their families. Already there are documented cases of drivers being denied work by the larger logistic companies. This is a mess created by Bill Shorten and this is a mess that we want to fix. I commend this bill to the House. (Time expired) 20:00 Mr HAYES ECV Fowler I recall in 2012 being at Uncle Leo's Roadhouse. It is at the crossroads near my electorate when I was the member for Werriwa. When I was there I was talking to a lot of the drivers. One driver was very agitated. He was on his mobile phone; he was making a series of phone calls. He eventually told me that he was going to take a load in his B-double truck back to Brisbane. As I said, this guy was very agitated. He said, 'I am going to get only the price of the fuel that it takes to get there.' He was trying to negotiate getting back to Brisbane. He went back for the price of the fuel in the truck. There was nothing for maintenance and nothing for his labour, just for the fuel in the truck. Those opposite want to talk about the price of labour or the price of a job. I do not know how much fuel goes into a B-double, but that is all he got to take that load to Brisbane. We ought to understand what this tribunal is about. It was certainly giving some fairness and decency in terms of the rates at which truck drivers are remunerated. It ensured that they were not cutting corners because of the rates they are paid, were not reduced to taking No-Doz to keep themselves awake at night, were not doctoring the log books and were not interrupting the speed regulators on the vehicle. There is a good reason for that. It is worthwhile trying to ensure people do not do that because those in the long-haul road industry are 12 times more likely to die than those in any other industry in this country. It is an unsafe industry. We must ensure that they take every step to have the appropriate and proper practices, because when there is an accident involving a heavy vehicle—and it is very tragic if someone loses their life or is maimed when driving a heavy vehicle—invariably it is going to involve somebody else and that could be any other road user. That was the whole genesis for ensuring safe rates were struck. As a matter of fact, when safe rates were struck the then member for Hinkler, who had been very much a supporter of that, as I have told the current member for Hinkler on many occasions, said: 'We have had a series of inquiries going back 10 or 11 years—one of which I actually chaired—talking about fair rates and fair reward for working.' Two things were happening: companies where there were employees were taking more overtime than they could reasonably handle and owner-drivers were being set unrealistic limits. That should not be a foreign concept to those opposite. Do not forget that midway through last year the then small business minister, Bruce Billson, announced to the House, proudly, that they were setting up a code of conduct to protect farmers from being screwed down in terms of their price by Coles and Woolworths. So we were going to protect farmers. It is good that we do because people like Cobby ought to be protected. The truth is that they need an external arrangement to be able to do it. The same applies in road transport. It is conceded that, in terms of their purchasing power particularly in the retailing sector, Coles and Woolworths are capable of screwing down the rates. You all know the number of trucking businesses that are being wound up. That fellow I saw that day took a truckload of produce back to Brisbane for the price of fuel. I do not think that business is going to go too well. This was designed to be able to set reasonable rates, setting a floor and helping people in that arrangement. To simply come and turn over the decision—and I can understand why it should be delayed—and throw the baby out with the bathwater, to throw out that element that actually lends some fairness and decency to the remuneration system, I think is reprehensible. (Time expired) 20:05 Mr TRUSS GT4 Wide Bay When the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal bill was introduced into parliament I said in February 2012: If I could find a way to legislate to eliminate tragedies on the road, and the sufferings of families and the loss of livelihoods associated with road accidents, I would support it enthusiastically. The reality is though the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal could make no contribution to safety by simply raising pay. If you really believe that higher pay is going to eliminate the accidents then why not put up the price of coal so there would be fewer accidents in the coal industry? There are a lot of people dying in farm accidents. If we legislate to double the price of wheat, would we expect that that would somehow reduce the toll? The reality is there is no connection. Of course if a driver is under pressure—whether that comes from troubles in the home, financial difficulties, his worries about his timetable or his concentration on the football or the music on his radio—he is not going to be as safe as somebody else who is paying attention to the road and to the wheel. There is a link between stress and safety, but you cannot fix that simply by paying higher rates. Indeed, the RSRT itself has added to the stress of so many drivers over recent weeks because it has chosen to pay some drivers more than others. This is not a way to resolve the issue. Indeed, the then government's own regulatory impact statement for the bill said, on page 4: Speed and fatigue are often identified as the primary cause for a crash but it is a much harder task to prove that drivers were speeding because of the manner or quantum of their remuneration. It went on to say: … data at this point in time is limited and being definitive around the causal link between rates and safety is difficult. There was never any causal link established between pay rates and safety. Indeed, a report by the New South Wales RTA into road traffic accidents found that heavy vehicle drivers were at fault for only 31 per cent of the fatal crashes involving a heavy vehicle—only 31 per cent. What are we going to do to the pay of the people who are at fault in the other 69 per cent of accidents? A clear link has just never been established. The legislation was introduced by the then Minister for Infrastructure and Transport because he had responsibility for road safety. But, within two weeks, Labor introduced 64 amendments to their own legislation, amendments that they had not consulted with the industry on or informed the then opposition of until a few hours beforehand. By the time we got to that stage, it was the minister for workplace relations, the current Leader of the Opposition, who was in fact running the bill. This exposed, absolutely, that even Labor did not believe that remuneration had anything to do with safety. It was all about a pay-off to the Transport Workers Union, a union that had donated generously to the Labor funds, a part-owner of the ALP with the rest of the trade union movement. Some of the members of the Labor Party actually depended on the Transport Workers Union for their own endorsement. The reality was that this was a pay-off to their union mates. It is very similar to what they did for the MUA with the maritime legislation—another piece of legislation that has proved to be disgracefully flawed and failed to do anything to maintain jobs in the Australian shipping industry. I am pleased that the House has passed the bill to repeal the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. We now need to also proceed to pass the legislation to get rid of the maritime legislation that Labor passed. Clearly, while tragedies on the road are very damaging to the Australian economy, they are very, very damaging to our social life and to the families of those involved in them. We need to look realistically at what causes traffic accidents and do what we can to resolve them. It needs to be remembered that the road toll for truck drivers has been in steady decline now, and it was in steady decline before the RSRT was invented. The RSRT has made no contribution to safety. This House must at least delay its current disastrous ruling. In reality, the RSRT serves no useful purpose. There are plenty of other laws about safety in Australia. We do not need the RSRT, and it should be abolished. 20:11 Ms McGOWAN 123674 Indi Tonight I add my voice in support of the government on these two pieces of important legislation. I would like to acknowledge the many members of my electorate who have spent hours working with my office, communicating with my office and making sure that I could come to this place and represent their views. I would like to say to Peeter Ling, Simone and Scott Lewis, Jess Hinde, Anthony Glass, Geoff and Ann Prudames, Matthew Walker, Matthew and Nicole Battocchco, Kellie Boland, Leonie Jackson and all the other people who have written to my office: thank you. I draw attention in particular to a letter I received from Kevin Keenan, who is from the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association. Kevin caught up with me at the Northern Victorian Livestock Exchange in North Barnawartha and chewed my ear. Kevin, I heard you. As he said in his letter to me: As an owner driver for over 35 years I find this very difficult to believe that a union who champion for the little fella against big business could possibly put me out of work or cut my work so I have to cut maintenance to survive. The clause that states that there is no partial loading and any part load will be taken as a full load will be of great disadvantage to the rural sector. If farmers have to pay for a full load no matter how many they have on a load then they will use smaller trucks to do the job at a lower cost but put more trucks on the road. Kevin, I am really happy tonight to support the government on this legislation. A second letter I would like to refer to is from Ken Beggs from Mansfield. He wrote a very extensive letter, and he put the three options that he has been faced with. The first is that he continue to operate profitably, as he is currently doing, yet be in breach of the RSRT legislation. The second is that, alternatively, he sell up. This would mean selling equipment below the payout figures owing on them, and other carriers not affected by this order would readily take over the job at the same rates that he is working for. His third option is to employ an unrelated driver to drive the truck. He says: If I did this, I would be compliant. I would not come under the RSRT Order, the driver would be paid the current wage I pay myself, (which is above the RSRT safe rates), continue with the contracts I have committed to and still make a profit. However, he said: 'I personally would not have a job, therefore no wage to live on.' He went on: Option No 3 sounds ludicrous. How is it that I can employ someone to drive my truck under the same conditions I currently operate at and be legal, yet if I drive the truck myself I am in breach of the RSRT Order and hence breaking the law? How can this be fair and just? He called me and said: 'How can our democratic system allow such discrimination against a minor sector of a large industry?' I say to the people of Indi, to the fantastic trucking industry and the small businesses that go with it, to the men and women who make our logistics service work, to those who pick up our agricultural goods and carry them, to those who pick up our manufacturing goods and carry them, and to those who pick up our retail goods and carry them right across the north-east of Victoria and then across this great and marvellous country: democracy is working. Your voices have been heard loudly and clearly in this place, and I am really pleased to add mine to support the government tonight on this legislation. I hope the Senate quickly does what needs to happen in the other house. As I bring my comments to a close, I would particularly like to thank the many people of north-east Victoria who have worked so closely to bring about this really positive outcome. Thank you. 20:14 Mr GOODENOUGH 74046 Moore I support this Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016, which seeks to delay the commencement date for the payment order issued by the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal in respect of the contractor-driver minimum payments to 1 January 2017. The Australian Industry Group and others have made application to the tribunal for a delay in the commencement date of the Road Safety Remuneration Payments Order 2016. In the past 48 hours, we have witnessed convoys of owner-drivers and their prime movers rallying together around Parliament House, calling upon the government to protect their livelihoods. The proposed changes have the potential to impact upon the viability of businesses in the road transport industry, the movement of freight across our nation and the national economy. Therefore, hirers, contractor-drivers and other participants in the supply chain should have sufficient time to make any necessary adjustments to their operations. Across our vast country, the road transport industry is an integral part of the economy in terms of logistics, distribution and supply chains, linking products to markets and goods to customers. Nationally, the industry turns over $51 billion annually, providing work for approximately 200,000 drivers. The livelihoods of up to 35,000 owner-drivers are at stake, many of whom have taken out mortgages to finance their prime movers. There is a substantial case in supporting a delay to give the industry adequate time to prepare for such significant structural reform, to understand the terms of the order and to modify business practices accordingly. It has become apparent that there is evidently a lack of understanding amongst owner-drivers of the payments order, because the drivers misinterpreted the relevant provisions when they were giving evidence about the industry at the tribunal hearing. The order establishes minimum payments for contractor-drivers involved in operations relating to a supermarket chain or long-distance operations, setting minimum rates of payment per hour and per kilometre for such contractor-drivers, depending on the class of vehicle being driven. Contractor-owner-drivers have maintained their position in evidence that if they have to apply the rates prescribed in the payment order they will not be hired, due to being priced out of the market. If this debate is actually about improving road safety, then permit me to speak about the current improvements in the driver training, assessment and accreditation system implemented in recent years. As testament to the diversity of life experience and skills on this side of the House in the parliament, I am the holder of a current unrestricted multi-combination MC licence, which enables me to drive B-doubles and road trains. Having gone through the process, I can attest to the rigorous training program which has been introduced in more recent times to actively improve road safety in the heavy haulage industry. When I completed my training in Maddington, Western Australia, it involved passing units of competency in fatigue management and vehicle safety inspections before and during each trip, as well as route planning to ensure that the prime mover and its trailers did not exceed the maximum allowed length, height or weight permitted on certain roads and bridges during the journey. Participants in the accredited course were required to complete workbooks as part of the theoretical component of the training, and were shown how to use logbooks to maintain proper records. Furthermore, during the practical assessment the vehicle combination was required to be loaded to just over 20 tonnes per trailer, which in my case was over 40 tonnes for the road test. The more stringent vocational education and training regime has been implemented over the years in an effort by the road transport authorities to improve road safety standards in a practical way. Gone are the days when heavy-vehicle licences were issued at local police stations in rural areas following a brief driving test around town in an unladen vehicle. Today there is a graduated licensing system, which requires an applicant to gain two years' experience with a car licence before obtaining a heavy-rigid HR licence, and then a similar period of road experience before moving on to the heavy-articulated categories of heavy combination, HC, and multi-combination, MC. These training and development measures are practical, and it can be demonstrated that they have a logical effect on improving road safety. (Time expired) 20:20 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair I speak in relation to the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016, and record my opposition to it. Prior to the last redistribution in Queensland, I had the privilege of representing the Lockyer Valley. On numerous occasions I attended the 'Lights on the Hill' memorial service—a day when truck drivers and their families would attend to remember those who were killed in the last year. Sadly, their names were on the memorial. Each year, more people were added. Truck driving is a dangerous business, and it is a risk for the families. They do not know when—and if, in fact—their loved one will come home. The truck driving industry is critical to our farming sector, getting produce to the markets and to the ports—to Rocklea in South-East Queensland. And it is not just that but also delivering household goods—furniture and clothing. In a seat like mine of Blair, where there are major highways—the Ipswich Motorway, the Brisbane Valley Highway and the Cunningham and Warrego highways—roads are king. But for those opposite to deny the link between pay and road safety is simply to fly in the face of the best evidence. We saw the report delivered by the former member for Flynn, the Hon. Paul Neville. That House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts report in 2000, titled Beyond the midnight oil: managing fatigue in the transport industry, made it clear that there was a link. In addition to that we also saw the Quinlan inquiry in 2001 and the Mutual Responsibility for Road Safety case in 2006. We also saw the National Transport Commission Review report in 2008, the Safe Rates Advisory Group report in 2010 and the PricewaterhouseCoopers report quoted by so many people in this place. For those opposite to deny all that is simply a nonsense. It is easy to feel sympathy for those who work in this sector, because their livelihoods are threatened and pay is very low. It is hard to put food on the table for your families and to have your jobs threatened, and of course it seems quite harsh in many ways, but the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was a good idea and in my view should not be abolished. It was and is as it currently stands about making road safety remuneration orders and conducting research into pay conditions and related matters that affect safety in the road transport industry. Those opposite have indicated that they may take some of the functions of the RSRT and put it with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator. I would be very surprised indeed if we saw that jurisdiction extending to pay orders. Our side of the chamber and indeed the TWU have also sought compromise in relation to this matter. Those opposite have in fact got rid of a tribunal which is about the linkages between pay and conditions and road safety. Sadly, they have made our roads and highways across this country less safe for all Australians. In the last month 25 people have died on our roads as a result of heavy vehicle accidents. Fatality rates in the trucking industry are 12 times the national average, and that must stop, but what is so disturbing about what the government has done is that they are willing to abolish a tribunal just because they do not like the decision. What would stop the Abbott-Turnbull government intervening to defer increases in national minimum wages or overriding decisions of the Fair Work Commission simply because they do not like decisions in relation to penalty rates? This is a very bad precedent they have set today and clearly is an ideological attack on workers and fair pay and conditions in the country. It is typical of what those opposite have done. This is a Prime Minister who stands for nothing other than being Prime Minister. This is about political expediency. Did they do anything about this two years ago when the road safety remuneration order which set minimum pay rates for owner-drivers was proclaimed by the tribunal? They did nothing at all. This was done on the eve of an election simply to raise stakes, inflame passions and pursue a political agenda against workers. This is about the election that is going to take place on 2 July. It is not about road safety, it is not about pay and conditions and it is not about the economy. It is about political expediency from a government that has run out of ideas, exists for itself, does not exist for the benefit of working people in this country and exists only to pursue the political ambitions of the Prime Minister who grabbed power from the member for Warringah. 20:25 Mr JOHN COBB 00AN1 Calare The most amazing thing about this debate—if I can call it that—is the fact that it took so long for the media to pick up on what was really happening here even after we all realised what the tribunal had done. There is something that I do not hear any of the Labor speakers, including the previous speaker, talking about. If this is about safety, which it is not, or if this is about looking after drivers on the road, which it is not, why does it only apply to one section of the trucking industry? None of them mention that. They talk about road safety. We are all into road safety. Of course we are—we all drive on the damn roads. But this is not about safety; this is about unionism—a pay-off to the unions. For what? Let's not go into that. But it is a pay-off for unions against what particular section of the trucking industry? The section of those who do not join unions: the drivers who own their own rig, as has been mentioned, by putting their house under a mortgage or whatever reason. There is nothing I see that I love more in the world than a young couple going into their own business, whatever it might be, be it an electrician or an owner-driver truck operator. But this is actually not just an attack on owner-operators who are not members of unions; it is an attack on the self-employed. The Central West of New South Wales is a big trucking area, but it amazed me how long it took for the media to get the fact that only one section of one of Australia's biggest industries, with a huge number of people involved in it, was being attacked, and that was those people who own their own truck and drive it. It is so crazy that, if I own three trucks and pay two people to drive two of them and drive one myself, the other two trucks are not affected by the decision of the road safety tribunal. It is only the one I drive myself. And there is no evidence to show that owner-drivers have any worse record than anyone else. When you stop and think about it, how ludicrous is it to suggest that the person who owns his own truck—it is his livelihood, he services it, he repairs it and he makes sure it meets the specifications—would want to trash that truck more or risk it more than someone, quite possibly just as good a driver, who is paid to drive their truck? It is ludicrous, and there is no evidence to suggest that. In fact, you do wonder if it is actually constitutional to pick out one section of industry like the TWU and Bill Shorten did. I found that we had to get out in the media and explain that this is just an attack on one section of people who do not join unions. When I went out, Whites Stock Transport went with me into the media, and Cassie White made an incredible impact in the Central West by pointing out something very relevant to this. She said, 'Our company is actually big enough that we will not be too affected by this, but all the subbies we use, who come take from us and bring stuff to us, are affected, because they are nearly all owner-operators.' She said, 'What this will do is simply make the big guys bigger and the small guys smaller or not exist at all.' As somebody pointed out, what a lovely thing to do to someone who has mortgaged their home so they can buy a truck and so that they and their wife or partner could go into business together. I have seen things come before this House before, but I have never seen anything as brazen as Bill Shorten, the now opposition leader, and the TWU getting together to put into being the road safety tribunal with people who are obviously not terribly sympathetic to owner-drivers to simply make their lives hell and put them out of business. 20:30 Mr WATTS 193430 Gellibrand I am pleased to have this brief opportunity to speak on this bill today. As it is, we were recalled to parliament by the Prime Minister for this sitting in order to debate—that is the purpose of the parliament. But I find myself being gagged on an issue of significant importance to my own community. I was on this list to speak earlier, but I am happy to take what time I have now. I am very pleased to be able to speak against the bill before the House, because the repeal bill before the House is a continuation of the Abbott government's determination to put ideology before the real-world consequences of their policies. The tribunal was set up by the previous Labor government to deal with the very significant incidences of accidents and fatalities in the road transport industry. Twenty-five people were killed last month; 300 people were killed last year. The tribunal is a response to the perverse incentives in the trucking industry that have forced drivers to work in unsafe conditions in order to make ends meet. Trucking is Australia's most dangerous profession, with drivers being 15 times more likely to die at work than any other profession. This in itself should warrant government attention, but when you consider that truck drivers' workplace is the road that we all share with all of us with our friends our partners our children, the need to ensure the safety of working conditions for truck drivers in these circumstances becomes an unavoidable imperative. That is why the last Labor government set up the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal in 2012; to change the safety record of the industry, to help increase driver safety and to decrease fatalities for truck drivers and for those with whom they share the road. This is the very reason for the name of the tribunal. Listening to the contributions of the ministers opposite during question time and to the contributions of members opposite in this chamber during this debate, I understand the disinclination that they have to talk about the full name of the bill. They call it the 'RSRT' bill. It is called the 'Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal' bill because there is a connection between road safety and remuneration. Refusing to say this out loud does not change the facts. This is an issue that has been shown beyond doubt. There has been study after study after study—the evidence is enormous—over an extended period of time. The Conversation website, a website that publishes contributions of academics and experts from around the world, fact-checked this statement recently. On 13 April they fact-checked the claim: 'Do better pay rates for truck drivers improve safety?' Michael Quinlan, Director of the Industrial Relations Research Centre, UNSW Australia, found: 'there is persuasive evidence of a connection between truck driver pay and safety'. He said: Australian studies conducted since the 1990s found a significant link between scheduling pressures, unpaid waiting time, insecure rewards and access to work, and hazardous practices such as speeding, excessive hours and drug use by drivers. The connection is clear. Pressure from the top of the supply chain, in the form of underpayment or perverse incentives, are leading to symptoms like fatigue, speeding, log manipulation and the use of stimulants and narcotics. I represent an area of Melbourne that understands trucking related issues better than most. My electorate sits between the industrial and logistics hubs of Melbourne's west and the Port of Melbourne in the centre of Melbourne. Every day thousands of trucks rumble along our residential streets, trying to get to arterial roads and their destinations. Indeed the community I live in and represent, residential suburbs like Footscray and Yarraville, see at least 20,000 truck movements a day. That is 20,000 heavy vehicle movements in front of the schools in my electorate, in front of the playgrounds in my electorate and in front of the homes of families and children in my electorate. Appropriate infrastructure plays a role in protecting the community and ensuring safety. And in this respect I congratulate the Victorian Labor government for its commitment to getting trucks off residential streets in Melbourne's west and onto the proposed western distributor tunnel and elevated freeway. But this infrastructure response will never get all the trucks off our residential streets. They will not get every truck off our residential streets. So the workplace environment and the safety environment for truck drivers remain critically important. Ensuring road transport employers are not perversely incentivised to work in an unsafe manner should be a minimum requirement to ensuring public safety. The Transport Workers Union national secretary, Tony Sheldon, has said that the abolition of the tribunal, an effective shutting down of the conversation about transport and pay in the transport industry, will cost lives. He is right. That is what the evidence says. There is a connection between remuneration and safety. If we break that connection, if we break the efforts that the RSRT has made to increase remuneration, lives will be lost. I encourage those opposite to draw on the passion they had for participants in the home insulation scheme and for workplace safety in that scheme and the number of times they spoke on the lives of those individuals and to think about the lives of the truck drivers before the House today. 20:35 Dr GILLESPIE 72184 Lyne Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016. As we all know, the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill has now passed this House and gone up to the Senate. And I would like to congratulate the House on passing that bill, because this is probably the most egregious legislation that has come before me, to my knowledge, since I was elected to this House. Were hundreds and thousands of owner-drivers mistaken? No, they were not. They knew the full intent of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal order. It was designed to make them uncompetitive, send them out of business and send them driving down the road to work in a unionised workforce for some of the major primes. It was so blatant and so obvious. I am just flabbergasted that people who spoke up about it three and four months ago were not getting traction. Why, at three minutes to midnight, did Australia suddenly wake up to the fact that it is a complete doddle, a smokescreen and a Trojan horse to destroy the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of small businesses? Less than a week ago, one of my reliable stock haulage contractors, Bryan Alley, rang me and said: 'David, what am I going to do? If I don't follow these ridiculous pay orders, I could be fined $54,000.' That is $54,000 for not charging too much money, for uncompetitive rates. That would mean no-one would use him, It is going to send him to the wall. That does not increase his safety; it increases the chance of him and his family losing their livelihood. I know there are plenty of others in the livestock haulage business around the Lyne electorate. There are many people who depend on transport. It is the lifeblood of Australian industry. But it is not just stock haulage and freight. There will be huge ramifications for metropolitan areas too. When you move house, apartments or whatever, you get removalists. Many of them are small business men and women with their own truck and their own business. As the member for Calare so rightly pointed out, if this were really about safety, it would apply across the whole industry, not just to small business people and owner-operators. It would not be selective. Also, it flies in the face of observed fact. Truck safety has been improving. The number of truck driver injuries and deaths has been reduced. There have been many layers of regulation across state bodies and other federal bodies that have led to that. One interesting fact is that when you look at the truck fatalities, in two out of three of those crashes, road crash investigations revealed that the truck driver was not at fault. What were these people thinking—that only owner-drivers are unsafe? The previous speaker, the member for Gellibrand, mentioned that driving a truck is 15 times more dangerous, but the obvious reason for that is that transport drivers work 40 or 50 hours a week. Most of us who are driving around and at risk of road fatalities have 15 or 40 times less time on the road. It is quite obvious that, if you are doing that the whole time, the statistics reflect that. I am so proud that common sense has prevailed in this House this afternoon. The National Party—my colleagues—all got behind this weeks and months ago. I am so glad that Australia woke up and realised what was at stake. The repeal bill has gone up to the Senate, but these days we can never really depend on some members of the Senate. They follow the instructions of their union backers. So this Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill is equally important. Should they reject the other bill up in the Senate, at least we will have this legislation that will defer things until 2017, when we will have time to discuss this further and point out the obvious— (Time expired) 20:40 Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR 00AN3 Gorton I understand some of the sentiments expressed by the previous speaker, the member for Lyne, and I do understand that there are challenges for owner-drivers. That is why Labor wants to have a collegiate approach or a consensual approach, if you like, to dealing with this issue. We utterly oppose the notion that, if you do not like the decision of a statutory body, you decide to abolish it. I think that is just a disproportionate and contemptuous response. What would have better served the constituency, those who work hard in the road transport industry, would have been the government convening a meeting of affected parties to work through some of these issues. We are now debating the Road Safety Remuneration Amendment (Protecting Owner Drivers) Bill 2016, the bill in relation to the order that was made by the tribunal in December. At that time the parties, employers and indeed the Transport Workers Union made clear that they were willing to see the delay of the order in order to consider its implementation and some of the legitimate concerns raised by certain stakeholders that would be affected by that order. That would have been the proper course. In hindsight, I think it is fair to say that the tribunal would have been better to consider that application or those submissions by the employer and union representatives in order to reconcile outstanding differences wherever possible. Who would not want to seek to refine or resolve matters without having to deal with them in an arbitral way? We think it is clear that if that approach had been taken we would not be here now. The parties would have had further discussions, the tribunal would have involved itself in those outstanding matters and—who knows?—we might well seen a reconciliation of views to the point where we could have had a greater level of consensus. It will be a Pyrrhic victory if the bills were to succeed in the parliament, because they do not do anything to deal with some of the serious challenges confronting the industry. It is not about whether Labor succeeds in opposing the tribunal, or the coalition succeeds in abolishing the tribunal; it is about whether we can improve road safety without causing any unnecessary difficulty for owner-drivers. That may be a very difficult ideal, but I think it is one worth pursuing. I think a government that was serious about dealing with these issues and had respect for all parties would at least be trying that approach. I do not think it is right that this is a binary debate. This is not about one side being all wrong and the other side being all right. Even in my conversations with the representatives of the constituent parts of the industry, all of them have at least said to me that there are problems in the industry. There are problems in relation to being paid. Some of the smaller and medium-size companies, not big companies, have difficulty paying their drivers, whether they are employee or owner-drivers with their own rig, because they have not been paid by their principal contractor or the large client, quite often a retail or mining client. Very large enterprises do not always pay on time. We know that large companies do not always pay their taxes and they play games with our tax laws. We also know that they do not pay fleet owners and they do not pay owner-drivers on time and that puts enormous pressure on drivers. That issue is not one that is just held by the union; it is held by many of the employer bodies that represent these enterprises. The danger of this debate as far as I see it, and the reason why we need to get to the bottom of what the government wants to do beyond the delay of this order, if indeed that abolition of the tribunal were not to happen, is because we need to work out how we fix the industry. (Extension of time granted) Given that we are debating now this order and given that this bill goes to only delaying the order then we really need to understand— An honourable member interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER MT4 I am giving indulgence because he is the shadow minister. Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR 00AN3 I am happy to surrender and then stand up after, if that is what you want. It just interrupts the flow of the debate. I am not trying in any way to deny the speaker because I would like to hear from more speakers on this issue. It is a very important matter and I invite members of the government to put their view. I think if we talk this matter through we might find that there is more that we have in common. I do not believe it is possible that people want to see a higher incidence of fatalities on our roads than we possibly can bear or have to see happen. I cannot fathom the notion that people would not be looking to find ways to reduce the absolutely tragedy that has occurred not only to truck drivers but to families. I mentioned earlier in the debate that a family of four was killed just in the last 24 hours 200 kilometres north of Adelaide. I know a truck was involved but I do not know if anyone was at fault. The DEPUTY SPEAKER MT4 If the member for Gorton is going to extend his comments, he will have to come back in the next five minutes after this. Mr Brendan O'Connor 00AN3 I will finish on this, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for such indulgence. Given that this is an order before the parliament, it seems fitting that, if we are going to play around with the decision of an independent umpire, we have an obligation to seek to resolve problems in the industry, not just ram home a vote and deny the obvious, which is there is a correlation between rates of pay and the incidence of fatalities on our roads. 20:47 Mr BROAD 30379 Mallee Those opposite would have us believe that the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal is about road safety. I have been a member of the CFA and sat at three o'clock in the morning with a lady who had been killed in a fatality in a car there and a truck rolled over there. I have been a truck driver myself and I know a little bit about these things. But this is not really about road safety. Those opposite use that name because it adds weight to their argument but this is about the interference of trade between private operators that they were not trying to broaden across to the general trucking industry. We have a log book system that has been very effective. We have policing. We have mass management to encourage maintenance. There are a number of things that take place within the transport industry to look at the safety of the trucks, to look at the hours that truck drivers can drive and to look at general consensus that we can keep the roads as safe as they possibly can be. It needs to be said that the very nature of trucking, where you are spending 40 hours a week on the road, does expose you to greater chances of accidents because you are on the road a greater amount of time than the average person. But I think trucks have largely become safer than they have ever been with the brake systems that are now on our B-doubles. Considering some of the trucks when I was young to what is there now, you can pull them up a bit quicker. What is this about? This is not about, unfortunately, road safety; this has been all about ensuring that the competitive edge of the trucking industry, which has been the owner-driver, which has been the person that mortgages their house, that wants to move from being a worker to being a small business person, is wiped out of the industry. That person has said to themselves, 'I have been truck driver. Now what about if I could become an owner truck driver? What about if I took the financial risk to go and buy a truck and then work for myself?' We should at every point in the Australian economy be removing barriers for people who want to have personal endeavour, who seek to run a small business, and who seek to be self-employed. What this has done is actually try to disadvantage them. The point that is lost in this whole debate is there has become one rule for the owner-driver and another rule for the company, so much so that it interferes in the very terms of trade. So an owner-driver has to set a rate that is over and above what a company can set—so this is not about equity—to the level that an owner-driver has to charge $1:50 a litre for fuel whereas the company charges the standard rate which is about $1:05 in my town and so it has become disproportionate, as a classic example of regulation trying to interfere with the very basis of the terms of trade. I have had truck drivers say to me that they have been driving a truck for 15 years and they never thought when they heard about this that this would actually happen. 'Surely common sense would prevail,' they said. But they have now had to park their trucks. They do not how they are going to make repayments on their trucks. They do not know how they are going to make repayments on their houses. And as a result of the decision made by the Gillard government, and now hopefully being reversed in this place, we are putting people, the Australian government is putting people who have borrowed money for a truck and who have mortgaged their house out of work. Think about that for a moment. What a diabolical situation, where the Australian government can put a person who has personal endeavour at risk of losing their house. For what reason? For wanting to drive a truck and be self-employed. That is a disgrace. I want to say to the truck drivers: we are doing the right thing, not by this bill but by the previous bill, which was about getting rid of it. Because, if you are going to buy a truck you need confidence to invest. This week the local Kenworth dealer in my town had three orders cancelled on Monday morning as a result of this legislation. When the Gillard government's policy is doing things like that—where it is shutting down people investing in buying trucks and putting people out of their jobs—then it shows that those opposite have not learnt at thing. Nothing in the debate here has talked about how they are going to ensure small business people succeed. If they want to talk about safety, then they should talk about logbooks, they should talk about road conditions, they should talk about mass management, and they should talk to people such as me, who have stood behind and beside trucks at fatality scenes. 20:53 Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR 00AN3 Gorton Again, I do not disagree with all that was said by the previous speaker, the member for Mallee. As I said earlier, truck driving—especially long haul truck driving—is a difficult occupation. Add to that if you are running it as a business, then you really are working very hard to turn a profit. With respect, what was not really addressed entirely by the previous speaker, or by many other members of the government, was the architecture of the contracts that lead to people being placed in what I would suggest are unfair situations, struggling to make a profit and struggling to maintain a business because of the way in which the industry operates. You have very large retail and mining companies that set very difficult contract terms, which place enormous pressure on smaller players in the market. I heard from the Prime Minister and from other speakers, and I would agree at least with the rhetoric of the government, that they are concerned with small enterprises and small businesses. If that were true—and I am going to accept for the moment, at least for the purpose of this discussion and in the tenor of which I would like to debate this matter, that it is true—then I believe that we should be looking at the power of large players in the market place. There is no doubt that the road transport industry is a tough industry, but you do have large retail and mining companies that also make it very difficult. Part of the capacity of the tribunal is to examine a number of issues, including the time in which people are paid. I have spoken to some people who oppose the order that we are debating now. I have spoken to owner-drivers who do not support this order, and while I do not agree with them, I respect some of the reasons they have raised with me. But I also understand that smaller companies have grave concerns about their inability to pay their owner-drivers because they have not been paid themselves. And yet nobody seems to want to deal with the failure, on some occasions, of larger players in the road transport industry to pay on time in order for those smaller enterprises to maintain wages for their crew, or just to pay their bills as an owner-driver. There are a series of things that will not be fixed by the abolition of the tribunal, or just the delay of the order. I also want to make it very clear, in speaking on this bill, that I am supporting this bill, but I think it begs the question: if we are going to delay the order—and that is what we are debating now; we are not debating the abolition of the tribunal as that has come and gone in this chamber—and if we are going to assume for a moment that the tribunal may still be there by the end of this week, and that is as possible as not because there is a debate the other place, then why aren't we discussing what happens after the order is to take effect? This is a delay order. This is not an abolition of an order made by the tribunal; this is a delay order for 1 January next year. We have come some way to a meeting of minds, if you like, because even the major employers and the union agree with the deferral of the order until we discuss a number of things, including split loads, back loads, timely payments and a series of other matters. These things are being discussed. In fact, before the tribunal today there was an application by the TWU supported, or certainly not opposed, by all of the employer bodies mentioned in this debate. That is the way this should be happening: there is an issue before the independent umpire that the parties agree upon. That is the approach the government, in a normal situation, would take. You would not say: 'We don't agree with an order. We're going to delay the order by way of parliament. And, by the way, we're going to abolish the tribunal. We're going to abolish the umpire that made the decision because we don't accept it.' That is an extreme, disproportionate response, even if you have some fundamental problems with the decision that was made. That is the problem I have. Because if it is allowed for executive governments to abolish a statutory body as important as this tribunal, then what would stop a future government abolishing a decision on a national wage case or abolishing a decision that will not cut penalty rates? (Time expired) 20:58 Mr HARTSUYKER 00AMM Cowper In the minute or two that is left, I would like to bring to the attention of the House the impact of the RSRT on people like Nicole and Craig Crampton from Crampos Transport in Urunga. Nicole emailed me to explain how this order would impact on their business. She said: 'Without even being able to drive, this will affect our ability to keep the business afloat, pay off our house and give our children the best education they deserve. We pride ourselves in having A1 roadworthy machinery, and all have NHVR certifications, but our lack of cash flow will undoubtedly cause a negative effect on our ability to maintain our standards. We believe this order is going to have an enormous impact not only on us but also on small businesses and small communities—more so than you are willing to believe. Really, we need more time to adjust or to wind up our business.' She goes on to say that the order has 'made our machinery and our business worthless, as no-one is going to buy it right now because every other owner-driver is looking at the same options. Craig's dream of driving and owning his own trucks has all but been destroyed in two weeks.' There we have some great local businesspeople being run out of business by an irresponsible Labor Party in concert with the union movement. Debate interrupted. COMMITTEES 119 COMMITTEES Joint Select Committee on Trade and Investment Growth 119 Membership 119 21:00 The DEPUTY SPEAKER YT4 I have received a message from the Senate informing the House that Senator Ludwig has been appointed a member of the Joint Select Committee on Trade and Investment Growth. ADJOURNMENT 119 ADJOURNMENT Anzac Day 119 21:00 Mr KELVIN THOMSON UK6 Wills Next Monday will be Anzac Day 2016. I was in Royal Melbourne Hospital last year on the Centenary of Anzac Day, having had open heart surgery following a heart attack, and very inconvenient it was too. But things are looking more promising this year. Yesterday I attended the Glenroy RSL Anzac Day Sunday service together with my father, Allan. Dad's older brother, my uncle John, was killed while the front gunner of a Liberator in action against the Japanese in the Flores Sea during World War II. After John's death, a memorial gate was erected in his honour where the little township of Mooralla was then located, at the back of the Grampians in western Victoria, on the East-West Road close to the Henty Highway. My brother, Lex, has grown some Lone Pines from the Warrnambool Botanic Gardens Lone Pine, which is descended from the original Lone Pine, and later this year he will be planting a Lone Pine at John's gate. I want to thank the Glenroy RSL and the other local RSLs—Coburg, Fawkner, and Pascoe Vale—for the extensive and lasting contribution they have made and continue to make to the great community of Wills. They are people like Ken White, Bert Lawes and Tom Clayton at the Glenroy RSL; Godfrey Camenzuli, Kerry Marshall and David Thompson at Coburg RSL; Tom Parkinson and John Paterson at Pascoe Vale RSL; Bert Randall and Alan Henderson at Fawkner RSL; and many others as well, of course. So why do we gather every year to retell the Anzac story, and why are the crowds who gather around Australia to hear it getting larger rather than smaller? I think the first reason is this. Every culture has a fixed and sacred site, with stories to be handed down to be retold by each new generation. In Australia a single story captures the public imagination: Anzac. Anzac as legend was very much the creation of one man, Captain Charles Bean, whose greatest legacy was his first six volumes of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. His two volumes on Gallipoli are written with evocative, timeless force, celebrating the mettle of the soldiers, by a man who saw most of the campaign at first hand. It is worth remembering that Gallipoli is arbitrary in relation to Australia. The Dardanelles lie on the other side of the world, with no British traces, and the military campaign was, as is well known, a failure. I think we should thank the Turkish people for their generosity and hospitality, which have in a sense given us permission to commemorate ANZAC in the way that we do. I particularly note the words of reconciliation from the commander of the Turkish forces and founder of the Turkish nation, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. And then you have the First World War memorials, thousands of them, which sprang up around Australia in a tidal wave of unparalleled public tribute. Here Australia moved away from the notion of the classical hero. It is not the great individual who we remember. Australia remembers the men and above all their character, not the individuals. There was no statue to any individual soldier before 1936, when Simpson's statue was unveiled in Melbourne. Even then the work is titled The Man with the Donkey, and what is honoured is not so much warrior prowess but rather selfless service and sacrifice. Captain Bean ends his first volume by asking the question, 'What carried each man on when he realised he had been cast into some godforsaken Turkish wilderness without food or sleep, the dead and wounded all around, the cause seemingly hopeless?' Bean's answer was 'character'. I believe the first reason we gather together at this time is that this story defines us as Australians. It tells us who we are and where we have come from, and each generation needs to hear it and to retell it. And I think that there is a second reason also. It is that each generation has its own battles to fight, its own challenges to confront, and that, in facing those challenges, courage and character are just as important as they were at Gallipoli. In the face of the global threats and challenges facing us now, it is easy for people to be passive, throwing their hands up in the air and saying: 'What can I achieve? The challenge is so massive, and I am but one person.' But this was precisely the situation facing the Anzacs at Gallipoli. I believe the courage and character they showed back then are not some museum piece to be taken down and dusted off and admired once a year and then put back on the shelf. They should inspire us to fight the battles of our own time. There are many things that we can do as individuals and together. They may involve some sacrifice, but they are worth it in the common good. The Anzac legend endures because we have need of it today and because our children will have need of it tomorrow. Australian Labor Party 120 21:05 Mr NIKOLIC 137174 Bass Deputy Speaker, I was not expecting to be spending 18 April 2016 with you and our colleagues, as enjoyable as that is! The recall of parliament does not happen very often, but it is necessary because the Labor Party and their fellow travellers in the Senate have ignored the clear mandate we have for important legislation. We are here, quite frankly, because the Labor Party have put the union interest ahead of the national interest. They did that when they put the CFMEU interest above the national interest in getting rid of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and now in preventing us from restoring it. They put the interest of the Maritime Union of Australia above the national interest when they brought in new coastal shipping laws in 2012. And they put the interests of the Transport Workers Union above those of 60,000 owner-driver truckies when they set up the RSRT. I spoke this morning to some of those truckies, who had gathered at Parliament House to convey how badly their families were affected by Labor's breach of trust. But the most compelling example of Labor doing the unions' bidding is getting rid of the ABCC under the Gillard government. They are now joined at the hip with the CFMEU, whose criminality has been exposed again and again by a number of royal commissions. Consider that, after the Heydon royal commission, a hundred union officials are facing in excess of 1,000 charges before the courts. This shows that existing laws are not strong enough to prevent unlawful industrial behaviour in Australia's crucial building and construction sector. Consider that since the abolition of the ABCC the number of days lost to strikes in the construction industry has increased by 34 per cent. Our economy has suffered an almost $4 billion hit from unlawful industrial action each year since the ABCC was abolished. Cleaning up the construction industry would mean more investment and jobs in the sector. That would mean more schools, hospitals, roads and other vital infrastructure in my home state of Tasmania. I want government funded projects in Tasmania and elsewhere around the country to be finished on time and on budget. That will mean more work, more local jobs, and more services and infrastructure for the taxpayer. An honest and fair workplace relations system is an engine of job creation and economic growth. It is also fair to say that workers deserve to be able to go to work each day without the fear of being harassed, intimidated or subjected to violence. The consequences of Labor's coastal shipping laws in 2012 were similarly cheered on by the Maritime Union of Australia and were similarly disastrous for our coastal shipping industry. When the coalition left office in 2007, there were 30 major Australian trading vessels with a general licence. Within two years of Labor's disastrous coastal shipping changes, the fleet halved to just 15 vessels. The number of vessels with a transitional general licence more than halved. Freight rates from Tasmania to Queensland almost doubled to $30 a tonne, while rates elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere remained at about half that, at $17 a tonne. There were almost 1,000 fewer coastal voyages in Australia and two million fewer tonnes of freight moved by foreign vessels, and demurrage rates tripled. Rather than admitting they got it wrong, Labor did the MUA's bidding again in late 2015 and voted down our legislation. The Senate's rejection of this reform was described by the National Farmers Federation as 'a missed opportunity to restore competition around the Australian coast'. How can Australia ever consider the Labor Party as an alternative government of this country when Labor act so flagrantly in support of their union benefactors—the same benefactors who now run millions of dollars of mendacious advertisements paid for by the toil of the union's hardworking members? This is simply a desperate campaign to distract from the real issue of cleaning up lawlessness in the construction industry. The ABCC bill, rejected again this evening by the Senate, and our registered organisations bill would improve the governance and financial transparency of registered organisations like unions. They would give union members greater confidence that their hard-earned membership fees were being spent lawfully and, more importantly, that they were being spent in their best interests and not in the interests of the few who sit at the top. Labor and the unions' hysterical opposition to the ABCC is very revealing. After all, if the unions simply complied with the law what would they have to fear? Nguyen, Mr Van Dai 121 21:10 Mr HAYES ECV Fowler Tonight I rise to speak about a prominent Vietnamese human rights activist and lawyer, Mr Nguyen Van Dai, who, since his arrest on 16 December last year, has been held in a prison in Hanoi awaiting trial. Mr Nguyen was arrested and charged under article 88 of the Vietnam Penal Code for 'conducting propaganda against the state'. The crime carries up to 20 years imprisonment. He is the founder of the Committee for Human Rights, which focuses on justice for those who have been persecuted in Vietnam. Mr Nguyen was previously imprisoned for advocating for religious liberty. In the week leading up to his arrest, Mr Nguyen was brutally beaten, which presumably had something to do with the fact that he was hosting a training forum on human rights. As it currently stands, his wife, Mrs Khanh Minh Vu, and his legal representatives have been denied access to him. They now have very real fears for his welfare and concerns about his health and the possibility of ongoing ill-treatment. Mrs Vu is planning to attend Australia with representatives of the Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience Empowerment, or VOICE, from 29 to 30 June. She will be meeting with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to speak about her husband's situation and raise awareness about ongoing human rights violations in Vietnam. I plan to meet with Mrs Vu during her visit and I am happy to arrange for other members in this place to meet with her to discuss her husband's treatment and ways in which Vietnam could improve its human rights record. As one of the signatories to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Australia should be taking its responsibilities seriously, not simply in terms of the trade deal itself but in ensuring that other signatories, such as Vietnam, honour their ongoing obligations. Earlier this month I spoke at a Western Sydney University open forum about the importance of compliance with and adherence to TPP provisions. I reiterated the point that Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia are subject to separate side agreements with the US in which additional provisions were inserted before those countries could become full members of the TPP. The provisions particularly related to labour rights. Given Vietnam's not-so-pretty human rights record and its intention to participate in the TPP, it is essential that we, as a trading partner, take the necessary steps to ensure not only that trade liberalisation occurs but that other countries honour their commitments under the agreement. As it stands today, Vietnam is one of the worst jailers of human rights bloggers in the world. According to the internationally recognised human rights organisation Freedom House, Vietnam is ranked in the lowest percentile internationally for upholding civil liberties and has probably the most political prisoners of any country in South-East Asia. Given Australia's various obligations under international human rights treaties and our ambitions for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, I believe we have a moral responsibility to ensure that we do everything we can to condemn human rights violations not only wherever they occur but particularly when they involve a valued trading partner and a fellow member of the TPP, such as Vietnam. I welcome the assistance of my fellow parliamentarians in supporting people like Mrs Vu in her attempts to call on the international community for the release of human rights defenders, particularly her husband, being held in Vietnam as we speak. We need to do more and we need to take our responsibilities quite seriously. We need to honour those who respect human rights and make sure that human rights are fundamental to everybody that we deal with. Flynn Electorate 122 21:15 Mr O'DOWD 139441 Flynn Flynn is a very large and very diverse electorate. It covers 133,000 square kilometres. Many electorates have multiple local governments; Flynn has eight. With the House's indulgence, I would like to run through some of the industries and products region by region. I will start off with the Gladstone region. The Gladstone region is home to one of the most magnificent natural harbours in the world, a harbour whose port continues to set new records for tonnage per year. It was 120 million tonnes last year. Last month the Gladstone Port exceeded 9.5 million tonnes. It handles coal, grains, bauxite, alumina, magnesia, woodchip, ammonium nitrate and general cargo. It is home to Queensland's largest coal-fired power station. In the energy field it as an oil refinery, shale oil, cement—it has the biggest cement manufacturer in Queensland, which supplies Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria—and three new gas plant on Curtis Island. The coastal region is also home to Agnes Water and the 1770 coastline. It has world-class beaches and tourism. It has fishing— freshwater and saltwater fish. It is a gateway to the southern Great Barrier Reef. Lady Elliot Island, Lady Musgrave Island and Heron Island are just three of the main islands for tourism. It has world-class snorkelling and dive sites. The Burnett shire has very diverse horticultural products: mandarins, lemons, oranges, blueberries, dairy production and beef production. There is Brahmans, Droughtmasters and Santa Gertrudis. It is home to the Brigalow Research Station. It also dabbles in timber milling. Spotted gums near Gayndah are milled locally. It has high-quality timber and innovative milling techniques. The Central Highlands, Emerald being the capital, is home to much of Queensland's most fertile grazing and farming land thanks to Fairbairn Dam, whose water a lot of Emerald farmers use to irrigate their produce. It covers cotton, sunflowers, sorghum, corn, chickpeas, mung beans and macadamia nuts. It has the largest citrus farm in the Southern Hemisphere, 2PH Farms. It has great tracts of highly productive cattle breeding, growing and fattening country. It is at the centre of the huge Bowen Basin coal region. Mines like Blackwater, Minerva, Ensham and Lilyvale have been the heart and soul of the industry in Australia through its biggest ever boom. It has high-quality coal that continues to be exported at record rates. It has gem fields to the west. They are unique. They have supplied sapphires to a lot of gem seekers over 120 years and they are still going. There are still sapphires to be found. Woorabinda Aboriginal Shire Council operates a very effective beef-breeding program and broadacre-cropping operations, including for mung beans, chickpeas et cetera. They handle about 40,000 hectares all up and are very productive in training the young Aboriginals from Woorabinda. It is a success story. The Bundaberg region is host to a bounty of different produce, including sugar cane, macadamias, pineapples, blueberries, beef, macadamias and lemons. It is home to tourism. It is a gateway to Hervey Bay and Fraser Island. Places like Miara, Moore Park, Avondale and Baffle Creek are becoming more and more popular with holiday makers. The Banana shire has towns like Banana, Baralaba, Wowan and Taroom. It has its own coal-fired power station. It has high-quality beef and stud genetics for the whole world. Arcadia Valley is one of the best cattle growing regions in the area. It includes Theodore. Rockhampton has a coal-fired power station and fruit and veg. South Burnett has piggeries, cattle feedlots, small crops and peanuts. Broadband 122 21:20 Mr CONROY 249127 Charlton The rollout of the National Broadband Network in my electorate and the Hunter region broadly has had serious problems. In recent months my office has been inundated with complaints from people attempting to connect to the NBN or who have been unexpectedly disconnected as part of the rollout. In many cases people have been left for weeks without a service, including a telephone line. It is not an overstatement to say that lives are at risk as a result. I have been contacted by several elderly and sick constituents, particularly in the Edgeworth area, who depend on phone based medical alert systems but who have been put at risk as a result of their phone lines being disconnected. These residents did not ask to be switched to the NBN; they were unexpectedly disconnected when work was completed on nodes in their area. I am assured that the procedural fault which caused these disconnections has been identified by nbn, but I am far from satisfied that the behaviour of service providers following these incidents was adequate. Retail providers are responsible for ensuring that they provide services to their customers. This includes adherence to the universal service obligation for telephone services. However in many instances, I am told, this service was not offered to affected customers and of course this does not extend to the provision of internet services. Worse, it appears some providers have used the disconnection as an opportunity to offer inappropriate NBN packages to their customers. I have heard from elderly residents who have been sold tablet devices despite having no idea how to use them, who have been offered large data plans despite their internet usage being minimal and who have been sent self-install modem systems with little instruction on how to connect them. All they asked for was a phone! I have heard of the difficulties in obtaining an NBN connection—appointments were cancelled with no explanation, or technicians simply did not attend when scheduled to. If a technician does arrive, I am told they often leave without work being completed because of the overly complex system of deferral for infrastructure repair and maintenance, or because skilled technicians were not contracted to do the work in the first place. I have heard from one business owner who was left without a phone service for around six weeks over Christmas and who took to sleeping in his store at night to protect his stock, which is worth more than $1 million, because it was vulnerable to theft as a result of inactive phone based alarm systems. This is in addition to the lost business from clients being unable to contact the store by telephone during the peak sales season. Both he and my staff spent numerous hours liaising with his provider and the NBN, and only after three separate visits from technicians was responsibility assigned and the fault fixed. For those lucky enough to be connected, I am told speeds can be lacklustre and supply is intermittent. I have heard from residents who now have speeds slower than ADSL or even dial-up connections. Just imagine it: the National Broadband Network delivering speeds slower than dial-up. Others have patchy service once connected. One resident, who has a pacemaker and relies on an internet connection for his specialist to monitor his progress, had his service interrupted for a number of weeks after switching to the NBN. We all know that making a complaint to a retail provider is a frustrating experience, but as these companies struggle with a veritable tidal wave of complaints, this process is being exacerbated. It is not uncommon for people to call my office in tears or enraged by their experience. The end result is a blame game. We know some RSPs are not obtaining adequate capacity to service their customers but, as the Newcastle Herald reported last week, provider iiNet also cites outdated infrastructure at the exchange as a reason for slow speeds. For the record, I have advocated for better broadband services for residents in my area irrespective of the technology. Ours is an area plagued by pair gains and premises located too far from an exchange for service. While I always said that the Liberals' fibre-to-the-node network is inferior to Labor's program, I welcomed it because it promised better internet speeds for residents, homes and businesses in my region. This is no longer true. On all aspects of the rollout the government has failed: inferior technology, a lack of regulation and massive cost blow-outs are not good enough for the people I represent. Malcolm's Turnbull's second-rate copper NBN is not good enough for the Hunter. It is incompetence on a grand scale. I call on the Prime Minister to address the problems with the NBN rollout urgently. During every street stall I run, every doorknocking session I do, every mobile office I hold NBN is always raised. The slow speeds, the wait for connections and the dropping out of phone lines must be fixed, otherwise the fundamental promise that this government was elected on—an NBN delivered faster than the Labor government's—will be an utter and complete failure. (Time expired) Judd, Mr William Thomas 123 21:25 Mr PASIN 240756 Barker This evening I rise to farewell William Thomas Judd, who left us on 11 February of this year. 'Bill', as he was known to all, was a loving father to his children, Kerry and Maurie, and a committed husband to Merle. A hardworking and innovative farmer whose endeavour provided for the family he cared so deeply about and whose gentlemanly example set a standard almost impossible to emulate. Bill was deeply respected. It was a respect that was earnt and not demanded. He was a kind man who has left a lasting legacy on many, including me. Born on 23 December 1935 in Warrnambool, Bill's story encompasses so much that is quintessentially Australian. Born into a Catholic family, alongside his five siblings he studied at the local Garvoc Catholic primary school. Bill's father managed the Garvoc cheese factory. From an early age, Bill was responsible for getting his older sister and his four younger siblings to school via the horse and gig. His early-learned work ethic would hold him in good stead throughout his life, and it was a trait he successfully passed on to Kerry and Maurie. I would like to think that I also learnt a thing or two on this front from Bill. Indeed, while working for Bill during one particular summer I lost 15 kilograms between milking in the morning, carting hay in the afternoon and milking in the evening. In his adolescence, Bill studied at Terang High School. When his father, Gordon, was appointed manager of the Kraft Foods cheese factory the family moved to Mil-Lel, where Bill attended Mount Gambier High School. It was at Mount Gambier High School, while on the school bus, that Bill met his future best friend and wife of 65 years, Merle. Bill left school at 17 and started to work on the dairy farm of Mrs and Mrs Johns. After being drafted into national service at 18 and noticing that shearers had a few more pennies than the other nashos, Bill quickly realised he could buy his own farm by becoming a shearer. After he put down his uniform, he took up the handpiece and he and Merle moved into a house on 30 acres at Moorak in December 1958. Merle milked the herd of a dozen or so cows, and Bill supported their efforts by shearing. In September 1963, Bill and Merle seized the opportunity to purchase a farm at Tarpeena, a farm which Bill would work for the rest of his life. The Judd family name would become synonymous with Tarpeena. Bill was proud of his town; so proud that later in life, as a successful greyhound breeder, he won the SA Saint Leger with Tarpeena Tip and again with Tarpeena Blue. Indeed, all of the dogs were named Tarpeena something. The Tarpeena farm was initially 192 acres with a herd of 100 cows. The added workload meant that Bill was forced to give up shearing and focus on the farm. Through their hard work and commitment, Bill, Merle and the family grew their farm and increased its productivity. Not even the devastation of Ash Wednesday could dent Bill and Merle's commitment to provide for those they loved. Not only did Bill and Merle build an enduring and successful agricultural enterprise, but they also built a strong and happy family. Bill was a loving father, uncle and grandfather. He passed on his skills and knowledge to his children and to their children, and this stands as an example of a thoroughly decent man that I, quite frankly, am better for having known. Our teenage years are formative. At 17, I think my parents thought I was in need of some formation and so they sent me to Bill and Merle. But, in truth, it was my great pleasure to get my first job working for Bill, Merle and Maurie. It was not the $176 per week I earned that sustained me or had me returning during my scholastic holidays from law school, but their friendship, their guidance and their example. In truth, Bill sparked my interest in agripolitics. It was Bill who would read the Stock Journal and The Weekly Times; I would begin doing that too, and we would have conversations, which, as I said, sparked my interest in agripolitics. William Thomas Judd stands as an example of the best of Australian values. He was a hardworking and humble farmer with a quick turn of phrase and a deep understanding that the strength of the family unit is central to all that we do. Humility was inherent in everything that Bill did, so I was not surprised when Maurie ended his father's eulogy by saying, 'Dad was just a good bloke'. I anticipate that Maurie knew this was the type of high praise reserved by Bill for only the best of men. So I say, 'Vale, William Thomas Judd—a good bloke.' House adjourned at 21:30 NOTICES 124 NOTICES