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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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HEAVY VEHICLE NATIONAL LAW (SOUTH AUSTRALIA) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 2 May 2013.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:42): I rise to speak on the Statutes Amendment (Heavy Vehicle National Law) Bill 2013 and the Heavy Vehicle National Law (South Australia) Bill 2013, to which I will speak only once, you will be pleasantly surprised to hear. I will address the issues in both bills in my contribution. The opposition will be supporting these bills. That is not without a heavy heart at the anticipated but unfortunately inevitable outcome of unresolved issues leading into this debate.

I will refer to them in detail but, in short, this legislation had received significant and I think near universal support amongst stakeholders. However, there were some remaining issues that were unresolved and about which certain promises had been made that they would be resolved, and that there would be consultation with the industry and stakeholders to facilitate that. That offer was made, I do not doubt, in good faith; however, it has come to my attention that those promises have, sadly, been undermined. By whom, we are not certain, but we on this side of the house are certainly concerned. Having spoken to some other members in the parliament, they too share concerns about, really, an offer to resolve outstanding issues that has fallen flat on its face.

It is of no comfort to the opposition that, when offers are made by government to ensure that effective implementation of new laws is going to be in consultation with industry, we find that it is not forthcoming. I am here in this parliament every day we sit, I think, talking about bills where we have absolutely no idea about what is going to be put in the regulations. Sadly, although we are given indications about how matters will be resolved in regulation, time and again we find that we are let down by those who then subsequently introduce a regime of regulation which is not only inconsistent with what has been offered but more often than not adds another swag of obligation that had not been disclosed during the debate.

After 11 years, I have to say, I am certainly a little weary of the government promises and ministers' indications of what they propose to do or what they expect of their colleagues—and I say that in the secondary area in an example such as this, when we are looking to a national regulation—and all of the promises really fall flat on their face. Or, some are implemented but they are significantly marred in their benefit, stained by the failure either of the minister to follow them through or to ensure that their colleagues in other states do.

So, let's have a look at this legislation: the Heavy Vehicle National Law (South Australia) Bill, laid on the table 2 May. The principal bill was developed from a COAG agreement to establish a national system for heavy vehicle regulation to be governed by one national law. This follows, as members would be aware, legislative reform for rail and marine vessels to the same extent; that is, to introduce a national regime. This area of transport (namely, heavy vehicles) has had a very long gestation period. I think it probably started its legislative life before the other two, but the other two have since passed and been largely implemented for the benefit of those industries.

Marine vessels has now had legislation passed and, if not established, the headquarters in Canberra are in the process of being established. The national rail scheme has been passed, and although there have been a few glitches I think it is fair to say that that area, South Australia being the headquarters of the national regulator for rail, is up and running. I did meet recently with a very significant provider of train services in South Australia—and I was pleased have a look at some new technology that they have been implementing—and they identified some areas of diminished performance; but I think it is fair to say that, if they are representative of the industry, they are not unhappy with the effectiveness of the new rational regulation in the rail world.

Obviously there are always disappointments at the delay and the expectation of agencies to be up and running, but I have certainly learned after 11 years that that is never a fast process. It is just that some of these things seem to move at a glacial pace, but overall I think it is fair to say that the hopes there for the efficiencies and increased productivity in the rail world—we are yet to see it in the marine world—are still an aspiration that is on the table that has not yet been severely blemished.

The history is that there have been a couple of years of debate around Australia at ministers' COAG meetings and ultimately legislation was introduced in the Queensland parliament before the last state election up there under the Bligh government. That lapsed as a result of the intervention of the election. After considerable further discussions, in August last year, the national law was passed by Queensland. The format of this national program is that there will be a host state and Queensland is the host state in respect of this legislation.

The board has been appointed and I am advised that the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator Board is chaired by the Hon. Bruce Baird AM, and Peter Garske, Robin Stewart-Crompton, Coral Taylor and Vincent Tremaine are members of the federal board. Members here would be aware that Mr Vincent Tremaine is the chief executive officer of Flinders Ports here in South Australia and has had other representative roles as a former president of Business SA. Obviously, there is South Australian contribution there and that is certainly worth noting. Mr Richard Hancock has been appointed national regulator and he has commenced business on 21 January this year.

The full operation of the national law is unable to commence until the states have passed their laws. To date, New South Wales, Victoria and I think South Australia expected at least to have the legislation passed to commence in July of this year. That is only a matter of days away. That has not been the case. The government has obviously not advanced this legislation in this parliament with sufficient priority to be able to ensure that that occurs.

However, it seems that at least one or both of the other states have not yet completed their debates, either. I may be wrong about that. It may be that that situation has improved in the last week or so, but my understanding is that there has been a delay in the other states, and the expectation now is that this whole new regime is not likely to take effect until either September or 1 January next year. Of course, that may depend on advances in the other states.

The Northern Territory and the ACT had already indicated that they needed more time to follow through, but that they would not be falling into line entirely with the model system here. In particular, the Northern Territory was not prepared to accept the fatigue management model law. Members may be aware that, in essence, in about 2007 there was a national regime established to look at fatigue management. This largely concerns, of course, the drivers of heavy vehicles, to look at how best to secure a high standard of safety for all those on the road—not just the drivers, but of course other users of the road. At that stage, some of the jurisdictions did not participate. South Australia was one that did, and it adopted the national model law. The fatigue management for the Northern Territory is not something that they accept. That does not mean they do not have it: it means that they operate under their own scheme.

Western Australia is not a signatory to this agreement. That is nothing new. They usually don't. History is littered with examples of where Western Australia does not come into any national scheme. They have taken the view, frequently, over the lifetime of the federation that, more often than not, it seems, they think their way is better than the national way, so they have remained fiercely independent. I have not assessed at all, or considered, what model the Western Australian jurisdiction will maintain for those subject to its jurisdiction so I do not make any comment on whether it is, in this instance, better or worse but, nevertheless, they have remained independent.

The Heavy Vehicle National Law (South Australia) Bill, which is the principal bill, establishes the national system. The secondary bill just provides some modifications to existing South Australian laws and also provides some additional powers and offences.

It is fair to say that the expectation of this type of reform in establishing a national scheme has the usual lofty aspirations. Essentially, the minister has, in introducing this legislation, identified the aims to create a more productive and safer heavy vehicle industry—in short, to have uniformity and some harmonious consistency, which will somehow provide us with a simpler, cheaper, fairer system that will mean that there will be increased service, presumably at a reduced, or at least not more expensive, price, and that all will be happy in the truck world.

Predictably, given the demonstrable failure of that lofty ideal on other occasions in the last 11 years that I have witnessed, I do not have any high expectation of that, but I do respect the fact that those who are in the industry are still keen to give it a go and make sure that, as best as possible, that would be achieved.

I will refer to a number of the stakeholder groups, that is, the representative bodies, who have contacted, met or written to me about this legislation, and there have been many. One is the Livestock and Rural Transporters Association of SA Inc., and I have met with Mr Brian McArdle and Mr David Smith, the President and immediate past president respectively, and other representatives of the organisation. I have read their correspondence, and I will say that it is one organisation that has remained consistent in its support for a nationally consistent regulatory regime. Obviously, they have an expectation that this will be good because it will recognise that South Australia's economy is heavily reliant upon interstate and international trade.

The logistics of securing that, the importance of the transport industry to it and the long period of advocacy by organisations, including their own, to achieve this have been, they say, critical to eliminating remaining inconsistencies and ending the periodic creation of new inconsistencies. They tell me that they have been fighting for this issue for the last 25 years, so they are keen to have it come to fruition.

Secondly, they consider that this will provide a structure that will give increased expertise and effectiveness to the government's regulation of the industry, which will be able to assemble a unique blend of skills in leadership, consultation, occupational safety, road safety, legal, economic, engineering and technical domains, and that establishing a single, national specialist regulator is the most effective way to bring together those skills and be able to better serve the industry.

I hope they are right. I am not overly confident, given some issues that have come to my attention, but, nevertheless, they remain staunchly supportive. They have lobbied for a long time, they have represented their industry well and they will be pleased if these bills are advanced and passed.

I will say that this was a group that was also very concerned at the time of the state government's decision to change the rules in respect of registration of heavy vehicles in this state, and I will come back to that shortly. Certainly, the Livestock & Rural Transporters Association have to meet with their membership which, of course, has, I think it is fair to say, an extra responsibility when it comes to providing live product. I think most members would appreciate the importance of protecting and ensuring the health, wellbeing, and not least the profitability, of the stock they might be carrying; but, purely on the grounds of the importance of protecting livestock in transit, the operators of livestock transport have an extra responsibility.

It has brought a number of other challenges, including the tension between trying to meet the safety needs of drivers in the fatigue management guidelines, rules, codes of practice and, ultimately, legal obligations in respect of fatigue management, together with the need to ensure that livestock are dealt with as humanely as possible in transit. Nobody wishes to see stock overly stressed or unreasonably held in conditions of transit, alienated from food and water and the opportunity to rest, etc. It is important that, when governments do start drawing up the rules, or throwing away the old rule book and starting to draw up a new one, they actually understand that there are a number of factors to take into account.

It is fair to say that, in the livestock industry particularly, they were also very concerned about the obligations of those in the trucking industry towards the safety and wellbeing of their stock, independent of and sometimes in addition to the owner or the agent of the stock or, indeed, the ultimate purchaser. Chain of responsibility issues have also been very significant and high on their agenda, but overall they have stayed strong, and they wish to have the legislation passed.

The other issues, though, that this legislation has thrown up include the questions relating to heavy vehicle charging and investment. There is some reform going on at the national level in respect of how the heavy vehicle industry should make its contribution. We all know that they pay fuel tax. There are some diesel rebates available. That is under review at present. The industry is talking across the country with the powers that be in Canberra about what model that should develop to, to be as fair a system as possible. Suffice to say there are always challenges between the big operators and the small operators who might only work within a local district and not across state boundaries. Often their expectation and benefit from legislation is vastly different, and so there can be tensions even within the industries. Nevertheless, that is under review.

In South Australia as recently as last year, minister Conlon determined that there would be a massive increase in the registration fees of some classes of heavy vehicle. Some classes of truck were to have a very big increase in their registration fees, which would have the effect that large vehicles like road trains and other multiple linked vehicles would have a much higher registration. I am told for basically a truck and two additional trailers, it costs about $30,000 a year to register that vehicle. Suffice to say, when you look at the capital investment of that vehicle, it is hardly surprising that whether you are a small operator or a big operator, you want to have that capital returning some investment. It needs to be on the road as much as possible. The productivity out of these large pieces of investment is critical to the industry.

I make this point because one of the things that became very evident is that in a state like South Australia, where road trains are used particularly in the remoter and regional parts, this decision by Mr Conlon to massively increase the registration for them had a direct impact on people, for example, who lived on the West Coast. Every loaf of bread they bought, every newspaper (apart from the fact that apparently the printing costs are high and they are going to have to pay more now anyway), every can of beer, every product that has to be transported in a large truck, of course, would have the impost transferred to it.

I just despair when I hear of ministers who say, 'Well, this is something that the truck industry can absorb,' or that there will be some absorption of this. It is a bit like when they say, 'Oh well, we will make infrastructure the responsibility of the developers of land,' as though they are just going to suddenly absorb it into their back pocket and it is not going to have some implication for a young couple who might be wanting to go and buy a block of land in a development.

This mentality is very concerning, because having announced that there would be a massive increase in registration fees for particular classes of vehicle, they then said, 'Well, look, we are going to be giving a corresponding decrease in that instance to trailers and small trucks.' So the little trucks that run up and down between Stonyfell and along Greenhill Road every day in my electorate—they pick up rock out of the quarries at Stonyfell—would receive a reduction in their registration costs. So there would be some winners and losers. A claim of the government over that 12 months or so of discussion about it, leading into last year's budget, was that, 'It is really only going to be revenue neutral and we're really just changing the rules for some; some will win and some will lose.'

This is not a revenue-raising exercise, and we deny that this is any process that is designed to raise revenue for the government. This is to be a fairer system. I do not think the industry accepted that. I spoke to a number of industry groups and, whilst they firstly went to the table a few times to try and get some sense out of the information that was being provided to justify this revenue-neutral approach, the reality is that there were clearly concerns. There was a level of distrust—some information was produced and other information was withheld—and this policy to cross-subsidise classes of heavy transport in the registration fees was not something that was universally embraced, that is for sure.

The government ultimately agreed to the implementation, but they would review it and I think the review is due in June 2014—conveniently after the next election. They will then be able to presumably demonstrate that this has really just been an exercise in providing equitable relief amongst all of those who are paying for heavy vehicle registration on trucks and that it is not something that should be adversely affecting the industry in total.

The other aspect of this is that it indicates the utter stupidity of governments making decisions that actually have an adverse effect for taxpayers and the industry. Let me give you an example. Firstly, it should not be beyond the wit of a person of the most average intellect to understand that if you massively increase the registration fees for a particular product (a vehicle in this case) and there is an opportunity in a neighbouring jurisdiction to attract a payment obligation at a much lower level, of course they are going to walk. They are going to take their registration revenue interstate. This is something that blind Freddy could see, and yet the government seems to be completely either blindly ignorant about it or just living in hope that it is not going to happen.

We had a number of meetings with both representative people and also members of the industry who said, when it went from this sort of category, 'Actually we have got trucks, Vickie, that are in the A trailer category so we are actually happy; we are not going to complain about this. We will come back if there is another review and we are going to have them increased.' Obviously, not surprisingly, they are happy. They have, of course, got a reduced revenue to start with on the current rate.

Then there were the ones who were higher—some were just a bit higher and/or they had only operations within the state and they were not sufficiently large; they might have had two, three, four or five trucks. They were relatively small operators and they had always registered their vehicles with the department here. They did not really have any intention to expand into other states. If anything, they were close to retirement and they were saying, 'Well, look Vickie; you know we are not going to hassle about it. We are going to have to pay a bit more, but we will just stick with what we have got.' Then, of course, there is this other group.

Recently, I went around the state and met with people who own trucks. I thank many in the trucking industry for giving me some pretty comprehensive education on everything with more than four wheels, especially the member for Chaffey, who welcomed me into his electorate to understand the issues that happened at the interstate border level. For those on the West Coast and in the South-East and the like, there are different aspects that are pressing to the industry, depending on where they are in which region of the state.

What was absolutely clear was that, where there were larger vehicles which now attract a massively increased registration fee, and where there was multiple truck ownership and where there was travel interstate, particularly to Western Australia or to Victoria, guess what? They said, 'Well this is what we pay, Vickie. This is our usual registration fee; it is $165,000 a year or it is $280,000 a year, and guess what? As of this year, we are registering in Perth or we are registering in Victoria.'

For the benefit of any of those in the department who are hoping to get some of this money back, from my information, there are more over in Melbourne that are getting our money than there are in Perth, but that is probably reflective of the fact that there is probably a much higher level of traffic to Victoria than there is to Western Australia. This is not my area of expertise, so I do not know how much of that transport work is there, but I am just assuming, given the produce we send out of the state to the east and to the north-east rather than to the west.

We have this situation of two things now, one being the loss of revenue to South Australia. We do not yet have the figures provided, and we will be looking with interest as to what the government produces to try to sustain this argument of having a policy of cross-subsidising classes using the registration instrument, blunt as it is. But I can tell you that, anecdotally, we are talking about truck operators that have seriously moved with the chequebook, and the beneficiaries are, of course, are neighbouring state coffers.

The second, of course, is that there is a clear resultant inequity that has developed between the small operators and the larger operators. So, if you are a big interstate operator (and it is really academic as to where you might electronically send your registration fees) and you operate across the country and you have the personnel in the office to be able to monitor this (that is, the best place to be able to register, the best place to set up your business, the best place to pay your WorkCover, etc.), you can do well in employing people to get the best outcome in the sense of regulatory cost that is imposed by governments.

But the little operator, the person who might operate just within a region and a state—go back and forth to Adelaide with a particular product to a particular port or train station to develop a particular piece of produce from a regional area or to deliver to local towns within a certain region—these people have no chance. They actually end up carrying the heavy burden of the higher registration costs in South Australia. So, it is a double-edged sword: less overall money for the state and a system that is no longer fair, if it ever was, and the inequity that it produces. We will see what happens with this whole question of contribution by the heavy vehicle industry.

I have not gone into buses and the like in this regard, but I will make the point that all users of roads, whether they are motorists, cyclists, pedestrians or people going along on their mobility scooters, right across to heavy vehicles, in different ways, in taxation and registration fees, we expect there to be contributions, and very significant registration fees are paid by the heavy vehicle industry.

They are, of course, also high consumers of fuel, I think still usually diesel. I am only assuming that, but I am sure the member for Chaffey will tell me if I am wrong, but I assuming diesel is still the biggest energy provider for heavy vehicles in this state. I have not seen too many hybrid trucks, anyway; in fact, it is fair to say that I have not see any. In any event, clearly they are big consumers of fuel and pay the fuel tax and excises at the national level, commensurate with some diesel rebate opportunities for truck operators and primary producers, etc.

Everyone contributes in some way to roads. Obviously, as taxpayers, we make contributions to infrastructure projects through the general revenue and the like, and it seems that we have come to a new dawn of opportunity for government to get access to money by this year's budget. For the first time in my time in the parliament, we now have the government taking money out of the Motor Accident Commission—$100 million in this year's budget—to finance projects for roads, ostensibly under the guise of road safety. Anyway, we will deal with that in another debate.

This is a big issue, and one that is not remedied or enhanced by this legislation. If anything, the frustration of the industry here could be exacerbated if they do not have timely processing of their regulatory obligations by having to go through the national scheme. There is an expectation that it will cost less, or cost no more, and be more streamlined, and therefore more productive. As I said, I am not filled with hope in that regard, but some in the industry are still hanging on by a thread.

The other aspect is occupational health and safety, and this comes under heavy scrutiny in this legislation. There is a proposal in this tranche of legislation that we will add to some of the obligations by virtue of offences and powers to the enforcement that sits around this. Obviously, we know of the aspect of fatigue management, but there is also the broader safety aspect of other road users. I think it is important to put into perspective that, according to the research in the Journal of the Australasian College of Road Safety in 2011 on heavy vehicle safety:

In Australia, deaths from heavy vehicle crashes represent 16% of the national road toll, with an estimated cost to society of $2 billion per year. During the 12 months to the end of September 2010, 250 people died from 209 crashes involving heavy trucks or buses. The majority of those crashes (60%) involved articulated trucks, followed by heavy rigid trucks (32%) and buses (8%).

Recently, I was pleased to read that there had actually been a reduction in road deaths in which a heavy truck had been involved. That is encouraging, but there are two things that we do not always take into account. One is that there are other significant injuries and/or property damage that can occur as a result of motor vehicle accidents, outside of fatalities, which of course are very sad. Obviously there can be other significant adverse outcomes from heavy vehicle accidents. The other thing is that other road users, including motor vehicle operators, are also involved in and are, in a number of cases, responsible for fatalities on the road. In South Australia, we have some 100 people a year who, sadly, lose their lives, and hundreds more who suffer some injury.

What is concerning to me and I am sure to other members in the parliament is, firstly, that we need to always keep in perspective the relativity of what damage is actually happening in the sense of personal injury and death on roads. We should not lose perspective of what is the heavy killer. I do not think it is helpful to be making large comparisons about whether cars are more dangerous than trucks, because the reality is that they both use the roads, but I do not think it can be overlooked that, sadly, speed, inattentiveness and other aspects in relation to motor vehicle use is also a large killer of those who operate vehicles on the roads.

What is concerning to me is that, in all the data, the reality is that there is an ever-increasing, very significant and sharp increase in heavy vehicle road freight distribution. If we continue to have the number of heavy vehicles on the roads and highways at the trajectory that we are heading towards then we have to look seriously at this, because logistics is an important business, obviously. I read somewhere not that long ago that, for a loaf of bread now, a very significant percentage—somewhere near half—of the cost of a loaf of bread is attributed to the logistical transport and delivery of it, a much smaller portion goes to the person who has produced the wheat and other products for it, and then of course there is the baker who has put it all together.

The slice for logistics and transport distribution is very high. It seems that, largely, that is because there are fewer and fewer outlets and there are major intermodal transport operations now for products, say within Australia. One of the large supermarkets—I cannot remember now whether it is Coles or Woolworths—has two major intermodal transport exchanges of its product for all of its supermarkets in Australia, one in Queensland and one in South Australia. All the product is brought to one spot and then it is redistributed out, usually by road, to other outlets, so it is a massive exercise.

I was looking on the website today to see all the little black ants going around the Britannia roundabout to show me how I will have to actually deal with it at the end of the year. We will get two roundabouts that I will have to go around twice a day. In any event, I was looking at that and thinking to myself, 'It must be massive to see the amount of heavy transport at an Australia-wide level of what is actually out there.' The reason this was heightened for me is not because I get shown all these statistics about the huge trajectory of demand and the use of freight delivery by road but because out in the field—and it was with one of the operators with the member for Chaffey, I recall—I was looking at a screen, and on that screen was a display of all of the trucking company's vehicles, either stationary or en route, across Australia.

They were like little dots. I cannot remember now whether they were green or red dots, but the technology now for being able to identify where a truck is, and even what the truck driver is doing, is quite extraordinary. I was told that they could identify exactly where one of their trucks was at any one time. They could probably make a safe prediction as to whether the truck driver, if stopped, had stopped for a toilet break, to have a cigarette or have lunch, and be able to make an assessment of not only—

Mr Whetstone: How fast.

Ms CHAPMAN: How fast they were going and, of course, assuming they are going on the right route, that they were actually undertaking their contractual load obligation. All of these things are important, not just for safety—to make sure that the drivers are not speeding. The employer has an obligation to make sure that they are not breaking the rules, that they are taking the mandatory breaks on their driving stints and that they are not speeding, etc. These are all important tools in being able to heighten heavy vehicle safety outcomes. However, it is extraordinary to think that when I look at a screen like that and see what I would describe as a small to medium business in a South Australian country area, with a picture of all these little dots of their own vehicles, and if you were to overlap Scott transport—I think Scott's is still the biggest—and all of the other smaller South Australian companies that have all of their heavy vehicles out there, it would look like an ant's nest, with all of the people going in and out of ports and major intermodal centres and, of course, to train stations and the like.

Fascinating as all that is, I make the point that the demand is ever-increasing. We have very few new roads. We have a major backlog of maintenance for the current roads in South Australia, which is concerning, but the demand is there and it will get higher. Clearly, we need to address those issues; to me they are very important. It is one thing to transfer all of the rules and regulations, not only as masses to be carried, and the like, by vehicles and the rules to apply to driver behaviour, to a national regulator, but these are really big issues that still have to be dealt with, and really have not been, I think, properly considered for the future.

In fact, what we have created is not a remedy for some of these big issues, but we have created an obligation to people in the trucking industry, and not just employers. Employers always get trotted out as the people who are responsible for the extra regulation, red tape and green tape—we hear about that quite often—but it should not be overlooked that it is also the obligation of a very significant number of employees in the heavy vehicle world. That is not just drivers, of course, but anyone who might be loading trucks, unloading trucks, pumping up the tyres, attending to the mechanical maintenance of vehicles, buying and selling, fitting and retrofitting of particular equipment—it might be a seatbelt or anything else.

All of these people in the heavy vehicle world, in addition to some corporate group, or a family partner, husband-and-wife, who might be employing the people involved in these ventures, have to go through a heavy burden of training. Why? Because we have loads and loads of rules about what they need to be proficient in. They need to certify, perhaps by a declaration process, that they have complied with and have continuing education and training to keep up with their obligations. Transferring these obligations, together with some special ones that we have in South Australia, to some group in Queensland does not make it any easier; it does not resolve the bigger issue.

Just to give myself some education in this area in the region of the member for Chaffey's electorate, I met with a company that operates in a number of states. They are headquartered in New South Wales, and they operate in the Riverland and have an outlet there. They provide transport for what I describe as dead things. They do not have livestock, but they have boxes, cartons and containers, and so on. I said to them, 'Just give me an idea of what the obligation is. Apart from training to get your special licence to be a driver and the like, what are all the other things that they have to do to comply with their training to start working with you to the level which you, as a responsible employer, are required to induct them?'

I was staggered. I had taken up with me a copy of the Heavy Vehicle National Law (South Australia) Bill 2013 which is about 2½ centimetres thick and I was staggered when they handed over a bundle of material that was about 3½ centimetres thick. I said, 'Could you send me a copy of that electronically? I would like to have a look through it and see what is really involved in getting your employees up to speed and what the things are that they have to do.'

It was interesting to read through, but the manual I had received that was necessary for induction—even of somebody who was not driving a truck—was absolutely extraordinary. There are the usual topics of drug and alcohol rules, fatigue knowledge and awareness, fitness for duty, heavy equipment undergoing maintenance, incident reporting and investigation, information technology and media, mobile phones, occupational health and safety, opportunities for improvement, organisational structure, performance management, privacy and confidentiality—the list goes on.

I was staggered at all of the company policies that the companies were required to prepare and publish and induct every employee into before they came on site, essentially, to do their work. When it came to either driving and manoeuvring of heavy vehicles and/or loading, which is just a whole new world in itself—I mean I have read mass specifications and things like that over the years for different reasons, such as court cases and so on, but I was blown away by the actual level of obligation.

This week I received a regulation from the minister and the parliament of all the new fees that apply to all these things, which just make me sick, actually, but nevertheless I was provided with this huge volume of all the things that they needed to be trained in and that they had to read and sign that they had read and sign that they understood. These people needed a university degree just to be able to get their foot in the door and to be able to have the job legally.

By the time they got to the last form that was sent me, which was the social club membership, they would be so exhausted that they would not have time to be able to be a member. In any event, it certainly was an eye-opener to me of the layer upon layer of regulatory obligation that is now there, not just for the employer but for the people who work in that long chain of responsibility group in the industry.

I know that we can sit here in blissful ignorance of what is happening in the real world some days and think that we are overloaded with material but, just remember, in this parliament we are making new laws, and if we make one law, there is a massive amount of regulation being churned out and imposed on the general populace.

I have spent 30 years either applying the law or making it and nobody disputes the importance in civilised society of having a regime of legal structure. I support it: I support the rule of law and the separation of powers. I support democracy. However, I just ask those who are responsible for the implementation of the extraordinary amount of administrative obligation that comes with these laws that we make, to understand how difficult it is for the person out there to actually comply with them.

The other aspect of this legislation is that, whilst it is supposed to be providing some uniformity and some consistency, the reality is that if you operate in South Australia—whether or not you are based somewhere else and operate here in South Australia—you get anything but uniformity with the rest of Australia.

This piece of legislation is proposing to take with it a signing up to the national scheme but with a whole lot of extras. The general principle of the extras under consideration is that it is underpinned by the fact that these are already procedures or powers or offences which apply in South Australia and, presumably, our Minister for Transport, or his predecessor, has argued to the powers that be in the COAG meetings that these are better laws than somewhere else and it is important that we keep them and that is part of the deal. So, in the sign-up to the uniform, harmonious arrangement, we are going to have a whole lot of extras. Principally, the variations are:

first, to make four additional heavy vehicle national law offences expiable, and the government here proposes that they will be in regulatory form;

secondly, to allow the issue of an improvement notice where a breach of the heavy vehicle national law is likely to occur as well as is occurring or has occurred;

thirdly, removing the requirement to have a reasonable belief that evidence will be destroyed in order to enter a place without a warrant for investigation purposes;

fourthly, excluding the reasonable steps defence from the offence of tampering with a speed limiter; and

fifthly, placing the onus of proving reasonable excuse in a number of offences on the defendant.

These, apparently—again, I am not an expert in this area but I am told and I have no reason to doubt it—are in our current South Australian laws. I will say that, during the course of the consultation with the general industry, there was no strong outcry against these continuing. I will come to an aspect that was of concern but, in principle, people did not have any objection.

To give an example, people did not have any objection to it being an offence to tamper with a speed limiter. They understood the importance of that kind of conduct being unacceptable and that it should be an offence. I do not think any of them that I spoke to had a clue what the reasonable steps defence meant. It was not a big topic of conversation in the consultations I was doing with the industry, but most of them did not have a clue what that actually meant. But, generally, they were saying, 'Really, we understand these things are there for good reason.'

Perhaps they were just generally good, law-abiding business people, but they did not have an issue with that. This is something that always happens with offences. Until somebody actually gets caught by it or is alleged to have offended and breached prohibited conduct laws and they are suddenly facing huge penalties, they do not really give it a lot of attention. That can happen, too, but I make the point that at this stage there has not been any strong objection to it.

The extended powers and offences in this bill which, again, currently apply, largely relate to our police powers being extended in this regime, and they include: the offence of possessing a device designed to enable tampering with a speed limiter; the offence of selling or otherwise disposing of a vehicle which is subject to a defect notice; the power to inspect and defect a vehicle kept at a place for hire or sale; the power to direct a heavy vehicle to move if it is obstructing a vehicle from entering or leaving land adjacent to a road or obstructing a lawful event; the power, including for local government enforcement officers, to move an unattended or broken-down heavy vehicle that is on a bridge, culvert or freeway, is obstructing any lawful event, is obstructing a vehicle from entering or leaving land adjacent to a road, is causing harm or risk of harm to public safety, the environment or road infrastructure, or is obstructing traffic.

Interestingly, to me anyway, when I was travelling back from Port Augusta recently—sadly from the service for the late Joy Baluch—I happened to stop at a service station and I picked up a magazine. I cannot even remember the name of it now, but it was trucking news. I have to confess I have never actually read one of these magazines.

Mr Whetstone:Big Rigs.

Ms CHAPMAN:Big Rigs—that's it. I thought, considering my new portfolio, I would actually read it. It is very interesting to find out where you can go to have truck stops and so on. There were letters to the editor, and one chap had decided that he was going to have a call to arms of drivers. He was proposing that there be a rally to object to what he saw as unrealistic expectation in the delivery of the fatigue management rules, in particular that there had to be a certain amount of time that you were able to drive or operate your vehicle and then you had to have certain rest stops. His complaint was that that is all very well, but where do you stop a huge, loaded vehicle on a main road where there is no place to stop?

He was really suggesting that there is an inadequate number of places to safely stop a vehicle, park and have your compulsory or mandatory rest time in the journeys that they are doing. Remember, a lot of these people are travelling interstate. They are driving for very long periods of time in total, but we have these rules that say they have to stop. Everybody accepts that you have got to have special rules, obviously, otherwise people get tired, they cause accidents, hurt themselves, kill other people, etc.; but he was outraged that there should be an obligation in relation to this with no flexibility, according to him, in what was being proposed there.

Of course, a typical regulator, somebody back here in Adelaide—like we all are—sitting in offices, can say, 'They should work around this. If it is an eight-hour period that is the limit, or after the fourth hour they have to stop and rest for half an hour—whatever the rule might be—and they have not had a spot there that is available, then they have to stop after 3½ hours, find a spot before and pull their rig in, have a cup of coffee and have a break.' But that is just not the real world. Sometimes these people are out in the middle of nowhere. They are not all going along main highways. Their three-hour or four-hour limit, or half an hour either side, might still be miles away from anywhere.

Mr Whetstone: In the hot sun.

Ms CHAPMAN: In the stinking heat or in the freezing cold. It is just not realistic. The inflexibility of this is of concern, not because the driver was saying in this article that he disagreed with the concept of having fatigue management, but he said the inflexibility is a problem because the penalties with this are massive. The consequences of a breach of these affect not just he or she who is driving the truck and who might be in breach, but their employer or someone else who is responsible for the management of the truck or in the chain of responsibility rules is also responsible.

It is not just the fine or the potential to lose in some pecuniary way, but the suspension or disqualification of a licence or the confiscation of a truck are all very serious impositions that come with breaches of offences in this range. They are there. We stand here in this parliament and we make these laws in the expectation that we are doing this in the interests of safety and protecting people on the road. It all sounds good, but I defy any of the members to go out and actually talk to the people in the trucking industry and understand what is happening in the real world. In the real world they are trying to get the loaves of bread, the bottles of milk, the cans of beer, whatever it is, distributed around the country to be delivered to people so that they can eat and have building materials for their shed or house, and clothes for their children to go to the local school—all the things that are necessary and are provided by the logistics and transport industry.

Yet we are being asked to make laws that impose not just a handbrake, but an anvil thrown on the heads of these people. I commend the magazine to anybody. It is quite an interesting read. They have lots of little jokes. I do not understand most of them but, nevertheless, they are very interesting to read. Before we come in to make legislation on these things, we ought to have a look at them.

The other aspect of this is the question of the defect procedures. In our compliance and enforcement in respect of the heavy vehicle world, I understand we have a number of people in the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (whatever it is called these days) who go out to inspect, to see that loads are the right mass and the right weight, and so on. We have weighing stations, we have checking of how different loads have been packed. I think we even have some special rules in South Australia that do not apply in other states about bales of hay—all these sorts of things; the weight and mass of vehicles. Obviously, in South Australia this is an important role of the enforcement officers within the department.

Then we have a second group. I think there are 20-odd people in the police department in South Australia who have a specific role in detecting and prosecuting offences which involve the industry. That is not just in breach of truck rules, but obviously in breach of the road rules and behaviour such as drink-driving and the like.

The use and/or abuse of the defect process is of concern. It was made clear to me that there was a use by some of the defect notice process to access other powers and for other purposes. This was presented to me by some people in the industry as being, 'Look, we know sometimes our trucks get picked up. They are defected for a minor matter with a view to being able to utilise the powers under the laws which allow for the inspection or confiscation of a vehicle and/or to be able to access it to search for drugs and the like.'

I did not come down in the last shower. It does not surprise me that there is a vigilant effort on the part of our authorities, particularly the police department, to keep an eye on the transport, particularly of illicit drugs, in this state. As South Australia is known, and still remains I think, the bastion at the top level of marijuana growing in Australia—it is not a badge of honour, I might say, but it is one which we understand and we do not challenge—it is reasonable for the enforcement agencies to try to keep a lid on that.

Consequently, checking whether it is a boat or a plane or a road vehicle at the borders is reasonable—or outside of an area at which there is suspected trading and transporting of drugs. Again, you do not have to be Einstein to realise that trucks are pretty big vehicles. They are loaded up and strapped up—and they do not even put ropes on them anymore, they have all of these clever gadgets which manoeuvre the load into place and strap it down. I am sure the minister has done this many times—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: I always wanted to.

Ms CHAPMAN: It is done to protect the cargo. It is a skilful occupation for the people who do all of this, but it would be obvious to everybody that it would not be difficult for there to be the transporting of illicit drugs in small quantities in these large operations. I, for one, accept that it is important to be able to arrest the trade in this regard as much as one can, so I am not going to challenge the need for the government to allow police officers to have a role in this regard and to be able to have these powers.

For me, where there was an identified deficiency was with the group in the department which is responsible for defecting. I have to say—before I leave the police—that it is not as though there were no complaints in the information from some drivers and/or operators. There were several who had indicated to me that they thought that sometimes the police action in pulling up a truck and defecting it for the most minor thing was overzealous on the part of the police officer, but the real criticism actually came from the defecting at the departmental level.

I will not name any particular people involved in this, but I make the point that it is pretty clear that two things are happening. One is that sometimes defects are put on a vehicle, and they are assessed to be defective by persons who are not qualified in mechanics or engineering, which is necessary in making that assessment. That is the first thing I say, and I will give you an example in a moment.


[Sitting extended beyond 17:00 on motion of Hon. T Kenyon]


Ms CHAPMAN: The second aspect is the process by which truck operators or drivers can get the defect removed. So there is the question of the qualifications of those who are doing the defecting and there is also the question of accessibility to go through the process of inspection and release from the defect. In essence, as I understand it, what happens is that, a defect notice is issued (that is, a vehicle is inspected; it might be at a weighing station, it might be picked up on the side of the road, it might be in the station, in its usual depot, for example; in any event, there are certain powers of access to inspect these vehicles).

If a defect notice is issued, then, except in a limited capacity, the vehicle is taken off the road, and the vehicle has to be inspected by an authorised officer in South Australia, who will then identify if there has been a remedying of the defect, such as changing the mud flap, or whatever the issue is that is defective. The problem is that the inspection depot for heavy vehicles is in Adelaide and, from there, periodically some of the officers at the depots go out to regional areas—to the Riverland, I think to Peterborough—

Mr Whetstone: Coober Pedy.

Ms CHAPMAN: —Coober Pedy, Mount Gambier; obviously to various regional centres around the state. At those places there are usually some facilities, which are either shared, leased or owned perhaps by the department, where people can bring their trucks. They can make a booking, they take their vehicle in and then they can have it checked off.

The problem is this: first, if you live in regional South Australia, where a lot of these trucking operations are based, they either have to take their trucks down to Adelaide or wait until somebody comes out to them. Then they have to be able to book the space, and then hope that they can get in. That does not happen the next day; that might happen once a month.

What I am told is that the bigger operators—again, those that have somebody there to manage all of this—block book an afternoon or a day or a week or whatever it takes to have their vehicles that have been defected attended to. Obviously, as efficiently as that can be done, they then whiz them through to try to be relieved of that, have it certified that the defect has been remedied, and they can get back on the road.

But the weeks of loss of productivity of a vehicle, which is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention the about $30,000 a year just to register it and to keep it on the road, and the loss of income maybe for the driver, who would otherwise be out there earning a living, if they are paid at that rate, or the loss to the employer if they have to pay them anyway and they are not on some arrangements where they are paid according to the shifts they work. There are losses all around.

So, when I read a piece of Hansard which tells me, 'This is an important initiative, this national scheme, because it is going to be increasing productivity for an industry,' and I know that we are transferring what we have in law to a national regulator but we are still going to be implementing back here in the same way, it does not fill me with joy. I despair at the fact that there does not seem to be any remedying of what is actually happening out there.

So, what can be done? Obviously, we have to have some inspectorate, some sort of authorised officer, to undertake it. If you have a rule that says that something has to be done, you usually have to have somebody to follow it through, unlike marine parks, where you can set up all of the rules and then not have anybody to enforce them. Anyway, the basic principle of having a legal structure, for all the reasons that are meritorious in terms of safety and the like, you actually have to have someone to enforce it; we accept that.

But isn't it about time that the government understood that the imposition of the process here is cumbersome, expensive and unnecessary. The reason for that is that even our neighbours next door (and I had some briefing on this from the Victorian situation) do not require their trucks to necessarily have to go to these designated points. They actually authorise people who are in the field, who are experienced and who are qualified to be able to identify whether there has been a defect and what is necessary to remedy it, in enterprises and businesses which are scattered all around Victoria.

So, instead of insisting that they go to Regency Park or the main truck station, or waiting weeks and weeks to actually have an appointment at one of the regional offices spread out around South Australia, in Victoria they actually let you go down to the local authorised representative, who might be in private business, where they tick it off; the truck gets back on the road, and everyone is happy. It really does disturb me that we are perpetuating a system which is not efficient, and which hopefully will not take hold in other states, because it seems that they are way head of us in this regard.

I do not want you to take my word for it. During the course of a number of consultations, I met with South Australian Road Transport Association (SARTA) representatives and other stakeholders and discussed what they mean by 'unreasonable defects'. For some reason, I do not have the defect notice that I wanted to refer to with me, but I have the letter that was sent by an operator to SARTA about what happens out there in the real world.

The letter is dated 25 February 2013, and was in response to a defect notice that had been issued by an employee of the department's enforcement group. I was provided with a copy of the certificate of roadworthiness and the defect notice (which I seemed to have misplaced) but I think you will get the gist of what the complaint is when I read this letter. He writes: 'Attention Steve Shearer', who is the chief executive officer of SARTA, and states:

Dear Steve,

Hope this day finds all well.

I have a problem I hope you can help me with, or point me in the right direction of someone who can.

Last Wednesday, 20th of February, we had a truck booked in to be inspected at Renmark inspection station for a roadworthy certificate and B Double rating.

The truck, a Freightliner Argosy having done 350,000km, is in excellent condition mechanically as I am meticulous with my fleet.

To get to the point, I am disgusted with the inspector, who failed this vehicle, and I feel something must be done to stop this crap with this inspector.

Item 1 A speed limiter report was done at William Adams in Mildura. He said he wanted a South Australian limiter report. What is the reason for this?

Item 2 The seatbelt was not frayed to the extent of having to be replaced and even in cars you sometimes have to jerk once or twice to retract.

Item 3 Odometer does work correctly, he has no idea of the workings of this computer and dash system in these Freightliners and to say the odometer is not visible is absolute rubbish.

Item 4 The centre drive mudflaps are original to the truck and have passed the test before from new and other inspectors. Bob tail these flaps were 210mm from the ground, whereas the rear was replaced and 150mm from the ground.

Item 5 On the engine mounts the way the rubber is moulded they have a seam in the middle which makes them look torn but they are not.

Item 6 One loose bolt on the cross bars between the fuel tanks, what crap!!

None of the things listed are relevant to the vehicle roadworthiness and through your group I want to take this matter further and get some reality when doing these inspections, not by amateurs with a 'I will cos I can' attitude.

I went into the inspection centre to ask why and was greeted by inspector 131 who, when I asked if he was a mechanic or what qualifications he had, replied 'I have been through the automotive industry', what that means I don't know.

In closing, I could go on forever—

Something has to be done with this sort of thing to get proper inspectors who know what its all about and not this 'shit' that is going on.

The vehicle has 350,000km on the clock and is not a threat on the road, especially with this sort of rubbish by this inspector!

We have since had the vehicle roadworthied elsewhere without any problems and it is now registered in another state.

By the way, I asked why the mudflaps had to be 200mm and was given the DTEI Spray Suppression Manual, which originates in London UK! Yeah England! And it was brought out in May 2007, bit old!!

Regards

X

I think that is a pretty frank assessment of obviously how he felt about the inspection and the lack of qualification, and I have a copy of the certificate of roadworthiness that ultimately flowed in respect of this vehicle. I cannot make any assessment myself as to whether that was a reasonable complaint, because I do not know the vehicle, I did not inspect it and I am not qualified to identify whether it was reasonable or not, but this is symptomatic of the sort of complaint that I was getting across South Australia from people who were frustrated by a process which seemed to be, as the cumulative examples came to me, more and more concerning.

The statement in this instance is from someone in what I would describe as a medium-sized business—again, hardly as big as the South-East ventures or Lindsay Fox's operation, but it was a medium-sized business. This is someone who is purported to have been in the industry for a long time and presented to me as having some pride in the level of safety with which he operated his trucks and claimed that he had not been in any level of suspension or disqualification from operating his business. In other words, he is an all-round decent, experienced operator.

They get to this level of frustration to write to their representative body to try to get some relief. It is no comfort to me to think that all of this process is still going to go on without us relieving it and fixing it up when we are looking at a national scheme. I do not know what the immediate answer is to this. I have canvassed it with other colleagues in the parliament and, clearly, those who represent country areas and have had experience in heavy vehicle transport operations have also expressed concern.

Again, it is not to the extent of saying, 'Look, we have to try to arrest this bill. We have to try to stop it now before it gets translated into the federal arena, and it might even get worse.' It seems to me that there has been a failure to recognise that there are consequences to real businesses, real families, real jobs and real livelihoods out there as a result of what appears to be overzealous enforcement and a regime of relief from that enforcement by the release on defect notices in an overprescriptive and limited access to people who are expert to do it.

I am told that just recently there was a review done by a private mechanical business of one of the trucks of one of the operators that I spoke to who actually had their certificate prepared by somebody in Victoria. They presented it back to the South Australian police officer and it was accepted at the local level as having remedied the defect sufficiently to allow it to operate. What a sensible, pragmatic way of resolving the matter. Perhaps it just took a sensible police officer in a country town to take the administrative position to remedy it and deal with something. Otherwise, the consequence for a particular operator was to take the vehicle to Adelaide, as I say, line up to get the booking—

Mr Whetstone: Book it in.

Ms CHAPMAN: That's right; book it in first, and go down there and go through all that process. Thank goodness for people out there who seem to be acting in a pragmatic way. Quite possibly, he did not comply with all of the processes of obligation that are prescribed for how these issues are dealt with, but it sounded like plain common sense to me and something that the government should get a bit active in ensuring that they allow for.

If we are going to go into a federal system, for goodness' sake, apart from just hanging on to the powers and offences that we protect as perfect and beneficial to our own, at least learn a bit from what is happening interstate when you go into this regime to give us a chance of picking up some beneficial outcomes from this whole exercise.

One of the things that I would ask the government to look at is material that is published by the Victorian Department of Transport under a trading name of some description (I call it VicRoads). It has its own manager, but I assume it is under the jurisdiction of the equivalent transport department in Victoria. They publish an excellent manual of helpful information for truck operators.

I have not seen anything similar to it in South Australia, but it is a helpful document to take. Not everybody can sit there on their iPad in their truck to check up certain rules or obligations, or mass limits for a B-double, or whatever issue they need to check on or, indeed, in the middle of the night they have to check back at the office headquarters if they are closed to get advice on a particular regulatory obligation.

I think the material that is published by VicRoads could be helpful for us to learn from and it would be worthwhile following through. The reason I particularly mention this is because, separate from compliance and enforcement problems that I have highlighted, especially around the defect process, another matter that has come to my attention is the failure to resolve the first mile-last mile process.

For those who are not familiar with what I am referring to, essentially there are rules that say that vehicles of a certain size, weight or mass are not able to travel on certain roads without a permit. My understanding is that this is necessary to ensure that you have got safe access on the roads, that the vehicle is not too heavy for a bridge, for example, that there is room on the road for other vehicles to use it and that it is not dangerous.

Big vehicles, especially loaded up, may cause some damage to the road, public property, trees, or branches along the side of a road unless this process is in place. In essence, as I understand what happens, usually this is an issue in country South Australia when vehicles try to go down a road to access a property, which might be a primary producer.

In the first mile of that journey going into the premises, it may be that the truck needs to go off a main road which might be sealed and very safe and suitable for heavy transport. It might need to go down a dirt track or over a little bridge or a crossing and then go onto a property and pick up its load of sheep, wheat or grapes and the like. The local council says, 'We're responsible for that road and we don't think it's appropriate that the truck goes down that road, so we're not going to give approval.'

The second area, which is often called 'the last mile issue', is where the truck driver needs to go into the town to go to the silo at the port, for example, and unload their wheat and they need to go down a certain route to get to the depot or the silo. Often in towns or regions where there is regular produce with a seasonal supply, there is a sealed road and that is a fairly high standard road. There is a dedicated road and the local council who might be responsible for the roads in the town advises the truck operators, who may be transport operators or owner/operators.

A lot of farmers now have their own vehicles, so they might be very small-scale transporters but they transport their own product and they have a seasonal fleet that they use. The council has worked out where it is safest to traverse the town and what route they should go down so that they cause minimal disturbance to retailers or patients in a hospital or children in a school or a childcare centre or somebody reading something in the library—we still have libraries in the country; that is fortunate.

They work out where there is minimum inconvenience or disturbance to other activity in the town and where there is a safe place to travel and presumably make some assessment about whether the vehicle is going to cause any damage to the road surface or other improvements that it might traverse. If the council does not provide consent for a vehicle to go over a particular road, then the process, as I understand it, has been that the department is asked to try to negotiate some kind of outcome to let them do it or impose some conditions to reduce the size of the load or whatever to be able to traverse a certain area.

Over the time I have covered transport matters, I have had some helpful advice from senior people in the Department of Transport as to how they do that and they try—I think, quite fairly, and I can only accept that that is what occurs—not to override a decision of the council but work with the council as to how you can have a win-win. Obviously a lot of the country towns' councils have mixed obligations. They might have a very noisy group of parents at the school who say, 'We don't want the truck coming down this road,' and they try to work with them to make sure that there is a win-win outcome for the town and the producer and so on.

If there is no resolution at that stage, what happens? Let me tell you what happens out in the real world. What happens is that they go down these roads anyway. That is the truth of it. It is absolutely absurd to think that we have this whole process which is now being formalised in this legislation to try to remedy this issue. They are going to formalise the process so that where there is a refusal and the attempt to negotiate falls apart, there is to be a process of review and then the minister can have a look at it. There has to be approval from the new regulator to be able to go through this process, so we are going to formalise what has been an informal arrangement.

It seems, though, that we are not going to add to it or fix it up when there is no resolution. It just seems that there is going to be an autocratic decision at the end where the minister either agrees or disagrees and he or she will have the final say. There is no appeal to the District Court or any process through which you can get relief. You are just at the behest of the minister. You do wonder sometimes why we go through all this process to fix an ill, to cure an ill. I am not certain that it is going to be any better.

Time and again, I would speak to people who operate the trucks, sometimes their own local truck. They would be loading up with a whole lot of wheat, barley, or something, to move and they need to go from certain paddocks to another and they might traverse a local council-controlled road and, because the local council says, 'You can't use that road,' they might have to go thousands of acres around, kilometres more, to go onto another road to be able to traverse paddocks and load up and do the whole exercise again. I can tell the parliament that the information that has come to me is they do not do that. They just open cocky's gate, move the truck through, shut the gate, go and get what they have to and leave.

Here is the danger with doing that. First, they can be caught and prosecuted. Secondly, there could be a very good reason why it might create some danger, namely, the vehicle might take up a whole lot of space on a small road, there may be an accident with another vehicle that comes along the road that hits it and we have got all sorts of questions about liability. All around, it is not acceptable that we have a situation where, I would suggest, there is not over-vigilant enforcement of this because nobody wants to do anything about it. The attempt to do it in this bill I think is clumsy at best and is more onerous to the people who might be aggrieved by decisions that are made at local council level or, of course, if the authority that determines access to the road or whatever conditions are set is a state body, then the state rejects access to a road.

These things may seem to be small to many of us standing here who do not appreciate that, all day, these truck drivers are having to traverse, pick up loads, take them, empty them, go to another property and pick up their load and move on, and the like, but there is no real assistance or relief under this proposal and it is more cumbersome and, I would suggest, will be more costly, and I think it is still very concerning.

The other aspect is the regulation of heavy transport that will be dealt with under the model law according to the Road Traffic Act to be amended to only cover light vehicles. However, the drink and drug driving, careless and dangerous driving, excessive speed and Australian road rule requirements will continue to apply to heavy vehicles as well as light vehicles under the Road Traffic Act.

I would just like to raise another aspect of the enforcement and the defect process. I have had the interesting role of covering transport on behalf of the opposition and one of the things that occurred to me is that, whilst there is a vigilant regime of regulation for heavy transport to be safe on our roads (obviously, so we do not cause carnage and damage to others and property), some of the basis for the defects that we refer to as being the subject of complaint in the over-zealous enforcement might be something as small as a mark on a mudguard.

Obviously, there could be bolts missing or rigs that can move around or aspects of a chassis that could come loose or loads could dismantle and cause a major problem—they are the obvious ones—but I just ask the government, and particularly the minister, to take into account what his government is doing with their heavy transport and what standards they set themselves.

To the best of my knowledge, the government do not own big fleets of heavy vehicles anymore because they do not actually do building maintenance and various things anymore, but they do have lots of buses. The Minister for Transport shares transport services responsibility with a second minister, but the government have a fleet of buses that they used to own, many of which they still do, that they lease now to private operators to put on the road.

Members will be familiar with the grandstanding contributions by the Premier on an almost daily basis about how proud he is of the infrastructure build of his government, for all of the reasons he claims as meritorious. In any event, as a result of, for example, the electrification of trains to the south, there are a number of other buses that are now being used by the government to provide the transport services to people who live in the south.

As I understand it, under the Minister for Transport Services, in the public arena, those that they have had in reserve or that might have been a bit old have sort of been brought back into service to fill the need while the trains are out of action.

Of all the buses that we see on the roads, I would just ask members to have a good look next time they are out on North Terrace or King William Street at the rows of buses that are lined up and just have a little look at those and the condition that they are in, and then observe them take off and have a good look at how they are operating, and, if they have got time, have a word to some of the passengers who are expected to travel on these buses, particularly those used as replacement services.

There is a list of things that I alone have observed. I am not someone who usually watches buses, but this is a list that I have made. There is body damage to the paintwork and to the body of the bus which has not been fixed—usually called a 'dent'—there are faded numberplates and there are, of course, the smoky buses.

I am talking about buses that have got exhaust facilities at the top of them that steam out grey dust of some description. I do not know what it is. It is some sort of smoke or dust. I am told it is oil burning because there is oil leaking in these things. These things are so prolific in the amount of dust coming out or smoke or whatever it is, they should be used for a climate change ad or something—they are so bad. Do not stand behind it when you are actually trying to see this.

There are rear and front lights that are not working. Any number of these would just take a truck off the road, but not in our buses. There was gaffer tape on the rear end of one bus, which was to hold a piece of something to the rear end of the body. There were buses that were not running on all cylinders and were sitting crooked. There were air bags failing. There were doors not shutting, or opening, and forcing passengers to get out of one or other of the exit doors.

But wait for it: I got one letter of complaint—I did not actually observe this myself—from somebody who was furious that, in inclement weather, in which they took their umbrella to the local bus station to catch the bus, when they got on the bus, they had to use their umbrella again. Why? Because the bus was leaking. I ask you, why is it that we place such an onerous level of responsibility on heavy transport truck operations and their drivers and employees—reading all these teams of manuals, doing all these things are expected of them, high levels of training, every piece of their vehicle has to be in absolute top condition—and yet here in Adelaide I can see hundreds of buses travelling around South Australia in a disgusting state, not to mention the fact that they are filthy, or I have complaints that they are not on time, and all those other things. This is the very state of buses that are actually driving around with people in them. I am not talking about boxes or cartons or cattle or a driver, I am talking about other members of the public, who are sitting in these vehicles which are clearly below standard.

I just think the government needs to take a good look at itself, particularly the Minister for Transport Services or the Premier, and get this thing sorted out and work out who is going to be in charge of these issues, because we have not only had a year of all the issues relating to bus contracts, but now we have public transport vehicles—heavy transport vehicles—owned by the government, which is supposed to be the regulator and the safety barons for the protection of the public, that are substandard vehicles driving around in our very streets, full of people. I think it is disgraceful and that the government needs to understand that it can make all rules in the world for the rest of the world, but it needs to stand by its own standards.

The final thing I wish to address is the fact that Mr Steve Shearer, and others representing several of the stakeholders, including the South Australian Road Transport Association, and the national body, the Australian Trucking Association (ATA), together with some other entities, have pointed out, crystal clear, what the problem is.

The problem is this: it became evident during the debate up to the December parliamentary sessions in Queensland for the national law that a couple of issues were unresolved. One of them was this first mile, last mile issue, and how they could actually come to some landing about how it could work.

Another area was described to me as the 'five-star concept' and the absolute concern that this would introduce a new level of bureaucracy if it were introduced. I do not know what is required under the five-star system, but as I understand it, at least, it is a new form of accreditation, an extra layer of accreditation—I am presuming for the actual vehicles rather than the drivers, but I am not familiar with the detail of it.

What the government has hastened to do around the Australian Trucking Association as the peak national body, to try to keep them happy about their concerns about the introduction of this new accreditation program, is say, 'Look, what we are going to do is this. We realise that there are some concerns. We realise that we have not properly dealt with this, so we are going to set up a committee and we're going to work through this with industry and we are going to have some dialogue about this. So don't worry. Put the legislation through. Everything will be fine and we can nut these minor matters out.'

As time went on, we found that it did not quite work that way; there had not really been some resolution. Apparently even the representation of South Australia on this committee to try and work through these minor matters was suddenly disenfranchised in some way. I do not have all of the detail in front of me, but I am concerned that the tenure and tone of what had been an embracing of a new regulatory reform by SARTA and ATA were melting into disrepair as we spoke over the last couple of months. That level of goodwill or expectation that minor matters could be nutted out and dealt with in the regulations—that type of talk—had soured into a very unhappy situation.

I received some fairly scathing commentary about what happened and with it was a concern raised that it seemed that Queensland was taking control and that, far from being a national scheme where there would be general recognition and representation, it was starting to be a bit of a takeover. There were secret meetings going on between different parties in the Eastern States, and basically the situation was, 'We don't give a toss about what's happening in South Australia.' That is certainly what was being presented to me.

This is not the way it is supposed to work. The way it is supposed to work when you have a national regulator is that you have accountability to each of the ministers under this model around the country, because there are different regimes. The enforcement is supposed to be at a local level, and we are supposed to have some kind of dialogue, or the machinery upon which the dialogue can occur to deal with issues as they come about.

There had been a plea by SARTA for weeks, apparently, to the minister's office to even have a meeting to try and nut this out. I don't know whether in the last week they have had a meeting, but I can tell you the tenure of what was presented to me was scathing about the refusal to even deal with these issues. It is bit like saying: 'Well listen, we have given you what you want. You have got a national regime, so don't come whingeing to us about the detail of it. We will deal with that. Don't come to us with these pesky little issues that you have suddenly identified are a problem, because we are going to give you what you want—go away.'

That is just not acceptable. I think that it is important that, in the time that the government will have, clearly, as we debate this—and now, as other jurisdictions have not pushed it through in a hurry, we have got some time to deal with it—it is incumbent on the government, and in particular the minister, to sit down with industry, if he is genuine about saying—as I have heard him say at conferences for truck drivers and operators—that he is keen to listen, that he is keen to talk about these issues and make sure that we have something that works, it is a win-win for everybody including the viability of the enterprises that are at risk and are under regulation for this.

I do not get what are actually scathing statements. I am not going to read them today although I am tempted to, but I give the minister the opportunity, in the course of the adjournment of this debate, to sit down and genuinely try and sort these issues out. Joint industry means joint industry, not every other state or every other Eastern State and do not give a toss about South Australia. I do not even know whether Tasmania gets a look in here, to be honest; it probably does not. We do not care what it does, because it probably does not have too many trucking industries that traverse the country, but I daresay it has heavy vehicles that go back and forth on shipping vessels to Tasmania, but I am not here to bat for Tasmania.

I make the point that our ministers here are supposed to be for us, and it is not good enough to simply go off to these COAG meetings, sign up thinking, 'This is a great idea, beaut; yeah, we'll do all this and we'll do this national thing and everything will be happy, harmonious, cheaper, simpler', blah, blah, blah—the usual. That is not good enough. These issues have to be sorted out. It is bad enough that we do not get other regulations in detail before we have legislation, but it is simply not acceptable that some of these key issues are not resolved and given some consideration.

There will always be compromise; there will be some issues where South Australia does not get its way, and I accept that. But to exclude people from the process of even having the opportunity to contribute to a regime under which they are going to be culpable, liable and responsible is unacceptable—if they are to be excluded from the tent. I am sure that there will be other magnificent contributions made on this debate, and I will listen with interest and continue my learning on this most important industry in this state.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (17:45): I rise to speak on the Heavy Vehicle National Law (South Australia) Bill and to echo the comments of the deputy leader, the member for Bragg. Obviously, this bill is an attempt to create a national scheme for regulation of heavy vehicles. On our national roads, it seeks to provide clarity to owners, operators and drivers of heavy vehicles, and it seeks to enhance efficiency and productivity through having similar provisions operating across all state borders.

One thing that has concerned me is that, after speaking to many heavy vehicle operators, businesses, owners, drivers, the people who are loading the heavy vehicles, they all think that by harmonising national legislation, everything will be fixed; everything will be alright. Many of them have isolated issues. Many of the operators feel that South Australia is almost becoming, to some extent, a backwater with regard to compliance, whether it be registration, inspection, roadworthiness or defect notices—I guess what you would call the similarity between one inspector and another. It is about getting permits to travel across borders.

But it is not just about travelling across borders; it is about the permits that have to be issued. I have manufacturing businesses up in my electorate of Chaffey that are large stainless steel tank makers. Not only do those tank makers have to get permits for crossing borders and permits for certain heights but they have to get permits for the individual electricity suppliers. So, every time they go through the jurisdiction of one power supplier, they have to get a permit for that power supplier. Then when they go into the next jurisdiction of a power supplier, they have to get another permit. It is just myriads of complexities and complications; it is just barriers to doing business, and it is added costs.

There is so much frustration that I am hearing out there in the transport world. Many people are saying, 'Just sign the agreement. Get it over and done with, and we'll be happy to get on with life.' But it is not that simple. Listening to some of their concerns and looking at the bill, it is not just that we are going to fall into place with all of the other states and everything will be fine.

As the member for Chaffey, I welcome any attempt to simplify the regulatory burdens placed on owners and drivers of heavy vehicles. One needs to drive only a couple of hours out of the city to understand and appreciate the importance of what the heavy vehicle sector means to South Australia and its production capabilities.

For instance, the Sturt Highway, which takes you right through the middle of my electorate, carries 10,000 vehicles a day, and 33 per cent of those vehicles are trucks. Those trucks are primarily on their way from Adelaide to Sydney or from Sydney to Adelaide. Mildura is one of the main stopover points when it comes to that journey. It seems that we are going to have to fall in with national compliance or a national law; it is about the ever-increasing numbers of trucks we see on the roads.

I live on the Sturt Highway, the federal highway from Adelaide to Sydney, and I see the ever-increasing number of trucks, I see the ever-increasing regularity of those trucks going past. It shows me that the heavy vehicle industry is going to be front and centre for logistically moving goods, whether it is moving harvest products, dry freight, or livestock. I have it all come past my gate and I see it on a regular basis.

Again, I have a lot of those transport and logistics companies in my electorate, and I also have a lot of friends that have large operations, in all states—Western Australia, here in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales—and we regularly talk about the barriers to doing business, the issues with compliance, and the issues with dealing with their workforce.

The chain of responsibility is something that is of real concern: when a driver is pulled over for speeding, drugs, or any particular reason, the owner of that truck and business is not notified. The owner of that truck and business is only notified if that driver reoffends—if the owner of that truck or business happens to go up and want to have a look in his logbook. So, that is one of the issues with the chain of responsibility.

Through the course of my contribution, I will touch on a few of the issues that again raise their ugly heads to the owners of these heavy vehicles and to the owners of the businesses. More importantly, it is about them getting their truck to the destination on time. As the member for Bragg has said, we have come a long way, particularly in the last five years, with that chain of responsibility, with the business owners having to monitor where their trucks are every step of the way.

I think it is a great network that they are falling into line with now. Most of the larger owners have a screen, a computer, and all the readouts that come onto their phones or into their offices, and they know whether the truck driver is in transit; they know what speed he is doing; they know what revs he is doing; and in some cases they even know what tyre pressures the trucks have. So, technology is a wonderful thing, but it has to be used in a way that can be for the benefit of the industry.

I think what we are seeing at the moment is that we are moving for the betterment of the industry. It is essentially cleaning up what was regarded for a long time as a cowboy industry. It was regarded as hell on wheels in a lot of instances. I remember, as a younger fellow—I am still young, but I was younger—trucks would whiz past you on the highway. You would have fellows who jumped out of a truck in a pair of thongs and a pair of Stubbies and that was it, and they would drive for days on end. Who knows how they were doing it, but it was to the detriment of the safety of people on the road.

I think, as the industry is becoming more—I would not say 'regulated', but is being held responsible for its actions, it has come of age. The organisations that use national carriers are now asking for more compliance and responsibility with every load that is a part of their chain of responsibility. That responsibility comes with the technology and comes with compliance.

We have to have this industry as clean as a whistle so that that chain of responsibility is not carried on down the line. These big multinationals cannot have any slurs against their name. They cannot have any mud sticking on their name because it is a bad look; it is bad for advertising, it is bad for the consumer, and these days it is all about the image with any business that operates.

Obviously heavy vehicles are important in South Australia with all the food and wine-producing regions, as well as for livestock and grain. We have a very limited amount of rail in this state and the rail infrastructure is getting old. If the trucking industry moved as slow as what some of the rail industry does, with the compliance of the rail lines and the infrastructure in place, the trucking industry would be put off the tracks.

We have rail networks in my electorate, but we have speed restrictions. We are not allowed to use the rail line over 32 degrees. We are not allowed to go over 30 kilometres an hour in certain sections of the rail. How is that efficient? How is that compliant with today's rules and regulations? If we look at what we are trying to achieve in the national heavy vehicle bill, I think it is chalk and cheese.

There are some lines that are presentable, and the member for Bragg and myself did visit one of the more prominent rail network organisations last week. They showed us the way that they are doing business, the way that they are training their drivers and the way that they are dealing with safety and compliance, and it is first class, but the infrastructure is what really bothers me. I know the infrastructure is not the train, like the truck is to the road, but there needs to be a reflection and, if we are looking at heavy vehicles, perhaps we need to look at trains as a heavy vehicle.

Trucks bring their produce to the market, the warehouse or the terminal—whether it is at the port, the silos or a holding pen—and it really does mean that we have to have the reliability, the compliance and the safety within the industry. We are looking at industries that are worth billions of dollars that are now relying on heavy vehicles on our highways. In my electorate, we transport nearly $700 million worth of fresh fruit and vegetables a year, and there is $7 billion worth of grain in this state per annum, let alone the livestock.

The cost of livestock is huge these days. I am sure everyone here has been to the butchers and their jaw drops when they look at the price of lamb or any of the livestock products. It is now an industry that is looking for that transport or truck to be compliant and squeaky clean, and to pick up the produce on time and be at the market, the next warehouse or the next port of call on time. That is why I think the national law must very much be a national regime. There cannot be a little bit of, 'It's okay in this state and it will work okay.' I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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