Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Repeal Bill 2009 repeals the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995. This will allow the Australian Capital Territory to enact its own legislation, based on the Commonwealth model legislation and the associated updated Australian Dangerous Goods Code. This bill is part of the change in approach taken up by the former coalition government and continued by the Rudd government to this range of regulatory reform.

Up to the late 1990s, the Commonwealth commonly pursued regulatory transport reform with the states and territories using template legislation. The Commonwealth would pass legislation for application in the Australian Capital Territory and that legislation would be copied by the other states and territories as a way to establish national legislative consistency in transport. This approach was increasingly criticised and, following a 2001 review of the National Road Transport Commission Act 1991, the Council of Australian Governments decided on a different approach. This new approach to transport regulatory reform was made formal in the 2003 Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Road, Rail and Intermodal Transport. This agreement at clause 14.1 agreed that there was a need:

... to maintain a ‘single reference point’ for Agreed Reforms that take the form of Model Legislation or Road Transport Legislation, in order to promote and maintain a uniform or nationally consistent regulatory and operating environment.

In practice, this means that the Commonwealth develops model legislation, with no legal effect in itself, for implementation in other jurisdictions. The model legislation is drafted for the Commonwealth by a new entity, the National Transport Commission. According to clause 14.5, legislation passed by the Commonwealth on behalf of the ACT was to be repealed as soon as practicable.

The Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 is one such piece of legislation. It was passed by the Commonwealth for application in the ACT to regulate the transport of dangerous goods by road in that territory and to provide a national code to be adopted by the states and the Northern Territory. The legislation has been superseded by the National Transport Commission (Model Legislation—Transport of Dangerous Goods by Road or Rail) Regulations 2007, promulgated by the former Minister for Transport and Regional Services, Mark Vaile, on 26 September 2007.

The states and territories are progressively applying this model legislation, developed by the former coalition government, via their own legislative processes. New South Wales introduced its own law based on the model legislation in June 2008 and most of the other states have followed with comparable regulations. The ACT cannot implement the model legislation until the Commonwealth repeals the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995. The repeal will come into effect on a day to be fixed by proclamation to coincide with the passage of legislation by the ACT government. The opposition is satisfied that this bill is a necessary piece of housekeeping and it applies the approach to regulatory reform implemented by the former coalition government and therefore the bill deserves, and will receive, our support.

Unfortunately, the effort that the new Labor government is making in its own right to address uniform transport regulation, a fundamental matter of economic reform, is far more disappointing. The Productivity Commission has estimated that the cost to Australia’s GDP of conflicting transport regulations is $2.4 billion. The National Transport Commission in 2006 found that after one decade of effort to pursue regulatory reform only one third of the ‘oversize’ and ‘overmass’ provisions that apply to heavy vehicles have been implemented in a nationally consistent way. I have mentioned in this place before some baffling examples of regulatory transport inconsistencies. For example, a truck operator carrying hay bales and loaded to its maximum allowable three metre width in Victoria will be overwidth in New South Wales, where the maximum width is 2.83 metres. So the farmer or truck operator in Victoria who loads his truck with hay as wide as is legally possible in Victoria is not able to drive into New South Wales without cutting a few inches off all of the hay bales.

The coalition has also mentioned the failure by the states to take up in a uniform way the heavy vehicle driver fatigue reforms, agreed by the Australian Transport Council in early 2007 and rolled out from September 2008. Tasmania and the Northern Territory have not yet applied the fatigue reforms and Western Australia has never had any plans to implement them at all.

It is also astounding that New South Wales and Victoria, which have applied the reforms from 29 September last year, have introduced variations. These include differences between Victoria and New South Wales in logbook requirements and in defence provisions, should a breach of the fatigue regulations occur. The opposition is also concerned about variations between the states in opening up their roads to the highly efficient B-triple vehicle combinations. In spite of agreements to do so, New South Wales refuses to make a serious effort to open its road system to these vehicles. Victoria is also lagging, only allowing B-triple use between Broadmeadows and Geelong for vehicles carrying Ford parts. It is quite ridiculous. If it is safe for a form of vehicle to carry one particular type of freight, why could it not also be used also for others.

I also refer to the recent study put out by the Australian Logistics Council. This study released earlier this year looks at the transport regulation inconsistencies in the Sunraysia-Riverland region, a food bowl area that adjoins the borders of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. This study notes that transport operators have spent nearly $250 million in higher mass limit equipment on higher productivity trucks—trucks that generate between nine and 13 per cent increases in payloads. Unfortunately, the failure of the New South Wales government to implement the higher mass limit reforms agreed to by the Australian Transport Council in the year 2000 has made it difficult for truck operators to realise on this investment and has added to the costs of fleets operating across the South Australian and Victorian borders into New South Wales.

These are just a few examples of what is a serious problem of economic inefficiency in Australia. What is the government doing about it? The opposition notes with interest the September 2008 decision by the Council of Australian Governments to ask the Australian Transport Council to prepare a regulatory impact statement for a national framework for regulation, registration and licensing of heavy vehicles. This was part of a decision by the Australian Transport Council to establish a single regulatory body to administer Australia’s national heavy vehicle laws and to develop a uniform national approach to such matters as driver competency and training, heavy vehicle licences and a uniform body of national heavy vehicle laws. These are worthwhile objectives and have the coalition’s support. However, certain questions remain unanswered. When will these worthwhile aims be realised? The regulatory impact statement issued in December last year proposed that the national heavy vehicle regulator be operational by the end of 2012. The joint communique of the Australian Transport Council issued on 22 May this year states that the national heavy vehicle regulator is to be up and running in 2013. So in just this short period the government has already slipped the timetable by a year.

It is obvious that the government wants to keep these fundamental transport reforms at a comfortable time in the future, because it simply cannot answer the hard questions these reforms involve. For example, on what basis will the national heavy vehicle regulator be established? What will be its powers? How will it deal with the recalcitrant states and territories that refuse to consider the national interest and insist on peeling off from national standards? How will such a body deal with existing state laws and regulations? Will this scheme involve the referral of powers by the states to the Commonwealth? Is the Commonwealth contemplating such a course? Most importantly, are the states? These are all very relevant questions. We do know, since the opposition raised these questions in Senate estimates earlier this year, that the government as yet has no clue what the answers to those key questions are. How, indeed, the government could commit to regulatory reform of this nature when they have no idea how it is actually going to work is beyond me.

The opposition acknowledges that the establishment of a national transport regulator to build a consistent and uniform framework in which a key industry may operate is an overdue and necessary reform. The opposition is also aware of the naive and bland assurances offered by the Labor Party to the Australian people during the last election. They said the vexed problems of our federation would all be dealt with simply by cooperating with one another. All the Labor governments would get together in a giant love-in and all of these sorts of problems would be solved. Unfortunately, the history of transport reform in Australia demonstrates the foolishness of this answer. Love-in federalism will not be enough; hard decisions have to be made and state Labor mates need to be confronted with the imperative nature of dealing with some of these issues.

We know that Labor are good at some things. They are good at creating a $315 billion debt and a massive liability for every Australian. We know Labor are good at trashing programs aimed at regional Australia and turning them into election funds in urban areas. Of course, in that regard I am referring particularly to the Nation Building Program off-network projects for roads. It is no longer directed at rural Australian roads, which are so important in the freight transport task around the nation. In fact, they have shovelled 82 per cent of the funds available under this program, over half a billion dollars, into marginal Labor seats—a gigantic slush fund. So we know Labor are good at shifting money into those sorts of funds.

We now know that they are looking again—as Labor always do—at a range of new taxes. This morning, for the first time, the veil has been lifted from a proposal to increase fuel excise by 10c a litre. Again, this will place an enormous burden on the road transport industry. Increased costs of doing business in Australia reduce the competitiveness of Australian industry, which seeks to make contact with overseas markets and to meet the competition from other parts of the world. Another mass increase in taxes—bearing in mind fuel excise already raises $13 billion a year for the government—simply cannot be afforded.

Labor’s proposal to increase the tax by 10c a litre would also be devastating for regional people. Country people, who have to travel hundreds of kilometres perhaps to visit their doctor on dirt roads, will be paying massive new fuel taxes under this proposal, whereas city people, who can visit their doctor just around the corner, will be paying very little in extra taxes. If you have to travel a couple of hundred kilometres into town to buy groceries, why should you be paying massive extra taxation compared with somebody who has a grocery store on every corner? Why should people travelling on dirt roads have to pay massive extra taxes—allegedly to upgrade the road system—when they in fact are not getting that money spent in their areas?

I call on the government to immediately reject the concept of a 10c increase in excise. If the government do not reject it, we can only assume that this government will follow the same route as the Keating government, which promised before the election that they would not increase fuel excise but immediately after the election introduced the biggest fuel excise increase in our nation’s history. It is clear that this government are intending to follow the same route.

This is the history of the Labor government. They are good at making some of these promises but, when it comes to actually delivering, the story is often different. They need to convince the nation that the government are capable of making the difficult decisions to deal with transport reform. This legislation is an important step in seeking to eliminate some of the differences in legislation between the various states, but it is a very small step. It is a step that we certainly welcome and will support; however, the really big and difficult decisions to establish a seamless and efficient road transport industry are still being pushed off into the distance. Very, very little progress has been made. The anomalies remain. All the promises about the goodwill there would be between the Rudd Labor government and the states have simply failed to deliver action in this very important area. Frankly, I doubt that the government have the courage or the skill to actually deliver common national road transport laws around the nation, and this costly burden of inefficiency will rest upon the sector for a very long time.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I almost treat the fact that I am following the member for Wide Bay in this debate on the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Repeal Bill 2009 with some honour, particularly considering his previous capacity in presiding over the regional rorts leading up to the last election. He did correct me once. I referred to the ‘Bo Derek railway’, and he actually corrected me, and I take that correction—it was the Beaudesert railway. What I did not recall at the time was Tumbi Creek, where a body of effort went into attempting to secure conservative seats.

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Farmer interjecting

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take the interjection from my learned colleague, the member for Macarthur.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the member to continue, if he wants to respond, but we should not be paying attention to interjections. If one wishes to ask a question, there is a facility here to do so.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If he had asked me a question about that vital piece of road infrastructure in the south-west of Sydney, I would have said that the F5 actually runs into the electorate of Macarthur as well as the electorate of Werriwa. I campaigned very strongly, as many members did, about improving those pieces of essential infrastructure. I was not the member who decided that, instead of actually widening that essential piece of infrastructure, you could build on top of it; you could put up layer upon layer upon layer. It almost became the notion of the ‘Sara Lee’ of road transport for that last election. That was something that was absolutely astonishing.

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to address a question to the member for Werriwa.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the honourable member seeking to ask a question?

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the member for Werriwa accept the question?

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Macarthur may proceed.

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the member for Werriwa: was it or was it not the Howard government that agreed to the $52 million worth of funding for the widening of the F5 that traverses both Macarthur and, of course, Werriwa, and that you are the beneficiary of the widening of that road?

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The funding to widen the F5 was not $52 million; it came under AusLink 2. It is a $140 million project of which the Labor Party, leading up to the last election, agreed with the New South Wales government that the federal Labor government would contribute $112 million to that project. I announced that with the then minister, Martin Ferguson. It followed a series of questions that I asked in this place of the then transport minister, the member for Robertson. He was not prepared to give the commitment to widen that piece of infrastructure or to guarantee that the money would be made available for it. It was not until the Labor Party went out there—Martin Ferguson and I—that the member for Macarthur, Pat Farmer, decided to go out and try to gazump us two or three days later.

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

How long before the election?

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It certainly happened just before the election, but only after the Labor Party gave that commitment.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Macarthur is welcome at any stage to seek, if he wishes, to ask another question, if the member for Werriwa is happy to take it.

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My question was quite specific, and it was quite simply this: was it or was it not the Howard government that had already started work and that had supported the funding for the widening of the F5 between Macarthur and Werriwa? Yes or no?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Macarthur has had his intervention. I will point out that the standing orders, in respect of question time, do not apply to interventions.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, I am happy to take the question. The member indicated last time that there was a commitment by his government to put $52 million into that project. Once again, I remind the member for Macarthur that there is a $140 million project. The agreement was entered into between the opposition at that stage and the New South Wales government to commit to an agenda of a federal contribution, on the succession of a Rudd Labor government, of $112 million into that project. I am happy to say, and no doubt the member for Macarthur sees it daily—that is, if he visits his electorate daily as he travels from Mosman to Macarthur—that this work is now well and truly on track, and it was a priority that this government—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will resume his seat. Is the member for Macarthur seeking another intervention?

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Quite simply, could you draw the member for Werriwa back to the original question.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I indicated quite early to the member for Macarthur, the standing orders in respect of question time do not apply to interventions. But I will draw the member for Werriwa’s attention to the actual bill before us today because I think the entertainment between the two adjoining seats has probably gone on for long enough and we are addressing the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Repeal Bill 2009.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I do accept your wise counsel. This is an important bill, although it is a bill that, on face value, may just look technical. The Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Repeal Bill 2009 meets the Australian government’s obligation under the Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Road, Rail and Intermodal Transport. It repeals any road transport legislation that has been enacted by the Commonwealth on behalf of the ACT, the Australian Capital Territory. That is to coincide with the passage of legislation by the ACT. The intergovernmental agreement sets out the principles and processes for cooperation between the Commonwealth, the states and the territories in the progress of regulatory and operational reform to roads, rail and intermodal transport in order to deliver a sustained national consistency of outcome in this essential area.

The bill will repeal the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 and will allow the Australian Capital Territory to implement the updated Australian Dangerous Goods Code and the associated model legislation in its own legislative arrangements. In the same way, each of the other states and the Northern Territory are able to bring that code into operation. It should be noted that the ACT government cannot implement the updated Dangerous Goods Code and the associated model legislation until the Australian government repeals the existing dangerous goods legislation. The repeal will come into effect on a day to be fixed by proclamation, but it will coincide with the passage of the ACT government’s actions to ensure that a seamless transfer of the new dangerous goods transport provisions occurs.

By way of background, the legislative responsibility for transport of dangerous goods on roads and rail is a matter for the states and territories. To avoid the cost of disruption which arises from different requirements governing the transport of dangerous goods around the country, transport ministers, through the Australian Transport Council, asked the National Transport Commission to develop a national legislative framework to provide consistency in the rules and standards. The national framework is also periodically updated to ensure that the components remain current.

The dangerous goods package has two main elements. It sets the model regulations and, importantly, a technical safety code known as the Australian Dangerous Goods Code. The Australian Dangerous Goods Code is a technical document setting out detailed instructions for the safe transport of dangerous goods by road or rail and is based on international model regulations. It addresses issues such as classification, labelling, packaging, stowing and bulk transport. The international regulations also underpin the international aviation and maritime codes for transport of dangerous goods. The adoption of the UN requirements into Australian requirements thus promotes international harmonisation to facilitate safe and effective trade arrangements and transportation affecting dangerous goods.

The regulations are under the National Transport Commission Act 2003, which provides a legislative scheme of arrangement that serves as the sole reference point for the nationally agreed standards. The model regulation approach reflects the 2003 Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Road, Rail and Intermodal Transport and it commits to the establishment of model legislation under the National Transport Commission Act to enable the implementation of nationally agreed reforms endorsed by the Australian Transport Council. The model legislation is subordinate to the National Transport Commission Act as the enabling act, and it is made by regulation.

The model regulations allow for implementation in each jurisdiction using the most convenient and effective regulatory route available to them. For instance, the provisions may be incorporated into the law of a state or territory by amending their existing dangerous goods legislation as it applies. At the Commonwealth level, the regulations are not operative—that is, they are not live—but seek to be the sole reference point for jurisdictions to adopt into their own legislative arrangements as nationally consistent transport legislation. This approach replaces the earlier template model approach which, it is well conceded, proved to be unworkable. Consider the amount of variation that takes place between various states and territories as they move between their respective legislators to customise legislation; things get lost in the mix. This becomes essential, particularly when we are talking about something as critical as the transportation of dangerous goods, to ensure that there is less variation, that there is absolute standardisation, in the way we go about delivering consistent and workable laws concerning the transportation of dangerous goods in this country.

The current dangerous goods package, which was developed by the National Transport Commission under the direction of the Australian Transport Council, incorporates the seventh edition of the Australian Dangerous Goods Code and the National Transport Commission’s Model Legislation—Dangerous Goods (Road or Rail) Regulation 2009. Very briefly, the key elements of that package are to adopt, to the extent possible, the latest available United Nations’s model regulations, retaining Australian specific requirements where appropriate; to harmonise with air and sea regulations; to incorporate amendments, accumulated over recent years, that reflect agreed practice; and to provide a single set of updated regulations for the transportation of dangerous goods by road or rail, using the model regulation approach.

As I said before, the implementation of the code is the responsibility of the state and territory governments. Through this process of having model legislation, we are seeking to achieve definite harmonisation. In response to COAG’s consideration of the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into chemical and plastic regulation, the Australian Transport Council agreed that the National Transport Commission would undertake an independent review of the consistency with which the Australian Dangerous Goods Code has been adopted throughout the Commonwealth and how it has been applied through each of our state and territory jurisdictions. The review will commence within 12 months of the implementation of these reforms. As I understand it, it will be some time in the first half of 2010. The responsibility for policy development and monitoring of the Australian Dangerous Goods Code and legislation will remain with the National Transport Commission, and it will continue to report to the Australian Transport Council on these matters.

In summary, the development of the national dangerous goods package has been a lengthy and complex process, but it has provided the framework for efficient, effective and nationally consistent regulation of dangerous goods transportation across this country. Our technical requirements are consistent with international requirements, thus facilitating trade. This is good for business, but it also provides confidence to the community that dangerous goods are being transported in a safe and consistent manner. However, this is not a static process, and the National Transport Commission will need to continue its role to maintain the dangerous goods provisions to ensure that they are consistent, they are updated and they continually reflect the requirements that are set at both international levels and local levels. The Australian Transport Commission commits to that review, as I mentioned a little earlier, and that will ensure that there will be that consistent harmonisation. For those reasons, I commend this bill to the House.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As has been indicated by a number of speakers, this bill repeals the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 so that the ACT can implement the updated Australian Dangerous Goods Code and the associated model legislation into its own legislative arrangements in the same way as other states and territories. Let me say at the outset that I believe it is somewhat ‘Big Brotherish’ that the federal government does have the capacity to legislate or overturn legislation in relation to the territory assemblies. Therefore, I very much welcome the fact that the territory is going to be able to, at least in name, be the architect of its own destiny in relation to this because, as we know, this comes about through a national scheme of legislation. The Australian Dangerous Goods Code sets out detailed instructions for the safe transport of dangerous goods by road and rail. It is based on model regulations set out by the United Nations which harmonise with existing regulations in sea and air transport. Until the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 is repealed, the ACT remains powerless to move on its own.

Dangerous goods are around us in every aspect of our daily lives and yet I expect people do not pay as much attention to them as they perhaps ought. Dangerous goods and materials can cause or accelerate combustion, have acute toxic effects, have the ability to corrode skin or other materials, or have a capacity to harm the environment, cause asphyxiation, present temperature or pressure hazards or react with other materials that can then do any of the above. I indicated that people are generally unaware of them. I will relate a couple of examples from my own experience, firstly as an employee of a national airline where I was engaged in transporting dangerous goods by air and discovered, I guess somewhat to my amusement, that there is an internationally known brand of cola beverage who very jealously guard their recipe and ship it to countries where it is going to be made in part A and part B, and one of the parts—I cannot remember whether it is part A or B now—is too dangerous to be transported by air. Yet we quaff this material by the hundreds of thousands of litres a day, I suspect. But one of those two parts, on its own, is too dangerous to be transported by air.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suspect the honourable member is not going to name the product.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member is not going to name the product but will suggest to people that Pepsi Max is okay; there is no sugar. The other experience that I had—and the member for Fisher, were he in the chamber, would remember this—was the kerfuffle, I will call it, that we had in the early 1990s in the area that we share about the storage of spent radioactive waste material. There was quite a large community opposition to that. As it turned out, the argument was ultimately won and the storage facility was build elsewhere. But those same people were not at all aware of active radioactive sources bouncing around in the back of council utes through their community every day. Yes, if it is spent, we cannot store it. If it is live, well, we really do not care. It was an interesting insight into people’s view of dangerous goods.

It is important, particularly to me as the member for Longman, that the safe transport of dangerous goods is something that is well regulated and well policed. Running through the entirety of my electorate are the Bruce Highway—the main road corridor north from Brisbane to the major regional centres—and the north coast rail line. These transport corridors carry all of the freight from Brisbane port heading north and a number of things heading south.

My eastern boundary is the port of Brisbane, and we all saw what happened recently there with the oil spill, for which it looks likely that the Swire company may well be about to pay adequate compensation, but our council is a million dollars out of pocket because of that. So I understand that safety is necessary and I understand that safety in the carriage of dangerous goods is important for my constituents, the people I am here to represent and to look out for their interest.

A report in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management identified a number of the types of goods that travel up and down the highway, including petrol, liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied ammonia, molten sulphur, liquefied chlorine, concentrated hydrochloric acid, compressed hydrogen, sodium cyanide and liquid fuels coming south from Gladstone. So there are a number of very volatile materials running past major population centres in my electorate, including North Lakes and Caboolture. Over the years there have been a number of incidents. Most of them have, fortunately, been relatively minor. But in September 1992, for example, a minor incident that had the potential to be much more than that occurred near Nambour. Fortunately, nobody was injured as a result of the collision between an LPG tanker and an ethanol tanker, neither of which ruptured, but had either or both of them done so then we could have had a really serious incident on the highway. So we need to be very clear about how important it is that the transport of dangerous goods is, as I said, well regulated and well policed.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought the honourable member was going to mention the D’Aguilar Highway.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, the honourable member will mention the D’Aguilar Highway on another occasion! That highway is important in serving the west and the south Burnett parts of South-East Queensland—so an important road in itself.

It is important for us to have a national approach to these matters, simply because there is trade across Australia for goods moving from Victoria to New South Wales to Queensland. If different regimes are in place then you have compliance costs. The national code is a springboard from which we can have advantages when we trade overseas, and consistency across the jurisdictions is important.

As I indicated, we have road, rail and sea lines running through or adjacent to my electorate and it is very important to me and to my constituents that there are clear and safe guidelines. Internationally, it is important that we are doing exactly what the rest of the world is doing, for much the same reasons. There is an ever-increasing amount of international trade. In fact, this country depends on international trade. Although we tend to send out some volatile materials, a lot of them are benign, but it is important that regulations are consistent across the world.

The Australian Dangerous Goods Code incorporates the UN guidelines but retains some Australia-specific requirements which are updated periodically to make sure that they meet our guidelines. This bill, as previous speakers have said, meets our obligation under the Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Road, Rail and Intermodal Transport. It is a national scheme of legislation of the type that has been coming very much more into vogue in Australia in the last two decades. It is an example of cooperative government. The state and territory governments and National Transport Commission developed the framework so that there can be consistency. The National Transport Commission has established a set of national guidelines which each state and territory has then adopted or is about to adopt into its own legislation.

In conclusion, this bill firstly repeals the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 so that the ACT can pass its own legislation, and I applaud the move that gives the ACT the opportunity to look after its own interests. The code itself is valuable because having a single national code makes the transport of hazardous goods more efficient and safer. It is a great example of government cooperation across state and territory boundaries. Finally, the matters relating to the carriage of dangerous goods are something about which I am particularly aware and in which I have a particular interest with regard to my electorate. I commend this bill to the House.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank all members, including the member for Longman, for participating in the debate and for supporting this legislation. The Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Repeal Bill 2009 will repeal the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 so as to allow the ACT government to implement the updated Australian Dangerous Goods Code and the associated model legislation into its own legislative arrangements in the same manner as the other states and territories. The ACT cannot implement the updated code and associated model legislation, which has been endorsed by ministers at the Australian Transport Council, until the Australian government repeals the existing dangerous goods transport legislation. The repeal completes a longstanding commitment by the Australian government and the states and territories to repeal any road transport legislation that has been enacted by the Commonwealth on behalf of the ACT once that legislation is no longer necessary. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.