Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Sterle, for that great story—and for your compliments to me. That is a great story, but I want to tell you a scary story. This is a very scary story. It is about scary government, stupid bureaucracy—I do not know where the opposition fits into this—and the New South Wales farmers. I will give them a cheerio call just for trying to have a go. It is all about the national heavy vehicle driver fatigue legislation, which is designed to make driving safer and the work conditions better for drivers in Australia, and to harmonise the laws across the states. For some strange reason New South Wales is completely dysfunctional; as a matter of fact, there ought to be emergency powers to get rid of the government. But I reckon this is making out a case for New South Wales farmers to down tools until sense is returned to the RTA in New South Wales. They are introducing driver fatigue laws which do away with the 100-kilometre exemption. In other states at the present time if you work within 100 kilometres of your base you are not subject to these laws. But, in New South Wales, you will be, from 29 September—next weekend.

Now, I do not know why no-one else has raised this—you try and get across everything you can, and it is a state issue—but owners of trucks that have a gross vehicle mass of more than 12 tonnes, which includes trucks that carry eight tonnes—a four-tonne truck with an eight-tonne axle—are going to have to have a logbook and they are going to have to log everything they do in the truck. I will just read out some things that you are going to have to log if you are a farmer. This is silly stuff.

If you are stripping a crop on your farm—Senator Johnston, you had better listen to this—and you are carting the wheat from the paddock to the silo on your farm—that is, you are not going onto a public road—you have actually got to log the time that you drive the truck. If you are driving a truck and a public road goes through your place—there are plenty of them—and you cross the road, you have got to log the crossing of the road. This is in a book; this is paperwork. This is a nightmare. If you are working on the truck—if you have got a truck, say, with a stock crate on it and the gate on it breaks and you are welding it up—you have got to log that in your logbook in the truck.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And in the wheat line.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will get to the wheat line. If you take your truck to town, say, once a month, to get a rego check or something, or you leave it there to get some repairs, the garage have got to log when they move it from the yard into the workshop, into the shed. They have got to log that.

The RTA have been giving briefings, and this information came out of the Wagga briefing. There was no answer for what to do if you have got someone who is unlicensed but driving the truck on private property, where you do not have to have a licence but if you have a prang you might have a bit of a problem with insurance. If you are in the silo line-up—and sometimes you can be there for a couple of hours—and you have got the truck turned off and you are looking out through the windscreen, you are just sitting there, that has got to be logged as work. But, if you are sitting in the same truck with it turned off and you are reading a newspaper, you log that as time off. If you are feeding stock, you have to log it as time on. If you are driving a mobile library around the country and you pull up at a school and you get in the back of the truck to do the librarian work—these people are librarians—you have got to log, in the logbook, the time you do librarian work in the truck.

If you drive a header all night, 12 hours—this is how stupid it is; this is the contradiction in it—and then you decide to cart your wheat all day, you can actually do that, as long as you do not do 12 hours in the truck. But you can do 24 hours, 12 of it in the header and then 12 of it in the truck. To say it was bloody stupid would be an understatement.

The information on chain of command—and this is a lawyer’s feast—says:

• Under the new Chain of Responsibility provisions, farmers who cause fatigue by setting unrealistic schedules and leaving tired drivers waiting around to load or unload could face prosecution and tougher penalties. In effect, if a transport request falls outside a driver’s scheduled timetable, then farmers cannot force them to take the load.

That is fair enough. I do not know how we are supposed to know, though. If a farmer loads the truck and the truck driver speeds on the way back, to catch the silo, the farmer is legally responsible for the speeding truck, even though he is back in the paddock. If a farmer has sheep in the yards or wheat in the silo and it is all set up for the truckie to come in and get it but the farmer is not there, so the truckie loads it and away he goes and then he breaches the time, even though the farmer does not know what the truckie’s logbook says because he was not there when it was loaded, the farmer is responsible. This is mad sort of stuff. The briefing paper states:

Work time is not just driving time: it is the time that the driver spends driving the vehicle and any time spent on other tasks related to the operation of the vehicle. Driving includes being in the driver’s seat while the engine is running and instructing or supervising the driver of the vehicle. Work time also includes the time that the driver spends doing tasks related to the operation of the vehicle such as: loading and unloading; inspection, servicing or repair work; attending to the load or to passengers; cleaning or refuelling;—

so when you are refuelling the truck in the morning you have to log that as time driving the truck—

performing marketing tasks; and recording information.

You have even got to log the time you record the information, which will take a long time.

The New South Wales farmers to their credit are talking to the government, but the government has absolutely no idea of the impact of this because there is no-one in the government who lives in the bush. They have got no bloody idea of what this means in practical terms. Senator Stephens lives in the bush!

It is hard to believe that this comes from a sensible bureaucracy backed by a competent government—we know that the New South Wales government is the worst government in Australia. The document continues:

Does the legislation apply to fire fighting drivers in Rural Fire Service (‘RFS’) approved heavy vehicles? Eg. Delivery of Heavy earth moving equipment to the fire ground, water to aircraft, heavy fire fighting trucks at fire grounds both private and RFS owned.

Yes, the legislation will apply to all heavy vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) of more than 12 tonnes ...

If you are at a fire you are not too worried about what the clock is telling you; you are worried about putting the blasted fire out. How silly is all this stuff. How could any reasonable bureaucrat put this up as a proposition. The document continues:

Does the legislation apply to driving short distances to town to obtain supplies (eg. Dog biscuits and/or chemicals)?

The legislation will apply to all regulated heavy vehicle driving regardless of distance travelled.

If you go 300 yards you have got to log it!

How will the chain of responsibility provisions cover farmers when loads are picked up unsupervised at remote locations?

This often happens, and the answer is:

The chain of responsibility provisions apply to all parties in the transport chain. A party in the chain of responsibility would include the owner of a farm who wishes to get produce/livestock delivered and the person receiving the produce/livestock at the other end. A party in the chain of responsibility must take all reasonable steps to ensure that a driver does not drive a vehicle while impaired by fatigue or at risk of fatigue.

The consignor (farmer) must ensure that they can demonstrate reasonable steps were taken to prevent a breach ...

What sort of a lawyers’ feast and farmers’ nightmare is this going to be? It continues:

According to the legislation, work is defined as time spent driving a regulated heavy vehicle as well as time spent: loading or unloading; inspecting, servicing or repairing the vehicle; inspecting or attending to the load on the vehicle; attending to the passengers of a bus; cleaning or refuelling the vehicle; performing marketing tasks—

(Time expired)