Mr LINDSAY (11:18 AM) —If I might respond on a number of instances to the member for Paterson, what he was just referring to was price control, of course, and by referendum in this country people rejected that. This report, Beyond the midnight oil: managing fatigue in transport, by the Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts, actually deals with that particular issue. It is an issue, and I accept that. It deals with that particular issue in another way.

The member for Paterson's opening remarks indicated that he was unhappy to some degree with the report in that he did not think that it addressed the issues. But the report actually talks about the culture in the transport industry. I believe it very comprehensively addresses all of the issues and what the solutions are because there are some very difficult issues in this particular transport industry. We are really talking about road transport here. But, of course, the report also addresses the other areas of transport common in the country today.

As the chairman of the committee quite correctly indicated in his address, this has been a bipartisan report. I think everybody is going in the one direction, and it is not overtly political. The member for Paterson did raise the issue of diesel rebates and why diesel was more expensive than petrol. He said he did not understand why; he had not looked at that. It does not need an inquiry to find that out. The information is readily available right now, and he should have a look at it. He made the point that the 24c a litre rebate has already been partially swallowed up by the increase in the price of diesel. That is a fair point, but the other point that needs to be made is that, without that rebate, diesel would be 24c a litre dearer than it is now. That point needs to be clearly understood, and the member for Paterson ought to understand that that is the position he wanted the truckies of this country to be in at this time.

I would now like to give some of my views about this report and to talk about my experience as part of the committee dealing with this wide ranging inquiry. I would like to link it back to my home city of Townsville and the feedback that I get from the transport industry in my area. It is true that the little mums and dads businesses which account for the majority of drivers in the road transport industry are doing it terribly tough. They are price takers. Without wishing to be in any way demeaning, I would say that a number of them do not understand the business case for what they do. In fact, many of them are operating unprofitably. There is a view, `If there is a load, let's take it, no matter what the price is, whether it is profitable or not, because we need to meet the lease payments on the truck.' The normal rationale in business is that if you are operating unprofitably you have got to do something about it, but they are not doing anything about it. That is causing the long trips and the excessive workload. Last Friday, when I went home, I saw a fellow who had made a trip to Brisbane and made something like $26 for the trip there and back. You just can't do that. The member for Paterson was quite right that the mums and dads who are in a marriage do not have much of a marriage when the driver has got to be away for so long.

The report addresses some of these issues in terms of putting some responsibility back on the big companies which subcontract these drivers, and what their responsibilities might be at law. This is the culture area that we have been looking at, which would indicate that there are some things that can be done to make sure that the little people in the industry are fairly treated—that they are not asked to do unreasonable things, that they are able to make a dollar. Making the players in the industry responsible for the workplace health and safety issues of causing drivers to drive while they are fatigued is a good outcome.

Another issue of difficulty is the practice of making trucks queue in a yard. You can drive for 15 hours from Melbourne to wherever and then have to wait several hours in a queue, where every 10 minutes the truck has to be started up and moved, whereas arrangements could be put in place so that somebody would tell the truckie, `Look, you can go and have a couple of hours sleep because we will not be able to unload'—or load—`you for another couple of hours,' or four hours or whatever. `Go and park your truck over there, and we will call you when we are ready.' In that sense, there are some very good outcomes in the report.

I was also interested in the report on the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. The evidence we received about the Civil Aviation Safety Authority was quite damning, indicating that the authority has not met its responsibilities. I continually get feedback from my patch that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority really needs to lift its game in terms of how it manages and monitors such a vital industry. That has not had a lot of attention in this report, but I think that ultimately people will realise the significance of what is in the report in relation to safety in the air.

Another matter which I found very satisfying to see appear in the report—and I thank the chair and the committee for that—is the landmark move to call for random checking of fatigue. I have seen some media reports which basically say that is not possible and pan the committee for recommending it. But it is possible, and it is possible now. As we have seen technology change over so many years, we have seen how quickly it changes. Things that even two years ago we thought were not possible to do are now possible. An example raised in the committee yesterday is the random breath machine: a couple of years ago it was that size, now it is this size—the technology has been developed to enable that to happen. So, to those who are sceptics and say it cannot be done, I say it must be done. That is one of the protections for the drivers in the industry who cannot, at this stage, effectively battle the big conglomerates who are asking them to be price takers. Having a measure of whether drivers are fatigued and having penalties, and there was a suggestion in committee discussions about putting the trucks off the roads as well as the drivers, is something that the managers of these major concerns would certainly be very concerned about if it happened. That will bring some responsibility back as well.

I commend the report to the House. It is to the chairman's credit and the committee's credit that this has received such widespread favourable publicity. Now we need to see some action as a result of the recommendations of this report.