Press conference, Canberra

AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS:    Well, I am so pleased to be here with a real cross-section from the transport industry to be here for the government's announcement today. Catherine King, the Minister for Transport. We've got Matt from the ATA, Michael from the TWU, Glyn from the Freighters Association and Lisa from the Transport Industrial Organisation. A real cross-section of the industry today who have been calling for the action that the government is taking today.

We know that without a viable transport industry our national economy stops, and so it's really important that our truckies and transport industry is able to get a fair go. Today what the government is announcing is an urgent pathway so that truckies can access and argue for a fair go. Previous legislation in the fair work reforms that we put in place ensured that truckies and transport associations can make applications for improvements to their contracts to ensure they're getting a fair go and the Fair Work Commission was able to make those orders. We did not at the time envisage urgent situations like we're currently seeing now in the Middle East in where we are seeing an increase in fuel prices at quite a rapid rate.

So what the change we are making today is ensuring that in these type of urgent situations, truckies and transport associations and unions can make applications to the Fair Work Commission and this can be considered in a timely manner. This is really, really important in circumstances that we're currently facing, and the Fair Work Commission will not have to consult for the full six months. They’ll be able to consider it urgently. This is really important in situations as we do have now and our truckies deserve access to a fair go. So I'm really pleased today that our government has listened to the industry across the board. We've responded to their request to ensure that there is this urgent pathway available and we will be putting in legislation to ensure that's available. This is one of the many practical actions our government is taking to shield Australians and businesses from the worst of this crisis in the Middle East and this war in the Middle East.

So it is really important today that we take in this action. I'd like to thank everyone who has called for this, has worked towards this. This measure will ensure that when we face circumstances like we do now, that truckies and transport associations have access to a pathway to argue for a fair go. I'll now hand over to Catherine.

CATHERINE KING, MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT:    Thanks. very much, Amanda, and thanks for the huge work that you've done bringing this forward so quickly. Every single day we have truck drivers, heavy vehicle operators delivering goods and services across every single corner of this station. Without our truck drivers, without our business owners who run, whether it's owner-drivers, whether it's big companies like the one that we’re here at today, Team Global Express, our economy would stop. We could not get goods and services, including fuel, which has had a huge surge in demand being delivered to all corners of our country.

So today's action is to bring in legislation to make sure that urgent orders can be made in terms of the contract chain to ensure that when there are circumstances where we have where fuel costs have gone up, that they can be actually negotiated into the contract price for our truck industry, is critically important to make sure. We don't want to see truck operators having to say we can't afford to actually do business. It's cheaper for us just to park our truck than it is to deliver goods and services. This is why the government is taking practical action now to ensure our supply chain keeps moving.

I've been meeting every week now since this crisis started, to really make sure we've got a granular understanding across the industry about what is happening. Our first imperative is to be making sure that we've got fuel supply and that fuel supply is moving across the country. Minister Bowen has acted in terms of releasing some of the stock holding to make sure particularly regional communities were getting that supply of petrol and diesel out. And this is yet another move that we're making sure that now we're seeing the impact of price spikes that are happening internationally, those impact of price spikes now that are affecting our trucking industry, that we've actually got a fair way of actually dealing with those.

Can I say it's rare, but not uncommon now to see unions and all of the industry united to actually work together because they are an absolutely critical ecosystem for our economy and only by working together and actually saying these are the problems, these are the issues that we've got, is government able to respond. So I really want to thank and recognise the leadership that is shown here from Michael Kaine of the TWU to Matt of the Australian Trucking Association and all of the players that we have behind us here for National Freighters that is really working together to make sure government is aware of the issues as practical responses and that we are responding quickly to what is an international crisis that Australia is of course, not immune from.

I’m going to hand over to Michael Kaine then Matt from the Australian Trucking Association.

MICHAEL KAINE, TRANSPORT WORKERS’ UNION:    Thanks very much ministers, and I just want to say congratulations. Congratulations because you and your government is taking decisive action in a national emergency. This is a national emergency and transport is the backbone of the Australian economy. We saw during COVID how critical it was that those wheels kept rolling, those drivers kept working, running the gauntlets of different arrangements around the states, making sure that we got our goods from A to B.

And our transport companies, who are under such pressure all the time to make sure that we're connected across our massive island. They do such a fantastic job but they're under incredible pressure, and that's economic pressure. We have to make sure that the economics in transport supply chain is fairly shared and distributed, and in an emergency situation like that this practical action is going to achieve that outcome.

This announcement today from the Albanese Government comes on the eve of Fair Work Commission proceedings tomorrow, where the Fair Work Commission has called the entire industry in to talk about how we are going to ensure that supply chains keep running, that the wheels keep turning, and that workers are able to perform their work safely without being under deadly pressure. We're encouraging everyone tomorrow, especially in the light of this announcement, to come to the Fair Work Commission, the clients of the industries, customers of the industries, the massive [indistinct] in manufacturing and mining and retailing. We need them for our economy. We need them to be strong. We need them to pay their fair share to trucking companies to make sure trucking companies are viable and so we can make sure our workers are not under deadly pressure.

So tomorrow, the Fair Work Commission – you know these laws have changed, they're bound to change very shortly. Come with some reasonable, practical solutions before the Fair Work Commission. Do what Coles and Woolies have started to do, and that is bring in your payment periods, start funding the transport operators you use so that they can keep the wheels turning around and workers are safe. Come with logical and urgent propositions for the Fair Work Commission payment throughout our supply chain, let's keep the wheels moving.

MATTHEW MUNRO, AUSTRALIAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATION CEO:    Thank you Michael, thank you Minister Rishworth and thank you Minister King. The Australian Trucking Association welcomes and strongly supports today's announcement. Australian truckies are under extreme pressure. This is a real emergency. This is the biggest spike in diesel prices in Australian history. Truckies cannot absorb these costs. And sadly, many of them cannot pass [indistinct]. This new emergency power will enable the Minister to weigh the normal waiting times to ensure that truckies are paid fairly and on time. We're here with the government, with the unions, with employers and with our smaller operators in full support of these measures. We hope they're effective, and we look forward to tomorrow's hearings. Thank you.

GLYN CASTANELLI, NATIONAL ROAD FREIGHTERS ASSOCIATION:    The ability to bring orders in to help our industry is paramount at the moment. Our members are small family businesses that cart groceries to people and goods to people all over Australia. Our members are days away from not being able to run their businesses anymore. There's a crunch coming within a matter of days, so to be able to act quickly and swiftly to put something in place is paramount. Fuel costs have gone up over 50 per cent just in the last three weeks. Small businesses have had to cover that additional cost with little or no support from their customers and no ability to recoup that money they’re putting in. This is a national emergency, and we need to act fast. So our members are telling us that they have a matter of days until they can no longer support their businesses and put money out of their own savings- or they're trying to pay for fuel with the income that they produced two months ago or three months ago because the payment terms are so long in our industry, that they are struggling to pay for their fuel that they used 21 days ago. So without these changes and these powers, our whole economy and our shelves in the supermarkets will just start to empty. So this is such a major thing for our industry right now, and we look forward to tomorrow and hopefully being able to get some action quickly for our industry.

LISA FRASER, AUSTRALIAN ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION:    First, I’d like to thank the Ministers for their support to be coming out today, especially on site. It's always great to see the operations. The Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation is pleased with the outcome and the quick action by the government and working alongside the TWU and other industry bodies, it’s testament to the reason why the road transport division is set up in the Fair Work Commission. So we're pleased with the quick action, but we also want to see immediate cash relief for road transport operators. So the majority of the industry is, as Glyn said, small to medium businesses, and they're struggling. So we're really seeing the mental strain that's being placed on the operators as they're having to have hard conversations with their customers. We’d urge the customers to understand the position of the road freight operators, but also understand that if those trucks can't deliver, there will really be a fuel shortage in Australia. So we're urging for immediate cash support for an injection of funds into road transport businesses to get them through the next quarter to be able to keep delivering around Australia.

JOURNALIST:    The International Energy Agency executive director yesterday said that this was the worst oil shock we’ve seen. Are you confident that this measure announced today goes far enough in addressing this crisis? And can the average Australian motorist expect any cost relief at the bowser?

AMANDA RISHWORTH:    Well, first I would say what this measure is about is ensuring that the costs that we're seeing as a result of the fuel spike in price are shared evenly across the supply chain, and that truckies are not being cut out of the price increases we're seeing often in the retail stores and in other places, making sure that truckies and transport associations get their fair share of that.

In terms of your question about when will this war end, I can't answer that. This is obviously a very challenging global circumstance, and what our government is doing is taking a range of practical actions to address that, including, for example, increasing or doubling the penalties of the ACCC to address price gouging. What this measure is today is one measure that ensures that our transport and trucking industry remains viable and that the Fair Work Commission is able to deal with these contract change orders in an urgent way that wasn't available to them previously. We are now putting legislation in place to ensure that that access, that pathway to access, a fair go is opened up as quickly as possible.

JOURNALIST:    Thanks. So, can the average sort of Australian who’s now paying almost $3 at the petrol pump expect any more announcements that’s going to help them with their costs?

AMANDA RISHWORTH:    Well look, what we're doing is working as a government with the states and territories. We've put the fuel supply coordinator in place to deal with distribution across the country. So our government is looking at every single practical measure that we can take to shield Australian households and businesses from this. But we can't escape the fact that the war in the Middle East is causing global uncertainty, global price hikes. But our government is taking practical measures like the one we are today to ensure that we are shielding Australians and Australian businesses from the worst of what is a war in the Middle East and a global challenge when it comes to oil, petrol and diesel.