Bus Industry Confederation Address
Senator the Hon Bridget McKenzie
Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development
Leader of the Nationals in the Senate
31st October 2023
Thank you to chair Tony Hopkins, and all the members of the Bus Industry Council for their stewardship of the industry, and for organising this valuable forum.
It is a particular pleasure to be able to speak to the nations’ assembled bus industry representatives as the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development.
As some of you may recall from last year, I have a special commitment to the industry and always welcome the opportunity to contribute to discussions about this critically important sector.
My connection to the bus industry long predates my political career – it is in my blood.
My father worked for a time as a bus driver for my extended family’s business – McKenzie Tourist Services.
McKenzie buslines continues to operate to the present day.
It is through being associated with a small family business that I learnt the importance of hard work and planning, of taking a risk, of delivering a service to the community and always keeping your customers in mind.
Small business is such an integral aspect of the Australian society – it is a major employer. It is connected most closely to the customer.
And in regional communities, small businesses often ensure goods and services, trades and equipment are available – because in our more sparsely populated areas large business is often reluctant to set up shop.
My experiences of the importance of small business and its close connection with customers has contributed to why I have taken such a strong interest in competition policy and regionalisation.
It speaks to why I have taken up the fight to the Albanese Government on its decision to run a protection racket on behalf of Qantas and its former CEO, Alan Joyce.
A protection of a dominant corporate at the expense of Australian travellers and exporters.
The aviation industry is one of our most concentrated sectors, with Qantas representing more than 60 per cent of the market share in the aviation industry and using that dominance in a very muscular way to impact its staff, to negatively impact shareholders, it would have, through supporting campaigns that aren’t related to core business, and unfortunately but very critically impacting the loyalty and perspective of their customers.
It’s really important to foster competition not just in the aviation industry, but right around the country. I thought the procurement discussion earlier was an example of protectionist behaviours by certain states, meaning we don’t have the the commercial where we thought as a nation to be able to have a secure, profitable, prosperous and sustainable manufacturing industry because so many of your businesses operate across jurisdictions and it’s important, competition is good, but there needs to be enough that we don’t kill the golden goose that keeps so many people employed in high tech careers across the country.
Buses are an important element of our national transport and leisure network. For those of us that grew up in the country, it was how we got to work, it’s how we got to school every single day. As we grow older buses become an essential source of mobility. For students attending TAFE or university, for employees, for retirees, for parents with children, buses connect people with their shops with medical appointments, and they play an indispensable role in addressing the effects of social exclusion. Buses are deeply valued by customers for the service and convenience they provide. Indeed, it’s the brave politician that had sought to restrict bus services here in South Australia, a recent Transport Minister proposed increasing the distance between some suburban bus stops, suggesting residents could in some instances, just walk that little bit further. This was as I understand it, part of an intended plan to improve public transport services overall. However, the backlash to the perceived lack of convenience was biting and the politicians did not long remain in the portfolio or in Parliament. The people well and truly spoke, they wanted their bus stops to stay just where they were. Over the past two days, you’ve heard a lot of presenters from government. There’s a lot of government plans for the future of your industry, government targets for decarbonisation, transition to a low emissions future for the bus industry, and consistent with the message I provided last year: the Federal Opposition also believes it’s important for government to listen to your industry, not the other way around. I hope the government bureaucrats from a wide range of jurisdictions here today have heard the concerns behind the questions that were part of the previous session so they can take that back to their bureacracy, to their ministers, to really articulate what was behind some of those questions that you were legitimately asking them.
The best people to plan the future of the bus industry is everybody in this room, the owners and the operators of bus services, the manufacturers that support them, and the like. Government should be listening to you and if future targets are to be set they should be set in consultation with industry. What is actually possible to get done in what timeframe? What are the building blocks and the scaffolding that we’re going to need, not just from the hardware of the buses perspective, or the skill sets we’re going to need out there in the service industry to support that, but what is the infrastructure we’re going to need? Where are we going to put it? Who’s going to make those decisions? And how long will it actually take?
They are genuine questions that I think government will do best to listen and consult with industry to be able to answer them. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I support a move to a lower emissions transport sector. I have faith in the enterprising spirit of the men and women who, like my family, took a risk, put their own money on the line, and are prepared to do whatever they can to provide a better future for their families and their communities. The drive of private business to find the right solutions for the circumstances you all find yourself in, whether it’s electrification, is it hybrids? Does biodiesel play a role? Hydrogen or some alternative technology that no brightspark in some university hasn’t come up with yet. It’s up to government to articulate how they aim to achieve their climate policies, but I’ve been very clear about the principles, the Coalition, the Liberal and the National Party will provide this discussion.
We want to be technology agnostic. This Government’s chosen an electrification mandate. I don’t necessarily believe that is the best way to get to a lower emissions transport sector in a way that doesn’t leave anybody behind. So I want to be technology agnostic.
We want people to have choice about the type of vehicle or bus they get to drive. We don’t want some areas of Australia discriminated against over others.
No retrospectivity. So the vehicles you’re purchasing now, you should not be punished for purchasing by some future state or federal government policy.
And equity. One of the issues that we’ve been struggling with and challenged by in recent times is the road user charge. Anyone that’s driving buses or vehicles on our roads across the country knows that maintenance hasn’t kept up particularly with the natural disasters that we’ve had over recent seasons, and it’s taking a toll, not just on road safety data, but on maintenance of vehicles right across the fleet.
Victoria, was taken to the High Court recently around the road user charges that they put in place for their passenger vehicle network and the High Court said guess what Victoria, guess what state governments, you don’t get to do this. This has to be done at the national level. This is going to be a real challenge for Catherine King, and others to actually develop a national system of how we upkeep and maintain our road network, and that everybody driving on that road network pays for it. Because right now every time you fill up you pay effectively what we call fuel excise, but it’s a tax, and that tax goes to the federal government to build and maintain roads in partnership with state governments. Every time we import vehicles of all weight, sizes and shapes on the road that don’t fill up with petrol or diesel, unless you have one of those lovelies specific exemptions that the mining industry and the farming industry enjoy, they’re not contributing. So there is an equity issue about the cost of our road maintenance of our system being put more and more onto one sector of our community over others.
I believe Minister King needs to pick up the phone, get her state transport ministers in a room and work out how the hell we are going to pay for a safe, well maintained road transport system in light of a diminishing amount of tax dollars being collected at a federal level and that’s going to continue over time. We collect $13.7 billion through fuel excise in this country every year. That’s a lot of money to try and find a replacement for in your revenue.
I just wanted to briefly touch on another area of interest of mine where the Government I believe should listen to industry and that’s the bureaucratic agenda to remove the exemptions in place for school buses in relation to disability standards. Transport ministers met on the ninth of June to consider the recommendation to reform the Disability Standards for accessible public transport. Important for the bus industry is the proposal to remove the exemption that have long existed for school buses. We all know the types of low floor buses operating on the smooth bitumen roads of our capital cities. They wouldn’t last very long on the potholed dirt, country gravel roads. I put some of the questions to the federal Transport Minister through Senate estimates and to the department officials. They were forced to admit the very high cost to industry of any proposal to removing the school bus exemption. They actually said in their answer, and I put in my question of ‘have you done any cost benefit analysis of this bright idea’ that some boffer in the bureaucracies come up with. Have they really consulted anyone in the industry? The department comes back with:
(italicise) The monetised compliance cost for removing the existing exemptions for school buses was estimated at $531 million. So over half a billion dollars would be the cost to industry for removing those exemptions and it would deliver benefits of $5.3 million.(end italisice) $530 million cost for a $5 million benefit. Now that to me does not stack up and they are the Federal Department of Transport figures on removing that disability exemption. So if you ever needed to listen to industry, that is incredible evidence. It’s hard to believe that serious public servants are actually advising the federal government that that’s what they should be doing.
The government has refused to disclose what the outcomes were at that transport meeting in Germany. And when asked, well, okay, if this was ever an argument for getting out on the ground and talking to the bus industry, the proposed reforms are now going through an Australian government approval process and they’ll be communicated to industry following the completion of this process. It’s going to cost you over half a billion for $5 million. And they’re actually being very upfront that you will not be consulted, you’ll be communicated with once the government’s gone through its internal processes. So I think they should have been talking to you guys and gals from day one and the department needs to ask what is the real world problem in removing those disability exemptions that they’re actually trying to solve?
They should be acknowledging the huge amount of work undertaken by the bus industry to ensure that all school children, able and disabled are transported safely to and from school right across the country no matter where they live. We could not have a situation where children with a disability are being left on the side of the road in country areas simply because we can’t drive the correct buses around.
One final issue I do want to touch on is road safety. In partnership with states and territories, the former Coalition Government committed to the National Roads Safety Strategy with the goal of halving deaths on our roads by 2030. We invested $3 billion in a road safety plan as part of a larger $33 billion investment over four years to make roads safer. Unfortunately though, and we’ve all seen the tragic stats, the road toll is rising instead of falling. In the last 12 months over 1200 Australians have lost their lives on our roads. That is 54 more deaths in the preceding 12 month period. Here in South Australia there are 104 deaths representing a 28% increase.
Earlier this year, your own industry was shocked and rocked by two horrific accidents, made when a truck collided with a school bus west of Melbourne and in June lives were lost in the Hunter Valley that made news around the world when a bus that was transporting a wedding party was overturned. Each and every accident on our roads will have their own unique circumstances and contributing factors. One important contribution that all governments, state and federal can do is to make our roads safer, and that means fixing the potholes, improving dangerous intersections and upgrading roads.
Over the past 18 months the Federal Government unfortunately has underfunded The Black Spot Program. They’ve slashed investments in road infrastructure and by the close of books this financial year the Federal Government spent $3 billion dollars less on road and rail infrastructure than they budgeted for in October. This was good for the bottom line with an unexpected budget surplus but not good for road safety. No doubt on of the contributing factors has been the Federal Government’s snap 90 Day Infrastructure Review. 400 infrastructure projects right around the country in a short sharp review, which now is 183 days and counting a nd we still have no idea about which ones of those 400 projects right around in suburbs, cities and country areas across the country actually going to be funded.
I intend to be a constructive Shadow Minister. It doesn’t sound like it today because unfortunately, and I will call it out when it has to be called out as I have with Qantas and I won’t stop, is when you have people in positions of power, making decisions that don’t result in a more sustainable, prosperous and safe community, then it is up to all of us to make that clear, which is what I’ve tried to do. I think government’s job is to put the interests of the Australian people ahead of their own interests and I won’t stop with that regard.
Thank you again for the invitation to speak to you. I commend you for everything you do every single day to move Australians around safely, for stepping up to the challenge of a low emissions transport future and for employing thousands of Australians in the manufacturing and transport industry that beggars belief and just gets on and does each and every day. I’m very proud of growing up in your industry. I’m proud to represent you as your Shadow Minister.
ENDS.