The Transport industry has no friends on either side of politics or any support from our so called peak Transport Industry Associations or the Transport Workers Union;

Having met with the Queensland Transport Minister John Mickel and his senior advisers two weeks before the shutdown it was obvious that we are on our own in this battle to get any changes made in the short term, Liz Schmidt accompanied me on this visit and we made it very clear that the demerit points and increased fines on log book breaches were impacting heavily on the driver population in Queensland and many were exiting the industry, they did not believe that this was the case, they did however agree to look into the ‘spiteful enforcement’ being dished out by Queensland Police, and some of their own officers, they agreed to meet with Qld Police to iron out enforcement issues and to get some uniformity into their administration of the new laws.

I also extended an invitation to the ATA CEO Stuart St Clair to met with me in Brisbane at the same time to discuss the concept of the shutdown and to explain the reasons for this action, he declined the invitation, to this day he and all the Associations still think it was about fuel prices, or perhaps they wanted to believe that, the press from them indicated to me that was their thinking, they are that far out of touch one wonders why anyone would want to be a member of these Associations.

I also met with Hughie Williams at the same time and I thought we were able to convince him that we were not connected to any other group, he gave the impression that he understood the situation and although he didn’t want to support the shutdown he did give the undertaking to pull out his members if we got enough trucks to stop, of cause that support wasn’t forthcoming even though better than 70% of trucks did stop on the Monday, membership there might be a problem for the TWU in the future.

Clare Mildren and I met with the Shadow Minister for Public Transport and Traffic Management Shadow Minister for Trade Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations Tim Nicholls and the leader of the Opposition Lawrence Springborg, MP after the shutdown finished to find out where the new Liberal National Party stood on the new transport reforms, at that meeting they both made it very clear that they supported the new reforms and would not be repealing them if they win Government at the next election, also in attendance was the Opposition Whip Ian Rickuss, MP.
From here the transport industry in Queensland should campaign against the new Liberal National Party at the next election as we don’t need another change of Government just to get more of the same.

We as an industry can lobby until the cows come home the present political parties will still treat us as expendable, we will need to organise ourselves under the banner of a new Association with a starting membership of Five Thousand to gain the mantle of Peak Industry Group, then we will need to reassess our options.

Until next time stay Safe

Mick Pattel