Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026

Senator STERLE (Western Australia) (12:13): I proudly rise to make my contribution to the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026. I didn't intend to make a contribution today, because I'd rather cut the time down and get the vote on and get on with it. But I can't be silent.

I listened with the greatest respect to some of the contributions—not the one from my learned friend Senator O'Sullivan, who is one of the good ones, but to the contribution from Senator Roberts. I have a lot of time for Senator Roberts, but I have to clear this up. Firstly, I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge in the gallery today some industry legends, and in no particular order; I'll start from the left and work my way across: Michael Kaine, National Secretary of the Transport Workers' Union, and Peter Anderson, the CEO of VTA and also the chair of the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation.

See that gang? We've got the union and the bosses sitting side by side. This ain't a phenomenon that started this morning.

This has been going on for 20 years. We have been working together to establish and try and implement a safe, sustainable and viable transport industry. I tilt my hat.

I'll go along the chairs here: Glyn Castanelli, the National President of the National Road Freighters Association—it's good to see you, Glyn—And, Brownie, you're here too, mate. Guess what? Glyn was an owner-driver like me.

Now, with all of these collectors up here—and there's many more—I'm going to take the opportunity to name them. They've been working in this building solidly for probably about the last seven or eight years, week in and week out, not only meeting with government senators and members but meeting with opposition senators and members, shadow ministers, One Nation.

Senator Roberts stood up there and said this is some union folly. Senator Roberts, this mob up here, along with the Victorian Transport Association, NatRoad, Tasmanian Transport Association, Road Freight NSW, Queensland Trucking Association, South Australian Road Transport Association, Western Roads Federation, Northern Territory Road Train Association, owner-drivers from around the nation and the TWU, are pleading to put the case.

We need to be together to have a safe, sustainable and viable transport industry. Senator Roberts, I know you're not listening—you've had to go off to another meeting—but your staff will be listening. Senator Roberts, they came and saw you too, and they saw your boss, Senator Hanson.

You know what you did? 'Don't come Monday.' Put out the odd tweet saying, 'Truckies need to be looked after.' We appreciate that. Yes, they do need to be. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I will remind you we do need to refer to senators by their correct title.

Senator STERLE: I'm sorry, did I miss Senator Hanson? The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Yes. Senator STERLE: Sorry, I thought I said 'Senator Hanson'.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I don't think you did. If I'm wrong, I apologise. Senator STERLE: You know me.

I'm full of respect for the chair and full of respect for my colleagues in the chamber here. But you gave them that when they asked you to vote—am I allowed to do that? Do you want me to retract that?

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Sterle, continue. Senator STERLE: I will. I get emotional on this because this is my livelihood, as you know.

I've got diesel running through my veins. I can't help this. I get so passionate.

You gave them the thumb. You didn't vote for it. Senator Roberts, it's not right to say this is union folly.

I've just gone off and announced who has been working on this for six or seven years. The whole transport industry united to come together to give us a safe, sustainable and viable transport industry. I promised my colleagues I wouldn't speak for long on this.

I'm going to park Senator Glenn Sterle, a Labor senator from Western Australia, over here. I'm going to park the same bloke, who is a proud life member of the Transport Workers' Union not because I've come through university and thought: This is a nice union. I want to join them.' It's because I was a truck driver.

I still am a truck driver, ladies and gentlemen. Three generations of the Sterles are truck drivers. My son is still out there.

Two weeks ago, I did a two-up run, a lovely 909 with three trailers to Broome, to keep my hand in. This is what I do. When other people are out gardening, I go truck-driving.

I want to talk about Glenn Sterle, the owner-driver, in all my years, when I was at Ansett Wridgways, which was then gobbled up by TNT. Let's talk about fuel. My wife and I lived through the Falklands War.

Trust me, when I'm coming home from the Northern Territory and I heard that a war's broken out, my first reaction as a truck driver owner-driver was, 'My goodness me, what's that going to mean for my fuel bill and our fuel bill?' I lived and breathed that. Fortunately it didn't go on for long, but the first thing I did was get back to Perth. We didn't have mobile phones in those days.

I put up a notice on the notice board, got all the owner-drivers together and said: 'Boys'—and they were all boys—'we're going to go in there, and we're going to dust up Ansett Wridways, because we ain't carting their freight up and down the highways to the goldfields, to the south-west, the eastern states, the north-west and the Northern Territory supplementing their clients.

No damn way.' It was a pretty easy decision. It was either they pay us the fuel levy or we park the trucks up. I still say that today.

Why should the trucking industry—there were some contributions from over here. I know you're going to pull me up if I start mentioning some of the rubbish that came out of Senator McKenzie's mouth, so I won't say that. But I am someone who's paid the fuel bills and someone who understands what it means when you kiss the wife goodbye and the baby on the head while there's still the bill on the fridge—you know the magnet on the fridge, the finger with the ribbon tied?

I'm talking to the truckies now. I am one of those of us who have actually been in small business. You can all answer for yourselves.

I don't know what your background was. Mine's small business in the trucking industry. I know how darn painful it is as you're going up the highway and you're trying to navigate a bunch of other road trains and other users, while, in the back of your mind all the time, is: 'My goodness me, I haven't paid that bill because they haven't paid me.

Ansett's been a bit slow.' While I sit here and hear some of the rubbish that comes out today, I want to put the truckies' position there. I don't speak just for owner-drivers; I speak for every trucking company in this nation because 70 per cent of our industry is small- to medium-sized business. I still call it 'our industry' because I'm still a damn proud activist in this industry.

We started with one truck, and then we had the opportunity to buy a second and third. That's what's made this nation so great—that truckies could drag themselves up by their bootlaces to become something in this nation. But to listen to some of the diatribe that this is a union folly—this is what I heard earlier on, through you, Deputy President Brockman—and asking why small business should have to pay the way—well, what about us truckies who are small business?

I say this with the greatest of respect, to my colleagues across the chamber: when you talk small business, do you know how insulting it is to us owner-drivers in the trucking industry, in small business, to hear that we don't matter but the corner shop matters or the shoe shop matters or the farmer matters, to hear, 'You truckies are not the same as small business, so why should we have to pay your fuel costs?' I have to get that off my chest because I've got a burning fire in here, and it's been here for 50-odd years.

I will defend the trucking industry to my very last breath. Enough of the talk. Get this bill through.

We're not the bank of Australia. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but someone has got to pay for our fuel costs.