QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator STERLE (Western Australia) (15:23): I rise to make my contribution to this debate too. I'm extraordinarily happy to talk about small business. For those that may not know, I come from a small business background, and I've been passionate about small business for many years.

Let's go back and have a look at a few things, if I may indulge the Senate. Back in 1980, when I was a budding young truckie and could fit into a tiny pair of Stubbies and a blue singlet, I had three burning passions. One was football.

One was my GTS two-door HQ Monaro. And I had a pretty spunky girlfriend from Willetton. Twenty-six years, two kids and two grandkids later, we're still together.

I remember that, at the age of 20, all I wanted to do was drive big trucks. I was a company driver for a small outfit called Ansett. Our jobs, overnight, were given away.

Ansett, in their wisdom, decided, for all their employees—all of us young truckies and offsiders—that, if you wanted to continue doing all the bush work, getting all the overtime, you had two options: 'You can buy one of our trucks, or you can go buy one yourself.' Mr Deputy President, you, I know, with your background, too—at the age of 20, I had no idea about being in business.

I had no support. I had no idea. I didn't know what you had to do.

All I knew was that the truck ran on fuel and tyres. Then, all of a sudden, I had to pay for the repairs and maintenance. But the bigger fright was: 'How the heck am I going to go and buy one?' I'd say I had about a thousand bucks in the bank, but I'd probably be fibbing; it was probably about 500 bucks.

My father, who was a great supporter of mine, lent me a couple of grand to go and buy my first rig. I think the total cost back then was this massive $6½ thousand or $7,000, and I was thinking, 'How the heck am I going to get over this?' There's one thing I do want to share with everyone and with the Senate, as the proud small-business man I am, regardless of some of the nonsense you hear coming from, particularly, Senator Hanson, and some of that mob over there.

And I'm still tied up in the trucking industry, by the way. I still drive trucks. I still run road trains.

But I do it for charity now. Transport operators, small businesses, owner-drivers, transport associations and the Transport Workers' Union, for the last 20 years in this building, have been trying to get the message across to different coloured governments, on the way through, that we're small business. Truckies are small family businesses.

The majority of freight in this nation is not carried by the big boys; it's carried by small family businesses. All these groups came together as one and came to Canberra to lobby, year in, year out, to get across to the members of the House of Representatives, and to the ministers from governments of both persuasions, and to senators, how they desperately needed help, because they are price-takers.

We, in the trucking industry, don't set the rates—or we set the rates alright, but the mob down the road will undercut us because they're getting screwed and their fuel's going through the roof. We're price-takers. We pleaded with that side of the chamber—at the time, they were on this side of the chamber—'Would you please help us?

Would you give us the opportunity to have transport reform in this nation, so we can have some safeguards?' Sadly, to all those listening up there—and I'm still so close to the trucking industry, it's scary; I can't get away from it, and, trust me, I'm looking forward to getting away from it one day!—every single one of those senators over there dutifully lined up behind their leader and they gave the trucking industry the middle finger.

And they go on about small business and how they love small business. Well, you tell us truckies: why don't you love us? What's the difference between us and the small business you pretend to love?

Why don't you give us any love? We're the ones that put the clothes on your back. We're the ones that put the fuel in the tanks of your cars.

We cart all that. We're the ones that cart your building material— Senator STERLE: Can I have an extension? I'm just starting to warm up, Mr Deputy President!