The Transport Workers Union has exploited children and ignored the need for practical measures to improve truck safety with its ghoulish advertising campaign, the Chair of the Australian Trucking Association, Noelene Watson, said today.



The advertisements attempt to link the abolition of the devastating Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) payments order to the death of children on Australian roads. The Transport Workers Union (TWU) will run the ads nationally from Sunday.



ATA Chair Noelene Watson said the ads completely ignored independent reports showing the RSRT payments order had no proven safety benefits.



“The TWU knows there is no proven link between price fixing and safety, so they have resorted to the disgraceful tactic of exploiting children to make their claims,” Mrs Watson said.



“Even the figures the TWU used to support the RSRT’s introduction in the first place were flawed.



“Until recently, the TWU claimed the trucking industry had an average of 330 deaths per year. They stopped using this number when the ATA pointed out that the figure was from 1999, and included fatalities in bus accidents.



“The TWU hasn’t changed tactics either ­­– the figures used in this advertising campaign include accidents that were, tragically, due to other drivers.



“In the TWU advertisements, the truck driver’s employer pushes the driver to continue driving while fatigued. But under reforms supported by the ATA, an employer doing this could be subject to penalties of the order of $3 million. The company’s directors could go to jail for up to five years.



“The employer tells the driver that the company is under pressure. Under the reforms, the industry customer applying the pressure could also be prosecuted; its directors could also go to jail.



“The truth is that we’ve made great strides in improving the trucking industry’s safety.



“Between 1982 and 2015, the rate of fatal articulated truck crashes fell 80 per cent, despite enormous growth in the number of trucks on our roads.



“Of course, there’s more to do - even one accident is too many, and every accident is a tragedy. However, fixing prices will not deliver safety gains.



“Instead of calling for the return of an unfair system with no safety benefits, the TWU should join the ATA in calling for practical road safety measures, such as intelligence led, targeted enforcement, and mandating truck and trailer stability control.



“These practical measures will save lives for real, now and in the future.”



For more details about the safety measures proposed by the ATA, visit www.truck.net.au/election