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Permalink Reply by Kevin Michael Pattel on October 11, 2009 at 10:14pm

Hi Cate,
As usual you’re right; I guess at times I get frustrated by the inactivity of the so-called ‘Peak Industry Groups’ and of cause unity is the only way to go, I have said that in a previous post.

I agree with most of what you say in your letter to Jack the Insider, but we need to stop talking and start doing, the lack of support for the meeting in Brisbane to co-ordinate some form of action leaves me a little cold, my memory of the truck shutdown last year will haunt me forever, and to attempt it again without total support would be fools folly.

I had a talk to Bruce McIvor three weeks ago about the type of action your suggesting and he claimed that in 1987 the farmers went to Parliament house in Canberra and Bob Hawke locked them out for nine months, his view is that we need to get through the door and talk to the Ministers one on one, (not sure how you do that) he said that the LNP would never support militant action, and this is why I believe the LNP are weak as water.

I do however believe that we have to inflict maximum pain across the entire country, not localise it in Canberra, I’m also against public confrontation, the ideal way to do this is to withdraw Product, Produce and Services, within three days the Government will have no choice but to cave in, and as you say we need to be unified.

We have to plan this carefully or we could end up in a weaker position than we are in now, we must not fail the next time.

Cheers
Mick

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Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on October 13, 2009 at 5:23am

Mick, your post then this reply is the real situation. We are all frustrated by the obvious inequities and I agree wholeheartedly with coordinating some kind of protest
BUT the biggest challenge is drafting up a clear ,fair log of claims for all,notjust the pockets of self interest and the only way to come to any decisions is to have CURRENT data on all aspects of our particular industries.
Most Aussies can bear a fair bit of hard ship so long as it is " one in all in so to speak". Nothing fuels anger more than the- I'm going OK now so I will turn a blind eye toyou lot over there being raped.
EG take Dairying. We need that data to establish if indeed we are producing up to three times the milk that is needed in this country. Surely it is better to limit production to profitable levels than everyone mindlessly producing "MORE FOR LESS"
EG take trucking, an audit of availability and profitability would tell the story. If as seems to be the case that drivers are getting fewer and older then the experienced cool heads have to sit down and set out Fair conditions based on the national averages of hourly pay recreation etc
If we don't do our homework first the vested interests will shoot us to pieces as the ANZAC spirit is a myth only nowadays everyone is only interested in themselves .This attitude deserves a bit of a shake up with a few empty shelves for a few weeks!

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Michael Pattel on October 13, 2009 at 8:44am

Hi Rob,
I could not agree more, my request to the industry associations to meet in Brisbane was to do just as you said, we need each industry to get the benefit of any action taken, I also believe that in the trucking industry we have an oversupply of trucks, I have placed a plan before the members of the NRFA to address that situation and it was well received, we have also developed an alternative to the current heavy vehicle registration system and we have submitted it to Ken Henry at the ATO, we also have people in systems compliance developing programs to address fatigue and speed problems that haunt our industry, it’s not good to say we are doing the right thing we have to be seen doing the right thing.

I believe that solutions to problems in yours and other industries need to be worked out from within those industries; we have been finding that the existing associations have not been proactive in these areas and as such governments have taken it on themselves to do it for us, we assume the associations are on top of the problems but the truth is that the ‘shiny bum’ executives have no idea, they tend to become too close to the bureaucrats who develop the regulations and the real players in industry don’t have a clue what is going on.

The most important thing we can do now is to join the NRFA as the over-arching body, we need each industry president represented on the board, as I have stated in the past NRFA is not specifically a trucking association, it’s an Australian industry association, and most importantly it is ‘Grass Roots’

Thanks for your input Rob

Mick

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Michael Pattel on October 13, 2009 at 11:08am

You know Cate, the power we have in the trucking industry is huge and most of our people don't realise it, we could use just one sector of our industry to stop the country, take the fuel trucks off the road for one week, nothing will move, the following week we could take all the fridge vans off the road and the food shelves would be empty in no time, I think by now you get my drift, the reality is that we don't believe in ourselves enough to co-ordinate it, but wouldn't it be great if we could.

Bruce McIvor is the President of the LNP in Qld, he used to be the biggest livestock transport operator in Queensland, his statement to me is "that he has no interest in trucking and really doesn't care" and I asume that the LNP don't care either.

The TWU our mate Hughie Williams is hell bent on making us look like a mob of terrorist, he and Tony Sheldon have the interest of the multi-national to promote at the expense of the small operator, most of the problems we face are coming from the profit driven ‘big end of town’
Cheers
Mick

cheers
Mick

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