Tribunal had put drivers on road to ruin with clients

Bill Dearlove delivers sheep to South Australian abattoirs in his bright red B-double.

Bill Dearlove, at South Australia’s Dublin Livestock Exchange, says the rates order had tested farmers’ loyalties. Picture: James Elsby

Bill Dearlove delivers sheep to South Australian abattoirs in his bright red B-double, driving up to 600 of them in his two dust-stained trailers.

For a worrying few months this year, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal threatened his business.

It forced him to raise his prices by as much as six times, under an order that was scrapped when the Turnbull government abolished the tribunal this month.

Mr Dearlove, who charges between $4.50 and $5 a head and has a second truck driven by his son, is usually contracted to three farmers for a 300km trip. Under the complex calculations, he was forced to increase prices for one of the farmers who hires him from $112 to $754, figures from the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association show.

Mr Dearlove said he had longstanding relationships with his customers — but the so-called safe rates had tested farmers’ loyalties.

“If the stock’s worth $100, $120 a head, what’s going to happen if the freight rate goes to something ridiculous? No one’s ever going to sell their sheep — they’re not going to put them on my truck, anyway,” he said.

The tribunal failed to “see what the (order) could do to the mum and dad transporters of Australia”.

Fellow truckie Kevin Keenan, who operates a semi-trailer out of Yarrawonga, Victoria, is another truckie “gravely concerned” at Labor’s plans to revive “safe rates”.

Mr Keenan, association president, who ferries sheep around the Riverina region on both sides of the border with NSW, had to raise prices by up to 65 per cent for a 500km trip under the short-lived order.

His price for a full load of around 420 sheep for up to four farmers soared from $2350 to $3880 — which he said his customers would have been unwilling to pay.

Association executive director Mathew Munro said the tribunal system “blatantly discriminated against owner-drivers ... and in just one week had put hundreds out of work. Australia can continue to reduce crash risk while at the same time ensuring that owner drivers remain viable and our supply chains are competitive.”