Over to you YOUR SAY
Letters to the editor
Dear Editor, his issue of cattle being on or near the road has been an ongoing problem for at least the last 30 plus years that I’ve been involved with heavy transport. It matters not whether the responsibility for safe roads rests with the farmers, pastoralists, local government, Main Roads, the state government, the federal government or the Queen herself. The road is our place of work and government departments of every kind have failed to provide a safe place of work and yet demand that we comply with their made-up, one-size-fits-all, fatigue management crap, endless compliance matters, countless reams of other rules and regulations and pay through the nose for all manner of government-imposed fines, fees, levies, duties, taxes, charges and other forms of cleverly disguised theft; theft by people who sit in a plush office all day and wouldn’t know a truck from a tractor and have absolutely no comprehension of
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WATM • March 2020
the hazards that truckies and the general public face every day on the open roads throughout the State. I would argue that in consideration of the above paragraph, we in the transport industry especially, would be deemed as being ‘employees of the state’ because of all those financial, regulatory and other obligations that we are subject to and of which the general public is not. Having established that I would also argue that the aforementioned government departments, therefore, must also be subject to the following legislation that ‘they’ wrote and enforce upon us: The “Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984”, Part III, Division 2, Section 19, sub-section 1 and 1(a) states: 19. Duties of employers (1) An employer shall, so far as is practicable, provide and maintain a working environment in which the employees of the employer (the employees) are not exposed to hazards
and in particular, but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, an employer shall — (a) provide and maintain workplaces, plant, and systems of work such that, so far as is practicable, the employees are not exposed to hazards; and I would hasten to add that this protection must also apply to the general public; whether they are tourists, foreigners, mine workers, local residents, police officers, government officials or any other road user. It appears that the state government, in particular, is in breach of its own Act and if this is correct, then road users who have incurred, loss, damage or injury may have adequate prima facie evidence with which to charge the state government with alleged offenses including but not limited to, gross negligence, professional misconduct, non-feasance, misfeasance and misappropriation of funds. I don’t know if such a case has been tried yet, but I think this may have some legs, especially in a class action. I well appreciate that wild animals such as emus and kangaroos cannot be fully controlled on a practical level; they are an unavoidable consequence of living in Australia. Whilst they are still a hazard, especially to light vehicles, they do not present the extreme level of danger that large and heavy animals pose, such as cattle, horses and camels, however, when a road is built and if it happens to pass through or alongside someone’s property, that road should be adequately fenced and gated or if further access is required for the movement of livestock and other similar (large) grazing animals, then an underpass should be installed for those properties, such as the ones built in the Bindoon/New Norcia area. The vast majority of these larger animals are owned by or are the responsibility of someone, therefore practical and appropriate options must be provided to ensure those animals are not a risk or a hazard to the motoring public and that those animals are not at risk of injury or death through unplanned and unmanaged interaction with traffic.
