SENATOR STERLE LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO CLEAN UP TRUCK STOPS & REST AREAS FOR ESSENTIAL TRUCKIES

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Amid the initial confusion of lockdowns and border restrictions at the height of the pandemic in 2020, truckies were locked out of road houses and rest areas and refused access to toilets and showers while completing their essential work. After consultation with the state based transport associations and governments, the National Freight Code was put in place allowing road houses and service stations to stay open so that drivers could get a warm meal and a shower while managing their fatigue, in some form of comfort. This was a good outcome for our truckies.

However, I was disappointed to see that as New South Wales entered into lockdown, truck drivers were again being locked out from accessing basic amenities at different road houses and service stations across the State. I am pleased to say that after working closely with Simon O’Hara and Road Freight NSW, a number of these issues were fixed.

And now that access to rest areas, road houses and service stations were restored for our essential truckies, its time they were cleaned up.

On a daily basis, I get photos and messages from truckies on social media detailing the poor conditions they encounter at service stations and rest areas; including broken showers, dirty toilets, lack of parking bays, quality of food options, the list goes on and on. Our truck drivers are essential workers. They have kept Australia moving throughout the pandemic. They deserve much better than this.

This is why I am inviting truck drivers to let me know which truck stops or service stations need some attention so I can work with the companies who own them to see if there is room for improvement.

Over recent months, I have established working relationships with BP, Caltex/

Ampol, Coles and Shell and all have been very responsive when I have contacted them with queries relating to the condition of some of their sites. I want to thank them for their cooperation and look forward to continuing to work with them to ensure that our essential truckies have access to the best sites available.

I would like to sincerely thank Chevron/ Puma management for addressing my communications and cleaning this up so quickly which is a terrific outcome for the truck drivers and other road users who use this site!

Since we started the campaign in July, we’ve been able to have poor conditions addressed at over 30 service stations across the country.

The most recent was the showers at the Puma in Cardwell QLD. We were sent photos of the horrible conditions in the showers which we forwarded on to Puma/Caltex management. The next morning I received an email from the area manager who acknowledged that these conditions were not up to standard. He said that this issue had been addressed directly with the site manager and management raised jobs with their maintenance team who were going to visit the site to have the shower pressure cleaned. They also looked at any plumbing issues with the showers as well. The site manager has been asked to keep pressure cleaning the shower weekly on top of the normal cleaning routine until they get the issues relating to mould resolved. He sent me the attached photo of the shower after it had been given a good clean. It’s definitely an improvement on how it looked which is great!

If you would like to get in touch regarding this campaign, please contact my office on 9455 1420 or at senator.sterle@aph.gov.au or via Facebook.

My office has also received a complaint about the conditions of the showers at the BP in Kewdale which I will follow up and we’ve also had luck with work being commenced to address poor conditions at the Shell servo’s at Upper Swan, Port Hedland and Meekatharra, we were able to get Telstra to restore the phone service at the Caiguna roadhouse so truckies were able to use eftpos services again and issues with the adblue at the Caltex in Fitzroy Crossing have also been addressed.

We are running regular updates on our facebook page and have another 30 odd complaints live at the moment with Mobil, United Petroleum, Caltex/Ampol, BP & Coles/Shell and we look forward to continuing to work with them. Now I want to talk about rest areas for heavy vehicles. We know there is a shortage but I want to hear from you about where you think they are needed most.