Meanwhile, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he is baffled as why the deaths are increasing. There are decades of research showing the link between pay and safety when it comes to heavy vehicle crashes. Numerous coronial inquests have backed this up. The evidence shows what happens when major retailers and manufacturers at the top of the supply chain cut their transport contracts: trucks are not maintained and drivers are under pressure to speed and drive grueling hours to meet unrealistic deadlines.

The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was investigating this chain of events and holding the major companies to account over pay and risky practices in their supply chain. Malcolm Turnbull tore the tribunal down and since then the pressure on transport operators and drivers has increased. He and other ministers in his party now play dumb on the increased deaths but the record shows that they were warned about this. If they weren’t prepared to accept the academic studies and coronial inquests, the Government’s own report carried out by PWC shows the tribunal’s Orders were cutting truck crashes by 28%. For this reason, the Government has blood on its hands.

Tony Sheldon, Transport Workers’ Union National Secretary

Mr Matuzelis in his letter on January 18 writes that the advisers should be sacked not government ministers. They  are responsible for the faulty projects and policies of governments. The minister is the final arbiter who decides the policy.

The important input of the public is ignored by the ‘competent advisers’ and incompetent ministers.  It is an example of how the democratic institution has been undermined by the ‘political class’.  Decisions serve their interests not the interests of the community. The culprit is the neo-liberalism that influences governments.

It’s core policy is all about making a profit, it comes before service to the community.  That is why today’s ‘political’ class’ is ignoring the input of the people. It is causing a swing from away from the major parties to the Greens and the independents.  In particular the Greens who they tell us to ignore because they are green on the outside but are really leftist reds on the inside.

Reg Wilding, Wollongong

On any given day,  irrespective of the where you are=, the increasing use of technology and the problems it creates for employment opportunities in the retail industry is there to be seen.  One example of this being your local supermarket. There you will see your fellow shoppers waiting in lines to use “self-service checkouts”, ignoring the at times, shorter lines at traditional check-outs.  Ask many among the grey nomads and other travellers who have chosen to drive around this “great brown land of ours” about their experiences with computerisation.

I am certain they will tell you whenever they purchase fuel or other provisions at remote places such as Glendambo on the Stuart Highway 600 kilometres from Adelaide, a computerised system will first determine whether or not they have a capacity to pay. The age of computers, an age we welcomed with open arms a few decades ago has come back to bite us.  It is actually “A Trojan Horse” with the capacity to eventually make the human element in many industries redundant.  While it is clearly too late now to change things in total, at least we urban citizens might do our bit to sustain the human element by avoiding “self-serve checkouts”!

Barry Swan  Balgownie