Malcolm Turnbull is using the livelihood of family-run trucking companies as a political football before the election, members of the Senate crossbench have warned.
The prime minister on Sunday announced he would abolish the road safety remuneration tribunal, which sets minimum pay rates for truck drivers, if the Coalition wins re-election.
The government would introduce legislation to freeze pay in the interim, opening up another industrial relations battleground with the unions.
But at least two key crossbenchers say the move puts owner-driver truck drivers, typically from small or family-owned businesses, in limbo.
“I stand ready, willing and able to deal with it [legislation to abolish the tribunal] in the coming weeks,” Nick Xenophon told Guardian Australia. “Bring it on now.”
The independent senator Glenn Lazarus said he was “disgusted” by the prospect of dragging out the abolition of the tribunal over months.
“The Turnbull government is just trying to buy votes and they are prepared to use mum and dad truckies as pawns in their own election campaign,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “Owner-drivers are being decimated now. This should not be an election issue. This is an issue which should be solved now - not in August - not after an election.”
The former prime minister Tony Abbott supported the decision of Turnbull – his successor – to scrap the body, saying it was part of a “sweetheart arrangement” between Labor and the unions and adversely affects owner-drivers.
“They shouldn’t be penalised by this loathsome Labor legacy,” he told reporters on Sunday.
Neither Labor nor the Greens supports the abolition of the tribunal, meaning that the government would need the support of six of the eight crossbenchers in this Parliament to get the legislation across the line.
Only one crossbench senator - the Motoring Enthusiast party’s Ricky Muir - has publicly opposed scrapping it.
“It seems that the government is turning this into an ideological debate and is trying to use the fear of those owner-drivers who are concerned about the tool to gather votes in the upcoming election,” Muir told Guardian Australia. “You don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
The remaining senators are mostly sympathetic to the need for a pay freeze but are awaiting further information before supporting the scrapping of the tribunal.
Jacqui Lambie wants all parties to come together and work out a satisfactory agreement. She is meeting with the Transport Workers Union on Monday.
The Palmer United party senator Dio Wang said he would consider the future of the tribunal once legislation mandating a delay in the minimum wage increase had passed.
The independent senator John Madigan said: “I haven’t seen in writing what the government proposes to do after abolishing the tribunal.
“What are we going to replace it with? The devil is in the detail.”
On Sunday, the employment minister, Michaelia Cash, said that money recouped from the abolition of the tribunal – about $4m a year - would go towards the national heavy vehicle regulator.
The head of the Transport Workers Union, Tony Sheldon, rubbished the regulator.
“The national heavy vehicle regulator has not successfully prosecuted any company, any client, the Coles of this world, the big retailers, banks or companies, to hold them to account for the economic pressure [faced by the industry,” Sheldon said. “Malcolm Turnbull has turned around and put the money to a dead duck rather than to trying to save lives on our roads.”
Labor instigated the tribunal on the grounds that giving drivers minimum pay would reduce the need for them to work unsafe hours or cut corners in order to expedite deliveries.
“The truth is that the heavy vehicle industry has 12 times the fatality rate of the national average across all industries,” the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, told reporters on Sunday. “The truth is that report after report shows a correlation between low-paid and unsafe driving. Australian motorists don’t need a lecture from an out of touch government about road safety.”
Shorten dismissed the Coalition’s charge that the tribunal was set up to benefit union members.
“The truth of the matter is that most drivers or many drivers in this industry are not even members of the union,” he said. “But all drivers are entitled to a safe system of work.”
The tribunal is yet another industrial relations battleground for Turnbull, who has threatened to go to a double-dissolution election in July if the Senate does not pass legislation relating to the establishment of a building industry watchdog.
