Transcript - Radio 2SM Sydney - Breakfast with Ron Wilson

RON WILSON [HOST]: Truck drivers in western Sydney are set to benefit from the city's first dedicated heavy vehicle rest stop. It's considered a crucial infrastructure project aimed at improving safety and reducing fatigue for long haul truckies. It's located at Eastern Creek and the site is strategically placed near key motorway junctions. It comes with a $40 million investment price tag from both the Albanese and Minns Labor governments. The project was part of an election promise by the New South Wales Labor government, and marks a significant step in enhancing road safety and ensuring truck drivers have the facilities they need to rest and recharge during their long journeys.

Catherine King is the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development and Local Government in Australia as well. She's on the line right now. Catherine, good morning.

CATHERINE KING [MINISTER]: Hi, Ron. It's great to be with you.

RON WILSON: Tell us about this truck stop. How important is it in the overall scheme of transport?

CATHERINE KING: Well, it's incredibly important. We know just how much- how busy that freight route is between Melbourne right the way through to Brisbane. Truck drivers are required under our law to actually have rest and rest stops. We can't have fatigued drivers on the road. But in that area, particularly where there is such a high volume of freight going through, there just really isn't anywhere for truck drivers to safely rest. And this will be the first dedicated area specifically for trucks ever in western Sydney and at Eastern Creek. We often hear, you know, truck drivers are parking on suburban roads. They're parking on the side of the road, trying to make sure that they comply with their rest hours. And that is not safe for anybody. It's certainly not safe for them.

The other thing we know is that we're seeing increasing numbers of female drivers. They want, as should anyone in their workplace, access to decent toilet facilities, decent shower facilities, safe places to be able to rest and shaded places to be able to rest as well. So this is a really important project. 40 million from the Albanese government, 40 million from the Minns government. They took it to the last state election. We're saying we're going to back this in. This is budgeted funding. This is not an election commitment. This is something we want to fund, really as part of the infrastructure program.

It's been identified by truck drivers as the area- really a missing spot. So this is a really important announcement both for truck drivers but also for road safety. We want drivers who are on our roads that have had- you know, have got decent workplaces that are well rested and have places where they can rest and actually shower and recover from what is a really gruelling and difficult job.

RON WILSON: Boy, a total of over $80 million. It must be some truck stop.

CATHERINE KING: Well, it takes a lot to, you know, build roads to actually get the hard surfacing, but also to get the services out there. You obviously need electricity, you need water, you need sewerage out there as well. Unfortunately, it just does take that amount of money to be able to do that and to build those proper dedicated facilities. Unfortunately, infrastructure is expensive.

RON WILSON: Well, that's one truck stop. It's an awful big country. Have you got more of these planned?

CATHERINE KING: Yeah. Well, what we've done, I've had a $180 million fund. And Senator Glenn Sterle, who might be known to all of you, he's still driving trucks himself. Every now and again, he gets behind the wheel. He's from over in the west. I asked him to chair- basically to bring trucking companies together and truck drivers together to identify sites to fund that. And we've put the first tranche out of that. There's smaller stops, often in the regional areas, because we wanted truck drivers to identify, well, where are you stopping? Where are the facilities that are needed? How can we actually fund these? So that's been part of the government- we took that to the last election, and that's been steadily rolling its way out, as well as as we build big scale infrastructure. So you'd be aware, you know, there's big projects up in the Hunter. We look at opportunities there to partner with state and local government to also build those facilities in at the same time. But there's no doubt that we could have more. And we need to continue to look at opportunities to do that, which is why we've got the funding program to try and roll them out. But this will be a single biggest one, and it's a really big missing area. Like there just isn't anywhere in that area really. And often you'll see truck drivers just trying to plough- keep going. But they've got to, you know, make sure that they've stopped within the hours that [indistinct] drive a certain number of hours.

RON WILSON: [Talks over] Yeah, that’s right.

CATHERINE KING: So it's really difficult for them to then, you know, get that push through to get to the next stop where they can. And there's really just nothing in that area for them to stop at.

RON WILSON: Yeah. Minister, this is such good news for all road users, not just the trucking industry. So very pleased that you're able to come on and have a chat to us about it this morning, I appreciate it.

CATHERINE KING: Really good to be with you.

RON WILSON: The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in Australia, Catherine King, talking about this new truck stop. It's located at Eastern Creek. It comes at a cost of over $80 million.