TRANSCRIPT: REMARKS OPENING OF NEW CONTROL ROOM, TOLL GROUP MELBOURNE AIRPORT, 5 November 2018

E&OE

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

It’s great to be here at Toll Group in Melbourne today with Peter Stokes, the Operational Services Manager, and to see the amazing technology and to open … well, they call it a nerve centre but what it is is the operational centre by which they monitor their truck drivers right around this wide brown land!

This is a great boon for the transport industry to make sure that their truck drivers are getting home sooner and safer. Making sure that they monitor their truck drivers in real time.

Peter and his team are dedicated to road safety – dedicated not just for the road safety of their own employees but indeed, dedicated to the road safety of all road users. Toll are leading from the front – they’re using technology, which was invented right here in Australia, in Canberra in fact, by Seeing Machines.

This is amazing technology which monitors the truck drivers in real time so if they so much as go a little bit over the limit; so if they so much as close their eyes for just a few seconds, there’ll be an alert in the cabin. There’ll also then be a follow-up contact made from the nerve centre here in Melbourne to that truck driver.

This technology is world class. It’s world first, and it’s invented right here in Australia and it’s being installed in these Volvo trucks, which are also built right here in Australia. It’s very much Australian technology, very much in Australian-manufactured vehicles, used by one of Australia’s leading transport companies.

I commend Toll for what they’re doing. Their truck drivers go right throughout rural and regional Australia, right throughout our metropolitan areas, making sure that they deliver the goods; making sure that they’re on time but doing it in the safest possible way.

So, Peter, congratulations to you and your team. It is an absolute privilege and an honour to open this new operational centre here in Melbourne today to make sure that our truck drivers are getting home sooner and safer. I commend this technology. I commend Toll for what they’re doing and I really welcome this world class facility. It’s come on board today. It’s exciting.

Coupled with the $75 billion record amount of infrastructure that the Federal Government, the Liberal and Nationals’ Government, is investing in Australia - in rural and regional roads, in Roads of Strategic Importance, in our beef roads, in our byways and highways, whether they’re in metropolitan areas or indeed, right throughout rural and regional Australia - this is an exciting development.

So congratulations, as I say, again to the Toll Group. They’re leading the way as far as safety is concerned. They’re making sure that their best asset – their drivers, their human capital - are getting home sooner and safer; and Peter, I commend you and I invite you to say a few words.

PETER STOKES:

Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much, Deputy Prime Minister.

I’m delighted to be able to open our control centre today here in Tullamarine. As you said, it is the nerve centre for what we do across the Toll business, and we’re really focused on ensuring that our drivers come home safely every day and that we continue to improve the infrastructure; and that’s part of our commitment to the Government, to offer the telematics data that we are collecting here and that’ll be shared with the Government to ensure that we continue to drive efficiency on the roads, drive for safety and improve that every day, both for our drivers but also importantly, for everyone else on the road.

So thank you very much for taking the time and we really appreciate you coming out here to open our centre. Thank you.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well done to Toll. Well done Volvo and well done to Seeing Machines. Congratulations.

PETER STOKES:

Thank you.

Shane Manning