Cash still has a huge role to play in Australian society.
While that’s still the case – and it will be for several years to come – banks and retailers have to step up to ensure that can happen efficiently and safely.
One of the game-changing powers of new transport reform laws is the ability to rope in clients at the top of supply chains. For too long, those clients have been able to call the shots, undercutting and squeezing contracts while transport operators and transport workers are under pressure to work harder and longer. That’s true just as much for the cash-in-transit industry as it is in retail supply chains.
Right now, the cash-in-transit industry faces an existential threat. With a $50 million lifeline for Armaguard set to run out this June, there is an urgent need for a long-term solution to protect over 1,400 jobs and prevent the industry from total collapse.
Last month, the TWU filed an application in the Fair Work Commission, calling on banks to save Armaguard and protect the cash-in-transit industry.
For too long, banks and supermarkets – major clients at the top of the cash-in-transit supply chain– have had a direct impact on the crisis in the industry through their unsustainable contracts with Armaguard. This has meant workers are stuck with poor pay and conditions and face severe safety risks.
Using the new laws, we’ve made an application that calls on banks to ensure driver safety through decent PPE standards, safe operating procedures, decent pay and job security and critical vehicle standards.
Cash-in-transit workers have long faced threats to their safety, frequently encountering violent hold-ups.
At Glenn Sterle’s inquiry into the trucking industry we heard some of the worst instances – like from Noel Blue, a long-time cash-in-transit worker and TWU member.
He detailed the psychological toll on his colleagues, many of whom have endured armed robberies and attacks.
“I’ve watched my colleagues (suffer) whiplash, be shot at, killed, maimed. It’s a dangerous job we do,” Noel says.
There have been at least 130 armed robberies involving CIT workers. They deserve better.
As a first step, our applications have called on for an industry conference where Armaguard, banks, retailers and members of the TWU can convene and chart out a plan that tackles fair contract terms, driver safety and a long-term solution to keep the cash-in-transit industry going.
A lot of Australians still rely on cash for everyday transactions, especially older Australians and those in rural or regional areas. The government recognises this too. Starting in 2026, businesses that sell essential goods and services will be required to accept cash.
That makes it even more important for banks and retailers to pay up for the future of this industry and improve conditions for workers, so they can do their jobs safely.
When the roads are your workplace there are many different pieces of the puzzle when you’re talking about safety. We’ve called on banks to ensure decent vehicle standards in cash-in-transit.
Elsewhere in road transport? Heavy vehicle rest areas are a huge part of safety. And while we’re tackling the root causes of fatigue and safety issues through the new transport reform laws, those rest areas are vital.
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The Minns and Albanese governments have announced a $40 million investment to establish a dedicated heavy vehicle rest area in Western Sydney – its first ever. It came about through Senator Glenn Sterle’s Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas Steering Committee, ensuring the decisions on where to improve rest areas, and put in place new ones, are decided by people who are actually out on the road.
What’s clear is that transport is such a diverse industry, capturing so many people, that to fix issues which have been entrenched for decades you need to look at all angles.
Applications like we’ve made in Armaguard to bring in the top of the supply chain are one. Ensuring decent rest areas, in places where drivers need them, is another.
Recently there was also another huge industry win with the launch of unfair deactivation protections for gig workers and unfair contract terminations for owner-drivers in Australia.
With owner-drivers protected against unfair contract terminations, clients can no longer arbitrarily end contracts to push standards down. That’s a hugely empowering right.
If you can be sacked or have your contract ended at will without any way to challenge it, then companies can impose whatever pressures they want on you – that’s not only unviable for a business, it’s deadly dangerous. Having a right to challenge unfair contract terminations gives drivers huge power to make positive change.
For gig workers, these automatic rights are also a game changer because they can now access the Fair Work Commission to challenge unfair deactivations and have the right to communicate with a human representative to address their case.
On the day the protections came into effect, I spoke with several gig workers who’d been deactivated in the past. Ayca, a food delivery driver, was kicked off her account and said she felt like she was “in a hole” after it happened – treated like a robot, with no income and no understanding of what she’d done wrong. Rideshare driver Jay talked about friends of his who’d been kicked off because passengers wanting a free ride had made false complaints.
A survey last year by the McKell Institute, TWU, and TEACHO, which surveyed over 1,000 food delivery, rideshare and Amazon Flex drivers, found that one in four gig workers have had their accounts deactivated. Half of them listed account deactivation as one of their top worries, and about one in three workers use multiple apps just to protect their income and avoid unfair deactivations. Having these new rights in place protects gig workers, and it protects the rest of the industry from going down this unsustainable path.
People in this industry will always know best when it comes to making things safer and fairer. Over several decades the balance has shifted too far towards those clients at the top of the supply chain, reaping enormous profits while workers and operators struggle to make ends meet, or are killed on our roads.
With these new tools we’re starting to restore the balance, step by step.
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