“Trucking is one of Australia’s essential industries. Day and night. In the sun and in the rain. On public holidays and on weekends. Through droughts, floods and even pandemics. From the cities to the regions and the remotest corners of Australia. Everywhere and everyday – all Australians rely on trucking. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true – without trucks, Australia stops.”
That’s how Catherine King, Australia’s Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Regional Development and Local Government opened her keynote address at the Australian Trucking Association’s annual conference.
For sure, road transport is a major contributor to the Australian economy, contributing some $31.1 billion in the year ended last June 30, and it’s growing. King said the 223 billion tonne kilometres of domestic road freight task of 2020 was forecast to grow more than 50 percent to 337 billion tonne kilometres by 2040.
“These statistics both underline the importance of the road freight industry to our economy – and the importance of us investing in the future of your industry and the roads that you drive on,” said King.
Some of the initiatives she went on to highlight included:
- Introducing Euro 6 emissions standards for new heavy vehicles from November next year to help cap emissions. King pointed out the heavy vehicle sector accounts for about 4 percent of Australia’s emissions, or about one-fifth of the 20 percent attributed to the whole of transport. “This will bring Australian noxious emissions standards closer to those already in place in the UK, Europe and elsewhere.”
- Linked to the introduction of Euro 6, are industry concerns and consultations regarding axle mass and vehicle width limits, which need to change in Australia to reflect new technologies on low and zero emission heavy vehicles. King said the National Transport Commission and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator are working with the government to settle concerns before implementing Euro 6.
- “We want to build more trucks, trailers and transport vehicles here in Australia.” King said transport is one of seven priorities for the Albanese Government’s so-called national reconstruction plan.
- King also poked the elephant in the room — road user charges for heavy vehicles, saying about 60 percent of the $3.8 billion raised from imposts on heavy vehicles comes from road user charges. Meanwhile, governments across Australia are set to spend about $33 billion on roads in the year stating July 1. King gave no hints as to whether road user charges will be expanded. Just this: “Any decision state and commonwealth ministers take will be designed to lock in certainty over the next three years. We all want better roads – nobody more so than truck drivers – but we have to be able to fund them.”
- Road upgrades including building a bypass to skirt the bustling northern NSW coastal city of Coffs Harbour, upgrading the bridge at Nowra to open up the south coast in NSW, and rebuilding the bridge at Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley, WA, which was washed away by flooding in January isolating communities. Among others, money is being poured into WestConnex in Sydney, the M80 Ring Road in Melbourne, the Bruce Highway in Qld. Adelaide’s North South Corridor, WA’s Bunbury outer ring road, and bridges across regional Tasmania. And, sealing the 1000 km Tanami Track that runs from Alice Springs in central Australia to Halls Creek in north Western Australia.
“These are just a few of our investments – but they are all projects that will unlock economic growth and increase the productivity and safety of our nation’s trucks and our nation’s roads. Better roads mean less time in transit, leading to reduced transport costs and cheaper goods for consumers. For Australians, building better roads is a win for all of us,” said King.
“Better roads should also mean better rest stops. Heavy vehicle drivers in Australia deserve access to decent facilities when they need them—just like every other worker.”
She said applications for funding from the national rest stop program will open before the end of June. The Albanese Government in its first budget in 2022 announced $80 million to upgrade rest stops and build new ones over four years, bringing the funds available for rest stops to $140 million.
King also talked about moving to an out of session voting system for the intergovernmental panel overseeing reform of the national heavy vehicle lawn a quest to escalate the process. “We’ve been in office for 10 months, we’ve made some progress,” said King of the decade-long process to date.
“The goal is to completely revise it to make it more flexible,” said King, adding, “There’s a lot of complex pieces to get right.” As an example she talked about development of a two-tiered system for fatigue management, which already has almost 100 drivers signed up to a new program that relies of being accredited to manage fatigue and drive when fit and rest when tired, versus the current one size fits all log book based rules.
“With all that said, thank you very much for having me here today and thank you for the work you do every single day in every corner of this country,” said King.
