National Road Transport Association, Australia’s largest non-profit representing freight operators and drivers, is hopeful the newly elected Labor Government will assist with the industry’s number one issue — driver retention.
“This is an enduring problem made worse by the pandemic,” said Richard Calver, compliance and legal adviser to NatRoad, speaking at the National Roads and Traffic Expo in Sydney in May.
Pre-pandemic data showed some 80 percent of transport employers were experiencing a skills shortage. In Australia trucks move 75 percent of non-bulk national freight, and the task is projected to double by 2030 according to a 2016 study by Volvo Group.
“Some small but vital changes to the law should be introduced ahead of what will be a re-framed way ahead,” Calver said, adding, “There needs to be immediate action to start the move to fit-for-purpose regulation.”
Calver was referring to the review and reform of the National Heavy Vehicle Law currently underway and mired in controversy for several years now, since at least 2018 when the review commenced.
“To show that the HVNL must be more than the application of petty enforcement, misplaced penalties and red tape there should be the immediate abolition of fines for matters that are trivial and do not achieve their purpose of assisting with fatigue management.
“For example, fines for not drawing a straight line in the work diary or not pressing hard enough on a top copy of a diary entry or not getting the name of a town right should be eliminated. These are all issues where members are fined. NatRoad policy is that there should be the immediate abolition of these fines and a warning system put in place for administrative offences so that a driver is not fined $172.00 for a paperwork mistake that would cause a revolution if applied in, say, the public service. Issues like these have nothing to do with good fatigue management and feed the ‘revenue raising’ perspective on the enforcement of the HVNL.”
The hefty fines and fear of administrative offences no doubt cause drivers to leave the vocation and do nothing to draw new drivers to the job.
Calver said the law should enable operators to work to a performance-based framework and manage fatigue as a risk, rather than have the present “one-size-fits-all” prescriptive rules.
NatRoad is also crying out for stronger focus on improving access for heavy vehicles.
“Neither the industry nor the regulator want a system in place that requires the processing of almost 120,000 permits a year,” said Calver.
He cited the annual report of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, NHVR: “in 2020-21, we received a total of 117,886 permit applications — a a 50 percent increase from 78,622 in 2019-20. These consisted of 69,891 single-route applications and 47,995 multi-route renewals.”
“The HVNL review was supposed to be the vehicle through which suitable reform could be framed and implemented,” said Calver. “But as T S Eliot famously said between the idea and the reality falls the shadow.”
“NatRoad’s strong view is that we have been waiting long enough for obvious HVNL reform,” said Calver concluding his talk at the NRAT Expo. “Immediate changes to the HVNL must be made.”
