Beginnings at the regulator

“I’ve still got a couple of staff here that were there from the start,” says former NHVR CEO Sal Petroccitto, reflecting on his beginnings at the regulator.

“They remember just how shaky it was, the death threats and all that. It was pretty serious for them, but we’ve come a long way.

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“I remember when I walked in, we had about 110 people, and we were losing them, rather than keeping them. I told them what we needed to do was stabilise, and get industry back on deck. We knew that there were going to be challenges, but we had to make sure that we got that relationship with the industry, because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t exist.

“At the time I said, ‘there won’t be another CEO if we don’t fix it’. The Commonwealth’s desire to establish a regulator by getting them to focus on an access system as its priority probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. In hindsight, what the Commonwealth should have done is focus on getting all the jurisdictions to agree that we’re establishing an NHVR and these are the functions they were going to let go.

“I said to my team, ‘if we continue to stay in our Fortitude Valley office, we’re never going to survive. You need to be out there, and you’re going to cop some really difficult discussions. But if you don’t, you’re not going to understand what’s really hurting. You’re also not going to build the trust with them to say, you keep turning up, you keep coming back, so you’re genuine’.”

Still building

Those dark days in early 2014 are now well behind us, as the NHVR has established its place in the trucking world. The work continues and the agency is still building.

The process led by Sal has been a careful step-by-step one, creating a workable permit system, which will function for the industry involving working in an environment where NHVR doesn’t have the ultimate say. That stayed with the state road agencies, and this is where many of the ongoing issues still lie.

“The permit system will be, in my view, an ongoing conundrum for this industry,” reckons Sal. “I think we’ve done a really good job in fixing the front end and actually starting to work really well with industry. There are jurisdictions that are now starting to really understand their networks.

“However, I’m seeing other jurisdictions that I think are going to tighten up. I am worried about what, ultimately, the whole access framework for this country looks like.

“We’re doing some really good work with South Australia. At the moment, the minister’s really focused on trying to get out of permits. He has a particular view, that if a particular road has had multiple requests for a permit, why isn’t it a notice?

“The work we’ve been doing with Victoria on really understanding how they can get out of permits into notices is good. It will be an ongoing issue while you’ve got a regulatory framework that says the NHVR is not the ultimate decision maker, it’s what we’re given.”

In a job like NHVR CEO it can seem like there’s a crisis every three months. The agency sees its role as being the sensible voice in the room.

COVID was probably a good example and the NHVR did play a substantial role during the pandemic, with a lot of work going on behind the scenes. According to Sal the crisis highlighted the challenges that the trucking industry faces in a federated system.

“It’s very hard to get people to give up power,” says Sal. “Is it giving up a power or is it acknowledging that entities have evolved and they can be trusted, because they’re still accountable to ministers, and ministers have agreed to establish a body as well as establish and implement a board to manage it.

“If that’s the ministers’ decision, why do jurisdictions continue to fight it? It’s sort of like defending your home turf and keeping your ivory tower intact, totally. But isn’t it the role of the leaders to actually step in and tell the staff, ‘actually this decision has been made by our minister, we’re going to let go, we’re going to trust them, we’re going to work with them’?

“I think we’ve started to see some really big wins, we’ve built that relationship of trust, where we’re now working collaboratively. We’ve always understood that there’d be a healthy tension, because we’re technically an independent regulatory body that’s been asked to do something under a legislative framework. But we’re not a regulator that won’t have a view or an opinion, because we interact with industry.”