The whole issue of fixing road charging for the trucking industry pays in rego, or some other form of tax, is again up for discussion. The National Transport Commission has a discussion paper out at the moment asking for submissions from stakeholders about the way the trucking industry pays for the wear and tear it creates on our road system.
Currently, the NTC asks governments what monies they spend each year on road repairs and maintenance and then divvies the amount up between the different trucks and trailers using the roads. This gives them an amount of rego to be charged for each vehicle and a level of fuel subsidy. This is designed to come up with the figure originally given by governments.
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Do We Really Want Better Productivity?
Every week, or more often, we hear someone else telling us about a drive for better productivity. Needless to say, quite often the person talking it up has something to sell. A new technology, a new leaner
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Running Blind
A meeting with a selection of owner/drivers yesterday gave me much food for thought about how people in the trucking industry communicate with each other. The forum, one of many running all through this
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We Cannot Win
An article in the Herald Sun in Melbourne this week has caused me to despair of ever improving the image of the trucking industry. The well meaning article appeared on the newspaper’s website last Saturday
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Setting The Standard
We have a arrived at a fortunate moment in the development of a truly responsible trucking industry. There is an opportunity to make a real difference and change the paradigm in the way road transport is run and policed. Get it wrong and we will return to the dark ages, get it right and there can be some real gains.
The situation at the moment sees the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator with enough credibility with the Transport Ministers in the States and Canberra to be able to try and drive some real effective change. It has the momentum, for now, to get some of the recalcitrant states and their delaying tactics, put back in their box.
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How Safe Can We Get?
There has been a lot of talk about safety in the trucking industry recently. Most of its was stimulated by the close call with and the impending, if Labor win, return of the RSRT. This threat, and threat
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Building the Ramparts
Watching the antics on TV dramas like Game of Thrones and Vikings should inspire the trucking industry in its next moves, politically. The bloody battle is won, for now. The opposition has retreated, but will refresh itself and prepare for a new assault, sometime in the future, but we don’t know when.
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What Have We Learned from the RSRT?
There was a great deal of relief late on Monday, when the formal abolition of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was confirmed. A lot of hard work and insistent lobbying got rid of the RSRT and its Orders, aided by a Coalition Government looking for a stick to beat Labor with.
Okay, you can take a few days off to recover, but the job is not done. We need to get back out there and continue to campaign, to get some genuine resolution around the issues. The direct link between rates and safety has been put on the back burner, but the unsafe culture in the trucking industry is still out there to be tackled.
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Playing Abolition Football
The whole Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal fiasco has been grinding on long enough. Now, the game has changed, our issue, ignored by all and sundry outside the industry, is now a political football. The
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Looking for Rationality
In what has been a traumatic week for trucking with legal cases and threats in the air, it is nice to find a haven of rationality, where once there was none. An announcement this week by the National Heavy
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