Opinion

Do You Want the Good News or the Bad News?

do you want the food news or the bad news?

A review of the whole process behind developing a new Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) has been announced, but do you want the good news or the bad news?

Of course, the good news is that the process we have been through in the four or so years that the National Transport Commission (NTC) took to consult widely and come up with recommendation for the new HVNL is going to be reviewed by Ken Kanofski.

Mr Kanofski has be asked to look at the processes which took place to come to the final draft law and try to find out where it failed. We need to know what went wrong between the initial consultation and the final draft.

The consultation had been a sustained process, with all of the stakeholders from both the trucking industry and the state authorities, to get an idea of what needed to be done. Unfortunately, the paper produced at the end of this process simply demonstrated that the NTC had a tin ear when discussing the issues with industry. Widespread uproar from the trucking industry ensued.

I may be a cynic and I do have very little knowledge of the inner workings of these types of reviews, but are we sure this review is going to get to the heart of the problem?

It would seem that one of the major issues is in how the law development process works behind closed doors. The public call for submissions and feedback are all plain sailing. Everyone gets to have their say, and if they have a cogent and rational point to make, it is duly noted and included in discussions.

At this point the NTC would normally then begin a to and fro process with the state authorities and federal departments, trying out ideas and seeing if they would be acceptable in the departments looking after road transport in the various state capitals around Australia.

In the past, it has been this stage in the process which is the least visible to those affected by any rule change. This process is visible to the various government bodies who are being asked for their input. 

An agenda for rational change can get lost at this point in the process. Public servants with their own fiefdoms do not like the feeling of having existing powers taken away or shifted in emphasis, their instinct is to defend their department. 

The process can be ambushed by interested parties, behind closed doors and the feedback from the trucking industry can be ignored. That may not be what happened in the HVNL process, but it would explain the massive disconnect between all of the submissions and evidence laid before the panel and the eventual draft which appeared. 

The problem is, how can we be sure this review into the HVNL process is not going to be similarly ambushed behind closed doors?

do you want the good news or the bad news?

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