The introduction of adaptive and versatile safety standards into the transport industry marked a turning point for the trucking world.
TruckSafe, first launched by the Australian Trucking Association in 1996, has continued to grow and evolve, even going international.
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A partnership between the ATA and the New Zealand Trucking Association, or NTA, will see a version of the system launched for our friends across the ditch. This is set to be introduced across 2025 in the pioneering collaboration between the two associations.
Through the launch of the SMS, the NTA says it wants to ‘elevate safety, well-being, and operational standards across the transport and logistics sector, fostering a culture of compliance, safety, and professionalism on New Zealand roads’.
“This initiative is more than just compliance — it’s about embedding safety at every level of operation,” David Boyce, CEO of the NTA said at the time of the announcement last year.
“As public and regulatory expectations evolve, TruckSafe New Zealand will help companies stay ahead while promoting a culture of excellence.”
We spoke to the NTA at the time of the announcement to gain some insight into how the need for a development of an NZ TruckSafe system came to be.
The process began with the acknowledgement that legislation protecting truck drivers and transport workers in New Zealand wasn’t as comprehensive as it needed to be. Unlike Australia, New Zealand doesn’t regulate the industry through Chain of Responsibility laws, instead relying on Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.
While this Act offered transport workers protections under the law, it wasn’t specifically geared towards them, which the CoR aims to address, being tailored towards every level in the chain.
This led to the establishment of the NZ TruckSafe Council, who would begin engaging with the ATA to figure out what could be taken from the Australian TruckSafe, and what would need to be changed.
The opportunity arose in tandem with the ATA developing the newest version of TruckSafe, and became the start of the partnership between the two associations.
“We commenced putting together the latest TruckSafe SMS back in 2022. Once we started on that, we got the guys in New Zealand expressing their interest,” says Kevin Walsh, manager of the ATA’s TruckSafe program.
“They didn’t have anything remotely similar, and were looking for a solution over there. We had a chat with them, and they turned that into a collaboration with us. We signed an agreement for them to be able to use TruckSafe in New Zealand. We’ve been collaborating with them ever since.
“They had a hand in peer reviewing the SMS when we were doing it here. They had some input into what would be relevant in the SMS, and they’ve been involved in every step of the process the whole way.
“We created the SMS and then they’re now localising it to suit their conditions.
“With their Work Health and Safety, there is some legislation in there that to a degree covers the equivalent of CoR here. We’ve been providing some assistance with that process as well.”
The NTA says that a big part of the process of getting TruckSafe set up will be reviewing the Health and Safety Act, to make sure that it does help to offer transport workers added protections to then guide the NZ TruckSafe.
They are however confident that most New Zealand trucking businesses should already meet the requirements of TruckSafe. Rather than creating sweeping change, it will offer easier guidance for operators and businesses.
Kevin says that going through the process of the introduction of TruckSafe in New Zealand has also offered a chance to reflect on how the ATA’s own system can work better for industry.
“It has opened us to change in that New Zealand has similar businesses in type and size,” he says.
“The bulk of the transport industry is made up of small operators, be that mum and dad operators or single truck operators. There was nothing really there that suited them. The SMS technically suits them because it’s so flexible. Then it’s about the degree of things you put in place to suit your risk.
“In talking to the NTA, we’ve developed the owner-driver version. There’s two versions of the SMS, full-size and owner-driver. They will be heavily using the owner-driver version.”
The recent developments from the ATA and NTA saw the 2024 TruckSafe Owner-Driver Safety Management System released last year.
From feedback from the transport industry, the ATA acknowledged that small operators needed an SMS that suits them, and couldn’t make do with a system that was primarily designed with larger fleets in mind.
With continuing awareness of developments in safety, with new mandates already coming into place for new truck models at the start of 2025, Kevin says it’s never been more important to stay up-to-date.
“Safety has been pushed to the front of everyone’s minds,” he says.
“The CoR legislation was created and orientated around safety management. It was initially going to be an SMS style of legislation. They didn’t make it like that because they thought it would be too complicated, so it’s become the way that it is now.
“Now that everyone is used to it, we’ve taken it to the next step. We’ve created the SMS that links to the CoR very closely.
“The beauty of having it is that if the legislation changes in the future, the SMS is much more flexible and can be adapted easier than having standards like the NHVAS.
“When our members moved from the 2015 standards to 2019, that was a big jump. A lot of them found it difficult, and we totally understood that. We moved to the SMS as a much simpler approach.”
Kevin says continuing to offer the industry flexibility will give businesses more options to manage their compliance and safety.
“The new SMS lets businesses use what they’ve got, and then modifying or ensuring that it covers their risk.
“That’s the approach that we’re taking now rather than having a prescriptive set of standards that are inflexible or everyone has to apply regardless of whether they’re a one truck or 100 truck operator.”
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