As we prepare to enter into the third year of this ongoing pandemic crisis, we can look back to the start of the whole crazy business and it’s like deja vu all over again.
The trucking industry is left holding the can to ensure that the population remains content with enough toilet rolls to fill the garage, while, at the same time being hamstrung by the lack of preparedness of governments all over the country. Sound familiar?
To try and slow the spread of omicron, truckies need access to a RAT, but there aren’t any. The problem is not with the logistics of their delivery, it’s a problem with the planning needed to get RATs on the shelves when they were needed.
If the planners had decided to order them in time, then we can guarantee they would have been delivered and on shelves to meet demand. That is what the trucking industry does all of the time, freight needs to get from A to B, C, D, etc, and it gets there on time and in the correct condition.
Unfortunately, the chain of responsibility laws do not cover irresponsible politicians and government departments who actually create the problems, it just prosecutes those who do not properly assess risk in advance and enact actions and procedures designed to stop an adverse event occurring in the future
Hold on, isn’t that just what the powers that be have done? They have failed to look at the situation and identify the possibilities, looked at some of those worst case scenarios, which may happen.
So, what we have now is one of those worst case scenarios playing out in our backyard. The situation would have been predicted with some smart modelling, but we seem to have had muddling, instead of modelling.
Looking back at the trucking industry, we are not perfect, we take risks, some people take too big a risk and get slapped down for it. Something happens, someone gets hurt, the authorities follow the chain of events to find the irresponsible act which was the root cause and prosecutes the culprit. A court case and big fines follow.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to lobby to get our chain or responsibility model adapted to monitor the goings on in Canberra and the state capitals? That would provide someone with a major wake-up call!
