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Teletrac Navman Fleet Focus
ACTION MANUFACTURING GROUP PURCHASE MAXITRANS NEW ZEALAND OPERATIONS
GHTER.
Action Manufacturing Group expand locally to purchase New Zealand MaxiTRANS business as of August 2022. MaxiTRANS NZ is now renamed Freighter and will continue to operate business as usual. As a result, Australian Trailer Solutions Group (ATSG} has withdrawn the MaxiCUBE products from the NZ Market. However, Action has agreed to continue to provide service and support for MaxiCUBE products aftermarket, and will complete all existing orders.
The new expansion adds to New Zealand's growing network of locally manufactured goods, and supports the economy by providing jobs and generating further customers. • Fairfax Premier Series • Fairfax Signature Series • Fairfax Eva Series
"The new purchase will extend our product range and offer general transport services, utilising our existing skill set,
design thinking and resources." - CEO Chris Devoy.
Action Manufacturing has the largest range of locally manufactured and imported rigid bodies/trailers with operations in Hamilton, Auckland, and Christchurch.
The new business follows Action's acquisition of Fairfax Industries in 2018, which is a refrigerated truck body and trailer manufacturer. Action Manufacturing Group now incorporate, Freighter alongside Fairfax Industries, Recreational and Specialised Vehicles.
Action will be developing a new range of Fairfax products as a result of the acquisition of MaxiTRANS, which will complement their uniquely moulded trailer products.
These will include:
We are pleased to welcome Freighter to the Action team.
One of the I.K. and S.M. Newey Transport Mack Trident’s carting logs out of Northland’s Poutu Forest.
AN NEWEY’S PASSION FOR TRUCKING BECOMES
obvious within a few minutes of meeting him. He’s one of those truckers who grew up in the cab of his dad’s truck. As a kid, it was all he wanted to do — drive a cement tanker, like his dad. Dad Keith Newey owned a fleet of four trucks carting cement. At 22, Ian got the chance to make his lifetime ambition come true, driving one of his dad’s trucks. “I lasted six months,” says Ian. “I got bored.”
So, cement tankers didn’t have the x-factor, but another budding career had pointed him in the right direction. He had left school at 16 and gone into forestry. He did a government-funded TOPS training course in farm forestry while he was boarding in Clevedon. After that he got a job thinning, cutting, and stacking posts in the Aupouri Forest north of Kaitaia.
“I did that for six months too, earning good money but ended up getting dragged home by my ear by my parents. I was no good with money. I ended up working in harvesting crews in the Woodhill Forest as a cross cutter.”
He worked his way up through the ranks, running logging crews but the trucking bug got him a job with Craig Stokes in Riverhead driving log trucks there and around Gisborne. After that, he took the chance to fulfil his burning desire to drive cement tankers, which, as we saw, quickly burned out.
Ian decided a year’s OE would help him decide his next step. He travelled through the Middle East to Europe. It seemed to have worked. When he came back, he took the opportunity to buy a logging truck. After his cement dream had crumbled, he had found his calling back in the forests.
“Logging is the one. I had $15,000 and we got going with that. I bought a log truck as an owner driver working out of Pouto in 2002. I met Shelley three months later. It became obvious that that was the passion, logging trucks, the challenge of it. No two days are the same,” Ian says.
“The places we go are a challenge and you get to see parts of the country that without doing this you simply wouldn’t see — hidden parts of the world; hidden communities scattered all over the country, nice little farm lots.”
Shelley used to ride along with Ian and got to see why he loved it, before the demands of family and running a bigger business took over. She never got her truck licence. Ian told her it wasn’t a good idea. If she did, he would put her on the road.
We are at the head office of IK and SM Newey Transport in Ruakaka, in the building that was also their first family home. It was where they moved to, just down the road from Northport, two years after they set up their business in 2002. Ian had been up since 2am, having driven south to get a load of timber from Riverhead Forest.
“I think the thing that appealed was the camaraderie,” says Ian. “It doesn’t matter who you drive for there’s a real camaraderie between the drivers. Transport is competitive but on the coal face there is a lot of camaraderie. You are out in the mud in the wintertime. I climbed out of the truck this morning at 5am. The stars were out, you could see the shadows of the treetops against the sky and there’s the fresh smell of the pine. You hear the loader drivers talking to each other through the forest — they’re all on the same channel. There’s no cell phone coverage, for a moment you are off the grid and that has an appeal sometimes.”
“That’s why he loves driving so much,” says Shelley. “There’s only so much corporate stuff you can take every day.”
Running a logging truck business with 14 of their own trucks on the road, a staff of 18 including an administrator, a health and safety manager, a dispatcher and three mechanics, and 16
Above: Ian Newey with father Keith and oldest son Blake. Below: Ian and Shelley’s first new truck was a 2005 Mack Quantum 470. Right: Shelley Newey at work in the company office at Ruakaka.
contract owner drivers keeps Ian and Shelley busy.
But that’s not all Ian does. He is a board member of the National Road Carriers Association, and he has just been appointed to the association’s new five-member steering group, the NRC Transport and Logistics Advisory Group, which will be chaired by former Transport Minister Simon Bridges.
The largest of the three industry bodies, the National Road Carriers Association, which dates back 86 years, and the New Zealand Trucking Association, declined to throw in their lot with the RTA and advocacy group Transporting New Zealand. An exit settlement was agreed.
The upshot is that the NRC is focused on working more directly with the government on the key priorities for transport, supported by the Advisory Group. As Ian says, they are not just priorities for the industry, but given transport’s central economic role, the country as a whole. “The rate at which things are going to change over the next two to five years is going to be so steep we won’t be able to do it all at once. We’re going to have to prioritise, and the hot topic right now is roading. Roading is falling to bits in front of our eyes, especially in the regions. “Roading infrastructure is on everyone’s lips. It doesn’t matter who you are, we’re all affected by gridlocks, potholes, it affects soccer mums as well as truck owners and truck drivers and school bus drivers, doctors, nurses — first responders are impacted. If State Highway 1 is the backbone holding the country up, it’s got
arthritis. And the only way forward is to work with the likes of Waka Kotahi and our government agencies.”
Ian’s passion for logging fades into the background when compared with his passion for helping those in power see that better roads are vital to improve everyone’s lives, not just transport operators.
He says the group will advise the NRC board and give it direction on the challenges that are the most important, and partner with government agencies to deliver better outcomes.
The NRC is being re-energized. Ian at age 44 has been on the board for three years. The board has just delivered a new strategic plan and it has a new CEO, Justin Tighe-Umbers, who joined from the Board of Airline Representatives New Zealand, where he was executive director. Ian says the strategic plan is the steering group’s framework, but the rubber meets the road at the steering group — setting priorities and finding ways to put the plan into effect, as well as responding to changing circumstances.
“The advisory group has got the freedom to change things, tackle things, challenge the narrative, have the honest conversations,” says Ian.
In that respect, Ian says the ‘divorce’ from the RTA was a good thing. “It couldn’t have happened without the split. There was a constitution at play. We were walking on eggshells. Everything had to come through the forum but as you went to the next level you were constrained and tied.”
Joining Newey and Bridges on the group are Pamela Bonney, who is also a board member of the NRC and heads up Customer Experience at L.W. Bonney & Sons Ltd; Jo Wills, co-owner of the Hugo Group, working in government relations and business strategy consultancy; and the new CEO, Tighe-Umbers. When we spoke, the steering group was yet to have its first meeting.
Ian’s 20 years’ experience running IK and SM Newey Transport with Shelley, and still driving when he can, means he sees things from the same perspective as drivers.
“Being at the coalface of the industry gives me the opportunity to evaluate the issues from the same perspective as our drivers. On the road, I see how quickly the roads are deteriorating through lack of maintenance, and how many additional movements we have to do because bridge restrictions on council roads mean bridges can’t bear the weight of larger, more efficient trucks.
“We can’t just keep putting prices up, that’s simply not sustainable. We need to look at new ways of doing things.
“To be fair the government is not the industry and who knows trucking better than the industry itself? So, we have to partner with government. There’s no point sitting across from Minister Woods and smashing your fist on the table; it’s going to get you nowhere.”
While the advisory group has yet to set its agenda, Ian’s priorities are already clear.
“We need safer roads. Transport operators share the roads with their families. You quite often wave at your wife and kids going the other way or your parents or grandparents.
“There’s a place for trains, cycleways, coastal shipping but one shouldn’t offset the other. It doesn’t matter what the future holds whether it’s electric, hydrogen or hybrid, if it’s got wheels it’s going to need a road to drive on.
“The hot topic from a transport operator, from a father, as somebody who uses the road not only as a business but to take the kids to school and sport … to live, to thrive, we’ve got to invest. As a country it’s paramount. We have to invest in the roading; it’s the backbone of the economy; it’s the backbone of our lives.”
So where did this extra level of passion come from?
“You get a lot of time to think when you are driving a truck.”
While it will be Ian sitting on the advisory group it’s clear co-
The Mack brand has always played a leading role in the growth of the Newey’s operation.
director Shelley is equally motivated and animated by the same issues.
“I think as our business has grown — we currently have 14 trucks and 16 subcontractors so on any given day there are 30 trucks working under the Newey name — so it’s almost like our exposure is greater and by default I think our frustration has got greater too.
“Seeing the amount of money we pay in RUCs – and don’t get me wrong, we very much appreciate the rebate that we have been given – but prior to that the amount of money in RUCs that we pay and those working under us and seeing the state of our roads you become quite disillusioned and you think if you are not willing to do something then you can’t complain. You’ve got to be willing to say the hard things – be brave, put your head up and say it’s not good enough.”
Shelley points to the move to reduce speeds on some roads and says that can’t be used as a reason not to improve roads, while the government promotes other changes in transport.
Ian adds the problem is only going to get bigger and that there won’t be fewer cars as a result of the lifestyle changes, we saw through Covid. More people are working from home but an increase in remote working also means more people are moving to the regions. He says freight movement is tipped to grow 3540% by 2035, largely through population growth and most of that population growth is most likely to be in the regions.
Ian says a key role of the new group is to form effective partnerships, so he was delighted when New Zealand Transport Agency’s CEO of regulatory services Brett Aldridge attended the NRC recent summit with the NTA and asked industry to partner with Waka Kotahi. He’s looking forward to the conversations they will have in the advisory group.
“I’ve never been shy to have an honest conversation with someone and especially in this day and age I think people appreciate that.
“I’ve never been afraid to ring clients up when I need to and say `hey this is not working.’
“If you can demonstrate why, then you generally get a result. As you get along in business and we’ve been doing it for 20 years — it’s an age thing too; if you’ve got your head in the game you see a lot of what people outside the industry don’t see.”
Ian says he and Shelley built their business on straight dealing and relationship building.
They created a partnership, Marsden Transport Solutions, in 2006 with Glen and Suzie Curran when they still had only one truck. They built that business up to a total fleet of about 10 and in 2011 they sold their shares to Glen and Suzie to take up roles in running Aztec Forestry Transport Developments.
Ian was northern operations manager and Shelley joined later as health and safety manager. They ran the northern end of that Rotorua based business from their home for six years, growing the fleet from 23 to 50 trucks as the northern industry grew. They started at Aztec with three trucks of their own and grew it to 10 before they decided to go out on their own in 2017. They gave six months’ notice.
Says Shelley, “We got our debt levels quite low so we could take the risk, but we had no work. There were other parts of the industry that were untapped that they weren’t aligned with, so we decided to brand as Newey and get busy.”
Ian says the business was hand to mouth for three months, but their timing was good. Changes were taking place in forest ownership and the new forest owners were going to the market for contracts.
Shelley says it wasn’t all luck. “We worked hard over the years on building good relationships. We go into meetings as a team, and you see our health and safety. I think that team approach is quite unique.
Ian says a key part of their relationship building was taking on the ‘Share the Road’ programme with the Northland Wood Council, taking trucks to schools to educate rural school children about safety around trucks, but also the vast opportunities in all aspects of the forestry industry.
“It was a good opportunity to be in the room with those people and have conversation with them and build relationships with them,” says Shelley.
“This is also something we can give back,” says Ian. “A lot of log trucks go past schools so it’s part of the partnership with the
rural community and to give back to them.”
The other key ingredient in their success, says Ian, is the support they have had.
“What we have been able to achieve in 20 years, having a fleet of 14 trucks and 16 contractors and having time to be a board member on National Road Carriers, and having time to be on the advisory group, and Shelley having time to be on the PTA, and having time to be a coach for our daughter’s hockey team; me having time to do the Share the Road programme, and taking trucks into schools is because we’ve got a fantastic support network around us. From where we live three kays in one direction are my parents and two kays in the other direction are Shelley’s parents so it’s very much a family business, because we’ve got support as well.
“The other part of the family are our staff and contractors,” says Shelley. “We have been so blessed to have some really amazing people working around us. They have been there for us through some tough personal battles and the support they provide us is immeasurable. We are so thankful for all that they do for us.”
Ian makes the point that it is the level of support that has enabled him to get involved in industry issues at a relatively young age.
“I think there’s plenty of people with a desire to do things like this and the drive to be on the board or an advisory group, but have they got the support behind them to give them the time to do it?” says Ian. “We definitely have that.”
Shelley says Keith, Ian’s dad, is his mentor but also his best
Proven Performance
Left: One of Keith Newey’s original R-Series Mack cement tankers was located seven years ago and has now been fully restored. Right: The `Share the Road’ programme with the Northland Wood Council takes trucks into schools to educate rural school children about safety around trucks and opportunities in all aspects of the forestry industry.
friend. “He sees things differently and he thinks about things differently. He welcomed me into the family like a daughter – but he’ll also tell you if you are being a dick.”
Keith drove log trucks for Smith & Davies in the ’70s out of Northcote. In 1982 they moved north and bought the Kaiwaka service station. They sold it in 1989 and moved to Orewa and took up a contract with Golden Bay Cement carting it from Portland all over the North Island. He did that for 20 years, wearing out 11 trucks, all Macks. Now retired, he owns the yard they lease, just along the road from Newey’s head office, with a four-bay drive through workshop and a commercial truckwash.
Ian’s grandfather was also a fan of Mack. He used to own and drive a Mack school bus in Colac Bay, near Invercargill, making this a third-generation family association with the Mack brand.
About seven years ago, Ian found his dad’s old truck, the first one he bought in 1989, derelict in a paddock. He had the 1989 R Model Mack 6x4 fully restored. When Keith turned 65, they held a retirement birthday party for him in the workshop. It was a bit bigger than Keith had expected with 150 guests. After about an hour of drinking and reminiscing, one of Keith’s longest serving drivers, Dave Kerr, went out and drove the truck in, unannounced.
There were tears.
Naturally, Ian runs a predominantly Mack fleet. Asked if he considered other trucks when he was starting out, he said: “I wasn’t allowed to.”
“We standardised deliberately. It makes maintenance a lot easier. You learn the product; you understand what its issues are and what you typically find if you have an issue with a certain
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Loading another Newey Mack with logs in the Poutu Forest.
brand, you have that issue right through the brand so you can diagnose it quite quickly.
“And then when carrying parts inventory, you only have to carry one set of filters and so on.”
His first truck was a Foden but the first truck he bought new in 2005 was a Mack Quantum 470 6x4, which he still has today. Occasionally other people get to drive it but “they get the speech”.
“The Mack product has been very good to us; it’s been a very very good reliable truck,” says Ian.
“They have done very well by us. We have a relationship with the sales team, and we have a very good relationship with the after sales team. Owning trucks is all about the after sales support, that’s very critical.
“They are not all the same model. We wish they were, but they keep changing the bloody models.
“We’ve had Quantums and CHs and those are running the 470 Mack engine which was an unbreakable engine and we’ve moved into the Granite/Trident era which is running the MP8.
The current fleet is six Tridents, one Granite, two CH Macks and one Quantum.
“Truck ownership is about what you’re comfortable with.
“Some are 8x4 with 5-axle trailers, 50-tonne; other 6x4 4-axle trailers and others are 8x4 with 4-axle trailers. Being in Northland there’s a range of configurations because we have bridge restrictions.”
They also have a couple of International Skycabs that they bought with a contract about a year ago. They have also recently converted one of the International’s trailers to a three-packet configuration, which improves safety through lower centre of gravity loads. Ian says they asked clients if they did this, would they have enough work with shorter logs to support the move, before they went ahead.
The fleet got to 18, now it’s down to 15, including one being built up in the workshop. “We’ve retired a couple of old girls.”
Ian says they make a decision on each truck when it is five or six years old. They will decide whether to sell it when it comes out of finance when it still has about 60% of its value or keep it until the end of life.
As there were good deals on new trucks to be had as orders were cancelled due to Covid, in the past year Newey Transport has ordered three new trucks to be delivered over nine months.
A new Mack Granite is being built as a lightweight unit specifically for maximum payload bridges. It’s a new cab and chassis and for the first time the workshop is adding the logging gear -— the headboard and bolsters themselves, recycling them from a decommissioned truck.
A Mack Titan is also on the order list, a tractor unit for a new venture. At present all of the fleet are loggers.
There are also a couple of Hino 700s in the fleet and another on the way. “They are also very reliable — and not everybody likes a bonneted Mack. Not all drivers are into driving bonnets.
“The Hino has also got a better turning circle,” says Ian. “Each truck has its own unique set of features that make it stand out from the other and some of the jobs we go to we know we’re not sending that truck. We’ve got to have a range of different
Part of the family
BERNIE GUNSON HAS SEEN IT ALL. HE’S
been with the Neweys for 17 years from before their time at Aztec and has moved with them as their business has grown and changed.
“He has the newest truck in the fleet and he’s just family,” says Shelley. “We took him on our family holiday at the start of the year. He just told me he’s booking in six weeks off in 2024.
“He was with us in MTS days. He has been on this ride with us the whole way. He was one of the people who when we decided to go our own way and put our own name on the door he said, ‘about bloody time’ and that he was really proud of us.
“I suppose he sort of thinks of us as his kids sometimes but he’s really proud of everything we’ve achieved. He’s a special man and he still does an honest day’s work.”
Shelley said they have offered him reduced hours or a truck that works just a couple of days a week, but he didn’t want that. “He said `I’m going to keep doing it while I can still do it’.”
Top left: Shelley and Ian Newey with their three children, Luke, Blake and Jess. Lower left: Bernie Gunson has worked with the Neweys for 17 years. Above: There’s a high degree of self-sufficiency in the Newey operation with a full workshop that can complete new builds and salvage parts from old trucks.
configurations to suit the work we do.”
Ian says they used to have three CHs, but they have mentored a young driver into a seat as a contractor. “We’ve owned the truck outright and he’s paying us back monthly over 18 months.
“Why? Because that’s where I started. There are so many quality people out there. Transport’s an expensive game to get into and there’s some quality people out there who need a leg-up to get into the industry.”
Shelley says they treat contractors very much as part of the team. They wear the company’s PPE, and they sign up to the company’s culture. Shelley says Newey Transport puts a lot of effort into culture. She says there’s no point just deciding on the company’s values and just pinning them on the wall. The important aspect is how that translates into behaviours. At meetings they talk about how the things that happen every day at work are examples of their culture at work.
“I want to make sure every part of the business gets love,” says Shelley. “It’s very easy to focus on drivers but we’ve got workshop staff, a dispatcher who does a really good job – probably one of hardest jobs in the business — an administrator
One of the six Mack Tridents in the Newey fleet at the Ruakaka weighbridge.
who sorts the dockets, bills and wages and a health and safety manager.
“To me health and safety is just about keeping people safe — because there is someone out there that loves them. We don’t want to see anyone get hurt. To us the right culture will breed the right behaviour and you will get health and safety, because they will care about each other.”
“If our contractors are successful Newey Transport is successful as a result,” says Ian. “We share the pain, and we share the gain.”
In 2020 there was some pain to be shared. In 2020 they halved the fleet and had to let half of the drivers go. The freehold trucks were parked up. China was hit by Covid first and that had an immediate impact on the log export to China business.
“The government didn’t come out with wage support until April, and we were feeling it in February. We were on a 50% reduction in February,” says Ian.
Ian and Shelley asked their contractors to shed 50% while they did the same. “We called everyone in around this table on a Monday morning and we laid off 50% of our staff and our contractors had to lay off 50% of theirs or drop their workload by 50%.
“We had to make some critical decisions to save the company from a cashflow point of view. You’ve got to be bold early; you can’t just bleed cash.”
They decided the fairest way to do it was last on first off.
“We told them to go and get a job anywhere. We are giving you a two-week head start. Five of the six got other jobs, not necessarily truck driving.”
They also told them they would all be welcomed back, but that was their choice. Three months later three had returned.
Now things have swung the other way. China had had no logs, so when the demand came back it came back hard. The Neweys have had “18 months of insanity” but it gave them confidence to invest in new trucks.
Shelley said early on that her background was different to Ian’s. “Yes, I finished school,” she says, laughing. She got a degree from the University of Waikato in human resources and had always known that was what she wanted to do.
She says that before she met Ian, she would have thought that their three children needed to go to university too, but he had shown her that ‘book learning’ wasn’t everything. That if you worked hard and got stuck in – and had the right support – you would succeed.
“You can’t do it alone,” says Ian. “You’ve got to have some drive and some support. The world is everyone’s oyster but you’ve got to have some drive. People notice other people that are moving forward.”
Which is why Shelley is quite happy to see their eldest son Blake (14) walking across the fields from Bream Bay College on Tuesdays and Thursdays to put on some overalls to do work experience in the workshop. The mechanics put some jobs out for him, which can be anything from sweeping the floor, but he’ll soon be moving onto relining brake shoes.
Blake could be the fourth generation Newey in the trucking game one day. Middle son Luke (11) is another option, but Shelley says daughter Jess (9), who is still at One Tree Point Primary, has no doubts. “She’s very keen. She’s already said she wants to run the business one day.” T&D
