INDUSTRY ISSUE
“AS LONG AS THE WAY THE OPERATION IS RUN AND EQUIPPED MEETS THE DUTIES LAID OUT IN THE HVNL AROUND PUBLIC SAFETY, PUBLIC AMENITY, ENVIRONMENTAL AND INFRASTRUCTURE IMPACTS, PRODUCTIVITY, EFFICIENCY AND INNOVATION, THE WAY THOSE RULES ARE MET WILL BE DOWN TO AUTHORITIES LIKE THE NHVR.” NTC about how any new law would be able to achieve that aim. Representing the trucking industry on that panel were South Australian trucking operator, Sharon Middleton as well as Gary Mahon, CEO at the Queensland Trucking Association and Louise Bilato, who performs a similar role in the Northern Territory. After the first consultation period ended, the NTC drafted a long and complex document, the Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (RIS), a paper which runs out to 192 pages. This document is being pored over by stakeholders who are being invited to
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DIESEL September-October 2020
make submissions to the NTC before the final drafting of the new law takes place. Submissions have to reach the NTC by October 25, 2020. This is the document which many, in both the authorities and those representing the trucking industry’s interests, will be ploughing through to get a handle on how the future HVNL may affect their interests. For the rest of us, the job of trying to get a full sense of the implications of all of the bureaucratic language being used may be above our pay scale. For those with a shorter attention span, the NTC have also published a 24-page HVNL 2.0
scenario document which is aimed at showing the industry what the new law could, but does not have to, look like. According to HVNL 2.0, the future HVNL should be a modern law that provides a flexible, risk-based regulatory framework to ensure the safe and efficient operation of heavy vehicles on Australian roads. It should also empower industry and government to take advantage of future innovation and technology opportunities to improve safety and reduce costs to benefit the community, industry and governments. This emphasis on taking a risk-based approach to regulation is a mantra we have been hearing from the NHVR in recent years and points to a more collaborative approach to the problem rather than the adversarial philosophy behind the law in the past. “Most stakeholders told us that what the law regulates should remain largely the same in the broader regulatory context, and that the problems with the HVNL relate to the methods of the law and how it regulates heavy vehicles,” says HVNL 2.0. On the subject of operator accreditation, the approach is to look
