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BILL MCKINLEY IS THE CHIEF OF STAFF AT THE AUSTRALIAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATION AND DRAWS UPON HIS EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE AS A POLITICAL ADVISER IN HIS ADVOCACY ON BEHALF OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY. MOST RECENTLY HE WAS INVOLVED IN THE ATA’S SUBMISSIONS TO THE NATIONAL TRANSPORT COMMISSION’S REVIEW OF THE HEAVY VEHICLE NATIONAL LAW. PM: What opportunities does this review present? BM: This review is a chance for us to go back to first principles and fix many of the problems with the Heavy Vehicle National Law and the way our industry is regulated. The ATA campaigned very hard for this review. We pushed very hard to get the right terms of reference and the right people on the expert panel. As well as being about safety, the review needs to have a very strong productivity focus. The productivity of our industry is going down when it should be going up. PM: What is the ATA proposing? BM: The new safety duties in the law need to stay, including the requirement for directors and executives to be diligent in managing safety. Below that, we support two different streams of regulation under the HVNL to suit the diverse range of operators in our industry: either through safety-based accreditation schemes such as NHVAS or TruckSafe, or prescriptive regulation. PM: How will that operate? BM: In the safety-based accreditation stream, many of the current prescriptive requirements should not apply, because an operator’s system would be verified by audit. This stream would recognise the efforts of operators that adopt a systematic approach to safety, possibly by using proven technology solutions. 56
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to change even if everyone agrees to change it. There is a seemingly endless list of ministerial guidelines which the NHVR management or even its Board cannot change. The Board is only allowed to make minor amendments, such as fixing clerical errors.
Bill McKinley.
On the other hand, in the prescriptive stream, which for many operators would make perfect sense, you would have simplified and more flexible prescriptive rules. The structure of the law would need to be changed to deliver this vision. There would also need to be corporate governance and accountability reforms. PM: What changes would be needed to the structure of the law? BM: By contrast with the aviation, rail and maritime laws, the HVNL is an enormously large Act which takes years
PM: What needs to change in the details? BM: To make a reformed HVNL work and to get to where we all want to be, which is a flexible and responsive system of regulation, we need to get Ministers to focus on the general direction of the law and we need to give the Regulator (NHVR) the appropriate powers and accountabilities to do what it needs to do in the implementation of it. This can only be achieved by reforming the corporate governance of NHVR. I want to emphasise that this is not a criticism of anyone at the NHVR. This is about applying the same sort of approach that is applied to aviation, maritime and rail regulation to the NHVR. PM: Who should sit on the NHVR Board? BM: Normally, you’d expect a public sector governance board to have between six and nine members. The NHVR has only five and there is no requirement that any of them have recent industry experience. The way the NHVR is governed and
