ATA endorses national rego system

The ATA has agreed in-principle to support the proposed national regulation, registration and licensing system for heavy vehicles.

ATA chairman Trevor Martyn said the proposal could greatly benefit the trucking industry, because it had the potential to slash red tape and deliver consistent regulations across state and territory borders.

“Australia’s transport ministers will consider the proposal in detail when they next meet as the Australian Transport Council on 4 July 2008,” Martyn said. “In our discussions this week, the ATA and its member organisations developed a set of policy principles that we consider will need to underpin the new system. We will be briefing the Australian Government on those principles before the ATC meeting.”

National regulatory system

Martyn said the ATA strongly supported the principle of a single national regulator for the trucking industry.

“It’s vital the proposed national regulatory system doesn’t turn into an agreement to develop more model legislation or a solemn promise by the states and territories to do better on regulation in the future. They’ve had their chance and failed,” Martyn said.

“We need one national regulator with branches throughout the country. It must put in place common rules across Australia to maximise the efficiency and safety of road freight. The rules will need to facilitate innovation by the trucking industry; must not be dependent on the use of on-board technology and must avoid the most unnecessarily burdensome of the rules currently in place.

“There will need to be special rules to take into account the unique circumstances the industry faces in remote areas and in Western Australia. In particular, those rules will need to maintain the current regional, remote and state based mass, access and other concessions under a no disadvantage test.

“Importantly, the national regulator will need to put in place a uniform solution on fatigue management that takes into account the unique characteristics of operations in Western Australia and other remote areas.

“There will need to be arrangements for the trucking industry at local level to have input into the development and implementation of the common rules, as well as road access issues, regardless of who owns and funds the road in question,” he said.

National licensing system

Martyn said the ATA had agreed to support the principle of a national licensing system with the same heavy vehicle licensing classes as at present.

“The Australian Government should take the opportunity to switch to a competency based licensing system, with training logbooks to confirm that drivers have achieved the necessary competencies,” he said.

“The licensing system must also ensure that the registered owner of a heavy vehicle is advised as soon as is reasonably practicable if it is involved in a safety-related offence, regardless of where it occurs in Australia.”

National registration system

Martyn said that the ATA had agreed to support the principle of the proposed national registration system, provided the registrations were handled by a single national organisation with a minimum of cost and administrative burden.

“The introduction of a national registration system would open the way for the Australian Government to completely restructure registration charges and reduce them to match the real cost of processing registration applications and issuing plates.

“It would be a great outcome, as long as the states and territories received a fair and transparent share of the Australian Government’s total revenue from heavy vehicle charges. If registration charges remained high we would want the new system to continue the existing registration concessions available for some classes of operators under a no disadvantage test.

“We would also want to see the expansion nationally of the concessions on heavy vehicle inspections that are available in some states,” he said.