bp and Healthy Heads in Trucks & Sheds want to make things a little sweeter this Easter! Enjoy a free Easter egg and hot cross bun* this Easter Sunday. Simply download the Healthy Heads App on your device and present this at one of our 23 participating bp sites to get your free Easter treats*.
Thank you for all your efforts in supporting Australians all year round. Wishing you a safe and happy Easter break.
Welcome everyone to our fortnightly update.
Well after a massive weekend celebrating our 40th anniversary at our combined National Rural Carriers Convention in Canberra, it's time to get back to work. A huge thanks to all our sponsors and members who took part in the event. Your support for all our associations is very much appreciated.
The ALRTA national council met as a lead up to the conference and it was great to have one of the founding committee members Ross Fraser OAM join us for the meeting. I said to Ross at the completion of the meeting, “So Ross what’s changed in 40 years?”, his reply with a smirk was “Not much really”. All jokes aside it was great to have everyone around the table and have a full quota from all states in attendance.
There was a lot of robust discussion and council set aside some good agenda items for the year ahead. This included developing a post-election strategy once we know who will form Government. While all parties will offer pledges in the lead up, only once we know who and how the next Government will be formed, can we knuckle down on the policies they pledged and see where they will support our industry. If at all. I will update you more next week on both sides election pledges.
Driver training has been a topic that comes up quite a bit at the moment, and a discussion at the conference confirmed operators are very keen to see better training. The national council approved the ALRTA to take a lead on this and to work on developing a training option for rural carriers. There will be more to come on this, but we are keen to develop an ALRTA training academy in conjunction with all state associations. Austroads spoke at the conference last week about advanced driver licencing options being considered at the moment also. So, with a good training package we may see the concept of early licencing advancement for young drivers with a reduced payload to allow them to gain experience and then progress to full licences. This will be a big project, but one I feel we need to give a real go.
The ALRTA this week took a proposal to the ATA for them to review the driver licencing changes introduced into South Australia recently, that now sees foreign drivers required to go through the full heavy vehicle licencing requirements of local drivers. So that means they can only start at a HC licence if they pass a test, then upgrade to an MC licence in 12 months’ time. The ALRTA is in no way indicating foreign drivers are less capable, but we believe everyone should have to go through the same licence testing requirements. This will be discussed at the ATA council meeting on April 28th.
The ATA this week supported by the ALRTA took a position to the Coalition on their 12-month fuel tax cut policy. The industry has asked if elected that they exclude heavy vehicles from any fuel tax changes and to leave the current system as is. This will ensure industry do not get pressure to reduce rates when we actually do not see any cost relief at all. It will also protect the road user charge to support much needed road funding. The industry also pushed the point in taking this position that it will seek targeted road funding.
Council also approved a new PBS subcommittee to be formed. With PBS anomalies across state jurisdictions becoming an issue and the failure for all states regulators to work together, the ALRTA has taken the view it needs to form good policy on these and other issues going forward. If any of you have any input that you would like the committee to consider, please feel free reach out to me.
Lastly with the Easter long weekend upon us, we all know what the roads will be like with holiday traffic. So please be patient and travel safe over the Easter period.
Until next time. Stay safe.
Anthony
TOGETHER WE ARE STRONGER.