Deep State

Gary Mahon is the CEO of the Queensland Trucking Association and has been a tireless campaigner for improved roads in the state.

He welcomes the bipartisan commitment of $9 billion to rebuild the Bruce Highway.

Prime Mover: Both major parties have committed the funding but is the timeline reasonable?
Gary Mahon: We’re pleased but the spending over eight years doesn’t really measure up. It should be more like three to five years to see a material difference in a timely fashion. We strongly advocate the condition of roads is fundamental to many other elements of our industry including safe operations, safe interactions with other road users, efficiency, and even fuel burn.

PM: What other key factors should be taken into consideration?
GM: Decision makers need to consider the make-up of today’s fleet when planning and designing infrastructure to ensure roads are built fit-for-purpose for multi combinations. The unique characteristics of multi combinations in the Australian market and the significant financial investment made by fleets to increase productivity and efficiency needs to be recognised. The roads need to be designed to cater for these trucks. Another factor often missed in the debate for access for high-productivity multi-combinations is the argument they lower carbon emissions in terms of fuel burn efficiency. The journey to low carbon for the heavy vehicle industry will be long and is not just about electric trucks or hydrogen.

PM: Do governments currently have a vision for the future road networks?
GM: Both Federal and State Governments need to start shifting their priorities back towards the fundamental underpinning of our road system. In the USA President Dwight Eisenhower implemented the Highways Act of 1956 that set America on a path where they built the entire interstate network over 50 years. There are hard numbers which demonstrate the economic return of genuine road building programs to communities, the states and the nation. We need to exercise that sort of progressive vision in this country to get ourselves on a genuine competitive level with the rest of the world. To be able to get our goods to market or bring our imports in, distribute to and replenish our communities, rather than a continuing deterioration of our road system.

PM: Why have successive governments seemed to have been unwilling to do just that?
GM: They divert money to other initiatives such as Olympics, Cross River Rail, and duplicating roads around cities where the populations and voters are, and over time the regions are re-prioritised. Why do communities in northern Queensland have to accept that a couple of times every year they’ll be cut off from the rest of the state for up to two weeks at a time due to floods and cyclones? How is that acceptable in 2025?

PM: Did the reconstruction work on the highway at Cunningham’s Gap demonstrate what can be achieved?
GM: I have publicly acknowledged the excellent work that has been undertaken by the Project team working on the Cunningham’s Gap reconstruction. The way the QTA has been engaged with this project was exemplary. When that road is finished there’ll be a six-kilometre section which, in my view, is an absolute stand-out example of a road finally being built in this country with the needs of trucks being the priority. One of the legacy problems we have in this country is we design roads for cars and we let trucks use them. The new section has genuinely and openly embraced the progressive vision we need. They’ve listened to industry and understood why and what trucks need to ascend and descend the range. Through vehicle drive testing the Project team has verified industry evidence to have the Austroads guidelines varied in a number of ways to make it a much more amenable road to heavy freight. We’ve had drivers and employers and a variety of industry people at engagement sessions discussing the program of works to ensure that the industry is genuinely consulted. While it is only six kilometres of road, it is a complex range to navigate and now there is a whole raft of truck-focused features in the design and construction which will make it safer to navigate and caters for trucks with the latest engine technology.

PM: Is there a significant additional cost factor to include the freight-focused changes?
GM: We know any changes in infrastructure projects, including design and delays, increase the cost of any build. However, due to the progressive thinking of the Project Lead Engineer an argument was put forward to support the benefits of the changes included in the reconstruction project. The key was gathering information to support the argument. It was the engagement work undertaken between the Project Team and the QTA to gather knowledge from different sectors of transport, including refrigerated, livestock, general and OSOM. By understanding the intricacies of traversing the range with a truck, the Project Team had to re-think the entire road design. It’s been an 18-month process, and we’re just delighted with the outcome.

PM: What were some of the best outcomes to come from the process?
GM: With Queensland Transport and Main Roads overseeing the project, the intelligence gathered from industry essentially tipped upside down the whole approach to potential closures, work program timing and traffic management for the duration of the project. When it is finished there are subtle but important differences due to the road actually being designed with the primary consideration being what it means for a truck, not what it means for a car. For example, at the top of the Gap was a notorious little pinch which over the years has caught out a lot of drivers causing breakdowns. It’s now gone because they shaved some off to change the gradient of the road to make it more suitable for trucks.

PM: Do you expect organisations such as the QTA to be more involved in the future planning of roads?
GM: This project demonstrates there can be an important and valuable shift in outlook about road design to prioritise truck usage. The QTA and other associations have the access to the customers who use these roads and government should be utilising them in a more proactive way. One of the good things an association like the QTA can do is provide a trusted environment where transport fleets and drivers feel more comfortable and are more willing to be in the same room and engage with Government. This helps the government build trust with the road transport industry which then has a higher level of confidence about how the whole process is being managed.

PM: Is there more work to be done?
GM: We are pushing hard in the infrastructure space, and it’s not just about the money to get the right initiatives up. It’s also trying to influence the shape and form of how those roads are then built and ensure a more visionary approach to rest areas and a variety of other factors which come into the equation. We think we’ve got the basis of a freight system that is a lot more contemporary and will meet the needs of the State for the foreseeable future. We also have much better-established foundations of best-practice industry engagement on infrastructure projects as a model to use in the future.