A qualified biologist, SARTA Chief Executive Officer Steve Shearer brings a unique perspective to the issues and challenges that confront road transport at this critical juncture in time.
Prime Mover: As costs inevitably increase, will the brakes go onto the perennial rate race to the bottom?
Steve Shearer: For a long time collectively as an industry we’ve been our own worst enemies. We are suffering already with very tight margins and operating conditions. Unfortunately, there’s always just enough people who haven’t got their business act together and too many of the customers have zero loyalty. Even if they have a contract with their transport provider, most of those contracts do not lock in volume, they might only lock in a price structure which pretty much makes the truck operator captive.
PM: Can the industry sustain the added costs of meeting emission standards?
SS: The push towards stricter emission standards will push towards greener alternative fuels. Electric might be fine for local work, but it will be a long time before it’s really useful for long distance if ever. The biggest challenge, whether it’s hydrogen or electric or whatever, is the cost of the infrastructure to facilitate the use of an alternative energy source. Electric requires additional power supply and charging capacity. Hydrogen requires production of the fuel and both need government for the infrastructure to be able to handle it. Customers are leaning towards lower emissions, but the carriers get little support from the government to go electric so have to fund their own charging facilities, then the truck is two tonnes heavier so unless we get an increased mass limit the carrier cannot compete, therefore will decide not to go electric. Governments are only just starting to wake up to that reality. They’re happy to brag and cut ribbons and pat the few operators venturing into electric on the back for photo opportunities, but most operators state they cannot compete due to the extra mass of the batteries. We can’t just click our fingers and all those operators are suddenly green and also on a level playing field.
PM: Will diesel continue to be the fuel source of choice?
SS: For a lot of people in the industry they will make the fairly easy business judgement to stick with diesel because currently that’s fundamentally the most viable strategy. Governments have to understand the conversation is really about reducing emissions, not net zero, and they have to roll their sleeves up and work with wider industry and not just a couple of majors, but grass roots industry bodies, and determine what’s needed to make this work so we can actually afford to go green and still compete.
PM: Will their easy answer be to increase a tax on older technologies?
SS: Doing that will have an impact on the cost of living. It’s actually a real dilemma and they need to find a way to work through it. This is simplistic, but maybe federal and a state government, for example South Australia, could work together about creating a state-based pilot for optimising going green in road freight. And pour money into it and see if we can actually implement measures that work. Get beyond issuing policy edicts and start working with industry on agreed ways to implement lower emissions in a way that’s actually realistic. I’m a biologist by training and since I first started at SARTA 31 years ago I’ve been explaining to people in government they’ve got to understand road transport is the cardio-vascular system of the economy. We bring everything in that’s needed and we take out the rubbish. Transport is the lifeblood of the economy and if we’re not operating in a healthy viable way with a network which reaches to all the little corners, like the capillaries getting into fingertips, we’re in trouble. If we have a major blockage then, just like the cardiovascular system in our bodies, the consequence is you die. The economy dies. We’ve been saying it for 30 years and more people are recognising that’s the reality.
PM: Will the long awaited revision of the HVNL be a positive change for the industry?
SS: The draft Bill has been sent to the Ministers and all the industry associations are approaching our relevant Ministers to get them to understand that while the Bill is nowhere as good as the root and branch review as promised, it’s a tweaking which has been heavily stymied by infighting between state transport agencies and jurisdictions plus the police saying they don’t support the fatigue reforms. The police like the current method because all they have to do is count the numbers relevant to the amount of work and the amount of rest. They don’t have to form any judgements. But that is not fatigue management, that is compliance management with a set of default rules. There were serious proposals supported by academics who were experts in their field to have more flexible fatigue rules that would have actually enabled more genuine fatigue management. It’s too late now. Putting that aside, we are supporting, or at least not opposing, the draft Bill.
PM: What are the key changes you would have like to have included?
SS: There are two key changes that need to be made to the Bill. One is to do with the fact the draft Bill says the NHVR will be able to write and approve codes of practice. Our view is that’s very unwise. The NHVR must never be in the position as the Regulator of being able to write a code and approve the code where they have injected something they want but industry doesn’t support. We’re saying the Regulator should not have the power to approve codes of practice. That should rest with the Ministers, just as it does under the work health safety legislation which gives industry the opportunity to put their case to Ministers. The second thing is, we understand the need for penalties, but while they’ve reduced a few of the penalties, they’ve increased more. You’ve got to look at the maximum fine as well as the smaller end of the scale and, in our view as an industry, it is inappropriate to have minor work diary errors that have no safety consequence expose a driver to a maximum fine of $2,000. That is way over the top for a clerical error that has no safety significance. Fines for that should be smaller and the maximum fines should only apply to serious and repeat offenders. Fines should be commensurate with the risk and safety outcomes of the breach unless it’s fundamental, systemic and wilful false documentation to disguise the facts.
PM: Are we missing the forest for the trees?
SS: We want a highly productive and efficient industry that is able to underpin the economy in the way it needs to while being safe and as compliant as possible. We need police around this country to work in a collaborative way with the trucking industry and adopt the safety-focused, risk-based approach to enforcement that the NHVR is now getting pretty good at. The police need to drop the adversarial approach because all they are doing is racking up statistics and making good, safe and responsible people leave the industry.
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