MP urges governments to "get it right" on fatigue after Kalari was busted for doing extra to improve safety
By Brad Gardner | May 26, 2010
A federal MP has called for improvements to fatigue management law after Kalari Transport was threatened with an infringement for doing extra to improve driver safety.
Capricornia MP Kirsten Livermore says governments “must get it right” on the content and enforcement of the law after a Kalari driver was cited last year for breaching fatigue by Queensland Transport.
The company requires drivers to record activities beyond their work duties in their logbooks that might cause fatigue. The policy is part of the operator’s duty of care to its workers and general motorists.
“The problem is that the Kalari driver who was pulled over last year was warned that he was in breach of regulations for having those sorts of things in his work diary and that the entry in his work diary actually amounted to an infringement of the regulations,” Livermore says.
Peter Renton and Margi Keyworth from Kalari approached Livermore after the incident to question why governments are not encouraging trucking operators to do more to prevent fatigue.
“…I guess it is a message to us that governments need to do everything we can to remove the complexity that is currently in the regulation of this important industry,” Livermore says.
She says the driver was distressed over the incident and Kalari wants to know why it and its driver “should be under threat of penalties for going beyond the minimum requirements of the regulations”.
Livermore says she will support Kalari’s efforts to resolve the situation with Queensland Transport.
The MP also called for national consistency on fatigue management, as operators and drivers face infringements in Victoria despite meeting fatigue management obligations in NSW and Queensland.
The National Transport Commission is currently looking at resolving cross-border inconsistencies, but the Australian Trucking Association has written to the group to fast-track changes.