Trucking regulator will be held accountable

Date: 28.09.2010

Bureaucrat involved in the establishment of national trucking regulations says the body responsible for harmonising laws will be held accountable

By Brad Gardner | September 28, 2010

A high-level bureaucrat involved in the establishment of national trucking regulations says the body responsible for harmonising laws will be held accountable.

Angus Draheim, who has been appointed the interim project director of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, says guidelines will be enshrined in law to ensure the regulator meets benchmarks.

Draheim is on secondment from his role as the Director of the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads.

"There will be rules of which you can hold us and all the players in decision making to account," he says.

"We’ll need to talk about performance measures, KPIs, call them what you will, and show that we actually improve those."

Echoing comments made by Main Roads Western Australia Managing Director Menno Henneveld, Draheim says the team responsible for national regulations needs to design a scheme that works for the trucking industry.

"We can only do that if we hear from you what that looks like," Draheim told trucking operators at the recent annual conference of the Livestock and Rural Transport Association (LRTA) in Perth.

"We need to hear specifics and even priorities from you so that we can work out what the most important things to deliver are."

With bureaucrats planning industry consultation early next year, Draheim says governments will consider the reforms in the middle of 2011.

The team responsible for the regulator has also tried to allay concerns about access conditions, which have been restricted by local governments over concerns of the impact trucks will have on the network.

"Consistent rules will apply to all levels of government including councils," Draheim says.

During the conference, Henneveld told attendees he envisioned a process where there will be set rules for access conditions.

"And hopefully they will be uniform, they will make sense and local governments can’t arbitrarily say we don’t want you on the network," Henneveld says.

The regulator will be stationed in Queensland and running by 2013. It will have branches in other jurisdictions.

Queensland’s parliament will be responsible for passing laws. Other jurisdictions will enact similar laws to ensure national consistency.