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Making it better

The gist of this column, which has been a regular inclusion since Owner//Driver’s first issue in 1992, has always been to seek a better outcome for those at the industry’s coalface.

 

Not too long ago Owner//Driver managing editor Greg Bush advised me that 2017 was the 25th anniversary of the publication. He suggested that I base this month’s subject on that past 25. I did not let on that I had no idea how to go about recollecting the past 25 years.

At one point about halfway through that time period, I do remember saying to Andrew Stewart, who was then the owner/editor, that I was considering dropping the quill. Andrew had invited me to put pen to paper after I had been elected to the position of owner-driver delegate on what was then the Road Transport Forum. I was the very first elected owner-driver to the over-arching road transport lobby group.

Andrew’s response to the comment was along the lines that such a decision was purely for me to make. Then he went on to say that I’d be surprised where and when he’d heard a reference to the term ‘boofacrat’ expressed. But the decision to continue was and mine alone. Just to enlighten the business people among you, at that point there was no monetary offset.

The article was, as it is now, written in the optimistic hope that airing issues publicly would prompt those with some influence to progress the problem to a better outcome. It’s obvious that I’d decided to continue writing in a forthright and sometimes provocative manner.

The reason that I’d considered ‘retiring’ from my journalistic activity was that I’d become sick and tired of writing negatively. In point of fact, several of my acquaintances came to call my article ‘Wilkie’s whinge’.

It has been suggested in the past by those whose ire I have provoked that I am frustrated. Yep – that is fair comment. Indeed, I suspect a somewhat stronger descriptive term could be used that would be more accurate and appropriate.

Help by association

My background was not road transport. I am the product of a somewhat unique partnership. My Dad was considerably senior to my Mum. In point of fact he was one of those brave and socially responsible people who offered his life for king and country in the First World War.

My family is from the land. The end result is a strong legacy of generosity; a strong legacy of devotion to society. Thank God I never had to confront the horrors that Dad did when he earned a Military Medal. While Vietnam was a possibility, my call up put me into Service Corp and then I was ‘spared’ the opportunity of serving overseas. But that’s enough of the personal history.

In Owner//Driver’s November issue I was pleased to read John Beer’s self-introduction. Congratulations John and I wish you more success than I had. I do admit that I was as green as grass at the time and not as effective as I’d like to have been. Let me say here and now I support your call for truckies to become members of an association.

Actually I think a transport association to be only a portion of the road to travel. My constant call these days is for those of us who drive trucks to become on first name terms with both local state and federal representatives. It has come patently obvious to me that our politicians in general have little or no knowledge of the real trials and frustrations confronting truckies.

Beneath animals

Previous to the last 25 years I was agitating for a better deal for those of us who provide the crucial service to our society that is road transport. It amazes me of the NHVR’s effort to give out an animal welfare notice that provides much more tolerance for cows than the bureaucrats are prepared to offer truck drivers.

To that end the National Road Freighters Association (NRFA) has developed a position on fatigue. But rather than have it as a proposal for just a segment of the industry, our ambition is for it to be industry wide.

The current situation of the industry is accepting special deals for one pressure group that isolates those special deals from the rest of the industry has to be deplored. It is just another example of ‘stuff you Jack, I’m OK’.

How on earth can one justify stock getting an hour of tolerance but drivers just eight minutes? And readers wonder why I’ve dropped the ‘boofacrat’ term. Let me explain: ‘boofacrat’ implies bureaucracy being slow minded. That is not the case at all. After all these years I have come to understand there is a deep dishonesty within the bureaucracy that works to ensure there is an agenda for them beyond the one in operation today. Being slow minded is simply not the case.

Heavy vehicle rego

It’s been proven how many years ago that road transport much more than returns cost through the current charging regime. So why does the overcharge continue? The NRFA also has a position on heavy vehicle registration designed to return to government fair and just cost recovery. In addition it is designed to remove the subsidy to high mileage and heavyweight operators that light and low kilometre operators currently provide. Again a level playing field.

How can decent and fair minded people condone the current injustice? Simply because they are less than honest – not fair and just minded.

Yet again recently retired National Transport Insurance (NTI) national manager of industry and government relations, Owen Driscoll, has all but proven that the current eastern fatigue parameters are grossly flawed.

How many more NTI reports have to be aired before some person has the decency to consider the savagery and inappropriateness of the current regulations and the exorbitant value of fines associated? And when will some influential body develop the honesty and decency to demand truth in breach reporting?

What a rort the current system has become. Oh yes, bureaucracy simplifies their report language for their convenience by having every logbook breach described as a fatigue breach. What does the average truck ‘hater’ read into that?. “Yeah, we know, yhey all take drugs and run un-roadworthy equipment”. What a great slight of language to guarantee the continuation of the gravy train for bureaucracy.

‘Boofacrats’ is definitely too kind a term. Bureaucracy is still blatantly bloody-mindedly sticking to the day off after six while the industry despairs of getting good people for long-haul operations. Yes, have a day off in some Godforsaken place devoid of friends and family while the wife and kids fret away at home. Only a bloody bureaucrat would consider that to be a best situation.

Level playing field?

Road transport is losing its efficiency. So suddenly we have performance-based standards and all sorts of funny things that are deemed ‘high productivity vehicles’. Just a few years ago if one operated a tipper and dog combination, one was required to keep the dog lighter than the prime mover.

The new desire for productivity has brought more productivity but much more complexity. How much more can one put behind the prime mover now and what road can I do it on? I’ve only just mastered an 18-speed Roadranger. Where the hell do I find something called a portal?

Now methinks if we went back to the old days – much less bureaucratic red tape and keep the complexity out of it – the industry might become efficient again. More people might consider a career behind the wheel. And poor dumb people like me might not succumb to every disease brought on by excessive stress.

After 25 years I just feel like a cracked record. ‘You won’t change it’, I’m told. Too bloody right you won’t. Not while you sit and whinge among yourselves.

Dick Kyle once said to me, “when you’re old and sitting in your rocking chair on the verandah and a truck rolls past, and the industry is better than it was, you won’t be able to claim that you made it better, but you will be able to claim that you helped make it better”.

But I think possibly Dick had got a little ahead of himself. Rather than make it better, currently we might only be able to claim that we have stopped it being even worse than it might have been. What a fragmented mess!

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