The Northern Territory Road Transport Association (NTRTA) has urged the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to work with the road transport industry in future.
As Australia hosted the largest iteration of Exercise Talisman Sabre to date in 2025 that saw more than 43,000 personnel, 297 aircrafts and 32 ships, the association says the ADF’s major dependency on civilian logistics and road transport was made clear.
However, the industry remains largely excluded from planning.
During Talisman Sabre 2025, industry representatives were invited to an Industry Tabletop Exercise exploring how the Northern Territory could better support defence. However, key voices such as the NTRTA weren’t in the room.
Despite 32,000 tonnes of military cargo being moved across Australia during the exercise, including through remote area operations, no peak road transport industry representatives received a seat at the table.
“This oversight is no small omission; it reflects a growing concern of the ADF disconnection,” NTRTA outgoing executive officer Louise Bilato says.
MORE OWNERDRIVER TRENDING STORIES:
- Transtar Linehaul the latest operator to enter administration
- TOTM: McNaughts adorns Scania with visionary visor
- Major logistics operator enters voluntary administration
- Laura Wilkinson and X Logistics – hard working Aussie
- Don Watson Group announces shock closure
“Civilian operators played a key role in logistics and identified major gaps in the ADF’s operational logistics knowledge during Northern Australian operations. We identified gaps based on decades of hard-won knowledge of an industry that undertakes supply tasks every day, not just for an exercise in the dry season.
“This exclusion of a key logistics partner can lead to risky operational assumptions. Defence appears to take for granted the availability of reliable civilian infrastructure, fleets and drivers without any long-term plan to ensure access or collaboration. It assumes logistics will just happen.”
The NTRTA says this assumption is “flawed”, as recognised by senior executives from WA, SA and NT governments, industry and emergency services during a major transnational freight resilience workshop in Adelaide that defence was invited to but didn’t attend.
“Integrating national road and rail freight planning with defence strategy is no longer optional – it’s an urgent national security imperative,” the association says.
“The civilian industry recognises it, defence strategy mentions it, but its actions speak otherwise.
“Defence must shift its mindset from assuming logistics will happen to ensuring it happens well with the right partners in the room from day one. Excluding the road transport and logistics industry from tabletop exercises denies defence the opportunity to have a voice of logistics realism in their operational planning.”
To ensure the road transport and logistics lessons from Talisman aren’t lost, the NTRTA and Western Roads Federation will hold an industry debrief session.
Subscribe to the weekly Owner//Driver newsletter here.