The Queensland Trucking Association (QTA) is leading the charge on getting road freight businesses involved in state flood recovery funds after the sector was left out of current announcements.
Yesterday, the Queensland government announced more than $50 million would be provided for long-term north and Far North Queensland flood recovery, with targeted packages going towards repairs to sport facilities and community assets.
On top of this, extraordinary disaster assistance recovery grants would be provided to primary producers, small businesses and not-for-profits, but there was no mention of transport operators.
In response, QTA CEO Gary Mahon told OwnerDriver he understood this provision would be made available to all except road freight businesses who have been financially impacted by the lengthy stand-downs involved due to weather events.
MORE OWNERDRIVER TRENDING STORIES:
- Major competitor buys substantial shares in Lindsay Australia
- Lindsay Australia announces acquisition of GJ Freight
- World first owner driver and gig worker laws kick in
- January TOTM: Morgans keeps it in the family with new K220
- Floods cause Bruce Highway closures
“Many fleets had significant numbers of trucks or depots immobilised for up to seven days in the FNQ event,” Mahon told OwnerDriver.
“These road freight businesses had exceptional daily losses. Currently larger fleets have had to resort to applying levies on their north Queensland customers to recover some of these costs, ultimately impacting the cost of living in affected areas.
“We have made formal submissions in some detail to both sides of politics at state and federal level.”
In the meantime, the government also expanded its emergency resupply declarations to south-east Queensland to allow service stations, fuel distributors and food processing facilities to also work alongside supermarkets and transport depots around the clock in the region.
However, there was no news on this being extended in FNQ.
Subscribe to the weekly Owner//Driver newsletter here.