All over Australia, the trucking industry is calling for change. Whether it be for licensing procedures, fatigue laws or Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) amendments, there’s a lot to be unpacked, discussed and decided upon in 2025.
To pick through these various highlights of 2024 and the updates on the way this year, some of Australia’s leading transport associations and bodies have their say on what they expect from the industry in the upcoming year.
National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR)
For the national regulator, 2024 saw it bring up a 10-year milestone since first becoming the heavy vehicle regulator for Australia. Guided by its ‘inform, educate and enforce’ approach, the NHVR achieved another goal in April 2024 when it transitioned its heavy vehicle regulatory services in Queensland, completing its journey across most of Australia.
Heading into 2025, the NHVR has recognised several continuing challenges that the heavy vehicle industry will face over the next 12 months.
“These include balancing a growing freight task while ensuring fatigue is effectively managed, working to reduce the number of deaths on Australia’s roads, addressing environmental and health impacts, shifting from asset preservation to optimisation and navigating unplanned disruptions to the supply chain and driver shortages,”
a NHVR spokesperson told OwnerDriver.
“To address these challenges, the NHVR’s upcoming Heavy Vehicle Productivity Plan outlines a response to these issues, including actions such as easing the burden of permits and supporting road managers to grow their networks and offering the technology, tools, data and information customers need to make faster and better-informed decisions.
“The NHVR will also seek to partner with its stakeholders to ensure safe and environmentally friendly outcomes, encourage newer, cleaner and safer vehicles on the road, and improve awareness and understanding of heavy vehicles.”
The heavy vehicle driver shortage is another key issue on the NHVR’s radar in 2025, with the regulator calling for a “collaborative and layered approach” to work with industry and governments in diversifying workforces and enhancing access to training and incentives.
In 2025, the NHVR will also push for national standardisation to support consistency and safety across the industry.
“The NHVR will improve its digital offerings to drive a safer industry, with a focus on enhancing the NHVR Portal,” the spokesperson says.
“In 2025, the National Network Map will be refined to include more accurate road and map data, as well as an improved Route Planner to assist industry in planning efficient and safe journeys across Australia’s road network. The Portal will also evolve to contain more information and tools for operators (such as compliance data) to expand how industry and operators manage their fleet.
“The NHVR will also focus on delivering its safety campaigns to influence road users’ behaviour. This includes continuing its campaigns, Don’t #uck With A Truck and We All Need Space. The next phase of the We All Need Space campaign will focus on safety messaging targeted to heavy vehicle drivers and safer driving around oversize and overmass movements in Victoria.”
To improve safety, the NHVR says the Chain of Responsibility (CoR) is a crucial theme for the industry to adhere to. The regulator says it will continue working with industry to ensure parties in the CoR are not placing undue pressure or demands on drivers that may encourage or promote breaching speed or fatigue regulations.
If it could change one thing in 2025, the NHVR would prioritise positive progress on the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) review currently being completed by the National Transport Commission (NTC), including by implementing reforms to the PBS scheme.
“During 2024, the NHVR released its ‘Removing Roadblocks to Reform’ paper, calling for reform of the Performance Based Standards (PBS) scheme,” the spokesperson says.
“Right now, in Australia, the safest, most productive and lower emission heavy vehicles face more barriers to get on the road than a standard ‘prescriptive’ heavy vehicle. This is resulting in lost opportunities to reduce emission, avoid fatalities and increase productivity.
“Through the ‘Removing Roadblocks to Reform’ paper, the NHVR is calling for amendments to the HVNL to allow for mature and proven PBS vehicles to transition to the prescriptive vehicle fleet, and to give the NHVR the ability to adjust standards in response to the latest research and technology. The NHVR will continue to engage with industry and government to seek commitment to enact positive change.”
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National Road Transport Association (NatRoad)
Maintaining its presence as the largest road transport association in Australia with a national membership of more than 2,300 trucking businesses, NatRoad’s 2024 saw it involved in international partnerships through its global driver shortage survey participation, and also launch several key initiatives.
This included its ‘Get Fleet Fit’ initiative that gave operators tools to improve fuel efficiency and productivity while reducing emissions, its online truckie first aid cause that trained more than 1,000 truck drivers and its ongoing preparation of members for industrial relations reform, specifically relating to the Closing Loopholes laws.
Beginning 2025, NatRoad has a bleak view of what’s ahead for the industry.
“The outlook for the local trucking industry is stark,” NatRoad CEO Warren Clark told OwnerDriver.
“So many trucking businesses are operating on wafer-thin margins, and there’s rising costs, escalating interest rates, chronic staff shortages and increasing wages. There’s also been no productivity gain in the past few years.
“Much more must be done to ensure the long-term viability of trucking businesses and the sustainability of the road transport industry.”
In the year ahead, NatRoad wants to see nationally consistent and practical training for drivers alongside licensing changes to ensure inexperienced drivers are safe to drive in Australia. Alongside this, it’s looking to help operators become more viable through enforceable contract conditions such as 30-day payment terms.
“The cost of doing business is also a serious factor preventing trucking businesses from thriving,” Clark says.
“Oppressive tolls and access permits costs need to be reduced and then capped at reasonable levels. In 2024, we called for the elimination of 90 per cent of heavy vehicle access permits by 2028.
“We were pleased to see the NSW government start to take steps to reform the toll network, in line with what we have been calling for, for over six years now.”
When it comes to immediate and significant changes that can be made to improve safety in the industry, Clark says a nationally recognised training system that is consistent across all jurisdictions would do wonders. He says licensing should require training that focuses on skills and practical outcomes as opposed to tenure, with this model also needing to be applied to overseas drivers.
Clark is putting the onus on governments to enact these changes and, most importantly, listen to the industry.
“We would like to see governments make changes to improve safety and efficiency, committing to results rather than business as usual,” Clark says.
“Importantly, we need a nationally recognised training program as well as lower fines, fewer permits and efficiency incentives, and the cutting of red tape to allow operators to get the job done.
“At the end of the day, truck drivers just want to drive and then get home safely.”
Western Roads Federation (WRF)
Out in Western Australia, the WRF had a stellar 2024, with the crowning success being the ongoing growth of its WA Heavy Vehicle Driver Training program. With the WA government extending funding for a further four years for the joint TAFE and industry program, the program received a special mention in the WA Treasurer’s Budget speech in 2024.
“Now, over 750 are trained and employed within the industry, 35 per cent of which are women,” WRF CEO Cam Dumesny told OwnerDriver.
“In 2025, we think the biggest issue is the ongoing shortage of skilled labour despite there being an increasing downward pressure of rates being reported. It defies any economic sense.”
WRF, like most of its counterparts, is on the lookout for ways to improve the industry in 2025. One key way Dumesny wants to lift standards in the sector is to encourage the Fair Work Commission Road Transport Advisory Group to begin delivering on minimum standards.
With other areas to work on including lifting driver training standards and focusing on ways the industry can help the national economy, Dumesny has plenty on his hitlist for 2025.
“I want to see driver training standards mandated so that there’s a stop to the tick’n’flick truck driver licensing model we’re currently seeing,” he says.
“We recognise that the transport and logistics industry enables the Australian economy, so our industry problems are the economy’s problems. We hope people to listen to us because of this.”
Queensland Trucking Association (QTA)
In Queensland, some new highlights emerged in 2024 for QTA CEO Gary Mahon and the state’s trucking industry. Outside of legislation amendments, the renewed support for the Inland Freight Route proved to be a major win for the Queensland body.
“A clear highlight was federal transport minister Catherine King initiating support for the Inland Freight Route,” Mahon told OwnerDriver.
“With one billion dollars invested and the project brought forward, we are now seeing work underway when it comes to repairing bridges and widening and strengthening parts of the road.
“It will become the preferred heavy duty route for north-south travel in Queensland and will relieve the Bruce Highway, giving us a much more efficient route that is all-weather resilient and has many benefits.”
Alongside this, the Closing the Loopholes legislation was recognised by Mahon as “a long time in the making”, giving the industry the chance to balance the industry and provide opportunities for appropriate standards.
When it comes to industry issues this year, Mahon says opening up the employment channel into the industry via training and funding to support the apprenticeship model is vitally important.
“I want to see channels opened for international migration in our industry,” he says.
“Road freight has not quite got its space in the front row to date, so to speak. We need to get on the front row of opportunity when it comes to international migration – we need funding support.”
In Queensland, Mahon says the impact of the state’s latest apprenticeship ventures is clear to see. Getting heavy vehicle driving apprenticeship funding to put the vocation on the same pedestal as other apprenticeship courses such as for plumbers, electricians or mechanics means the employers and employees now have to carry less of the cost.
“We’re not asking for more, just want employers to be treated the same and given the right support to train people to pursue a career in freight,” he says.
Outside of this, Mahon says productivity is an “enormous” issue for Australia, saying productivity growth has been negligible since 2007. Mahon wants change to return to the glory days of increasing productivity in the road freight sector that was seen in the lead-up to the mid-2000s.
“We need a much more progressive outlook to change the composition of the fleet along with other changes in the HVNL to give us that productivity bounce,” he says.
“We need to get back to the ‘90s – the last decade we had where there was elevated, measurable and celebrated productivity growth across the industry.
“It waned down to 2007 and has barely had a pulse in it since then. A big way of seeing this productivity boost is by also getting the HVNL review back on track.”
When looking at the HVNL review, Mahon sees a bleak, drawn-out process that won’t allow for genuine reform in the industry for at least another decade. When it does happen, he predicts the reform will only be “marginal” – something he doesn’t think is good enough for the local sector.
“It’s time to cut our losses with this and start again, dividing it into different categories to focus on areas such as fatigue and access in more detail,” he says.
“We can then introduce small expert groups that bring forward reform packages that actually make a measurable and real difference. This can all be done within a couple of years and can make meaningful change.”
Moving into 2025, Mahon wants the rest of Australia to follow Queensland’s lead on the apprenticeship model the state has pushed heavily for. With heavy vehicle driving encompassing so many skills, such as understanding vehicle dynamics, fatigue laws and the chain of responsibility, Mahon wants the role to be championed as an attractive career option for younger generations. Alongside this ongoing focus, Mahon is also looking towards the ongoing development of reform to make the industry fairer and safer.
“We need to get some orders out of the Fair Work process this year so that we don’t lose the chance to achieve valuable reform,” he says.
“I’d love for the industry to take a more commercial approach with the HVNL reform this year and get it back on track so that it can be delivered over the next few years and see the change we deserve.”
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