National transport regulatory reform

• COAG’s harmonisation reforms established national laws and national regulators for heavy vehicles, rail, and domestic commercial vessels.
• After almost a decade, the transition is nearly complete, albeit with some unfinished business:
  • Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not participate in the national heavy vehicle regime
  • unnecessary derogations from the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) and Rail Safety National Law (RSNL) continue
  • some grandfathering provisions applying to domestic commercial vessels pose safety risks
  • approval processes for heavy vehicle access to local roads still lag in some areas.
• By most measures, heavy vehicle and rail safety continue to improve, largely due to new technology and infrastructure investments.
• Safety regulation across the three modes is a mix of prescriptive and outcomes based regulation. Amending safety regulation to create a more flexible, outcomes-based approach should improve safety and lift productivity.
• The COAG reforms were expected to unlock large efficiency gains for heavy vehicle operators. While gains have been made, the forecasts were optimistic and have not been achieved.
  • Road access for larger, more efficient trucks has improved, but significant bottlenecks remain on some major freight corridors.

• There are significant opportunities for COAG, regulators and industry to further promote safety and productivity.

  Striking a balance between prescription and outcomes-based approaches in safety regulation:

  • amending the HVNL to allow further progress to a tiered system, where operators can choose to follow prescriptive regulation or to develop more flexible and efficient ways to manage safety risks with the regulator’s approval
  • removing unnecessary prescriptive detail from the HVNL.

  Emphasising risk-based approaches to improving safety and consistency:

  • removing unjustified derogations (road and rail) and grandfathering (maritime)
  • ensuring effective oversight of Hire and Drive vessels in the maritime sector
  • streamlining Australian Design Rule processes for heavy vehicles.

  Improving infrastructure provision and management:

  • progressing Heavy Vehicle Road Reform
  • ensuring that investment decisions on major freight corridors are based on transparent cost-benefit analysis, which includes consideration of intermodal options
  • encouraging more ‘as-of-right’ access for vehicles (where appropriate) and more efficient processes for assessing permit applications
  • creating more consistent network rules for rail services.

  Improving the evidence base for policy and regulatory decisions:

  • establishing ‘no-blame’ incident investigation across the transport modes
  • harnessing telematics data to inform infrastructure investment and access management
  • ensuring that regulators improve their collection, analysis, and reporting of data, particularly in relation to safety outcomes and compliance costs.

Leonora Nicol, Media Director – 0417 665 443 / 02 6240 3239 / media@pc.gov.au