Improvements to road access for crane operators and controversial reforms to Chain of Responsibility laws and National Heavy Vehicle Regulator enforcement and investigative powers are squarely on the agenda for CICA and the National Transport Commission.
Road access has been a considerable source of consternation for crane operators since time immemorial with costly permits and lengthy delays across different jurisdictions hampering the industry.
But a recent push from CICA to speed up the process for road access permits, a national Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) notice, and a commitment from the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) to increase the number of permit-free roads on the national network will go some way to addressing the issue.
The National Transport Commission (NTC) is also seeking to beef up the investigative and enforcement powers of NHVR investigators with a review of Australia’s National Heavy Vehicle Law and Chain of Responsibility (CoR) laws.
This comes amid a crackdown in NSW on the civil construction sector and infrastructure development projects, which have been identified by Roads and Maritimes Services for enforcement action in 2016.
But decreasing the wait time for permits remains the key issue – except in Western Australia where permits are granted, on average, within 12 hours and application can be lodged 24 hours a day seven days a week.
Pfeiffer Cranes owner, Fred Pfeiffer told Cranes and Lifting he believes Tasmania should never have been brought under the NTC’s jurisdiction.
He said his office-wasted hours chasing permits and that it was a constant frustration.
“It costs you a lot of money,” he said. “I’m not joking, it costs millions of dollars to keep up with all of this you know. Your office spends half the day chasing permits, Tasmania should never have been included [under the jurisdiction of the NTC].”
CICA chief executive, Brandon Hitch said CICA would be submitting the notion of reducing the turnaround time for permits.
“It’s currently at 28 days, which is ridiculous,” he said.
“It shouldn’t take 28 days to decide something – that 28 days can be soaked up by the state jurisdiction.
“The problem is in a lot of cases, the local government doesn’t have a resource to make that decision or they have a resource not willing to make that decision, so you’re stuck in that limbo phase.
“It doesn’t encourage any industry to be viable and it doesn’t encourage any council to have a performance metric. There is no penalty for not deciding.”
CICA liaison officer Vic/Tas, John Humphries, said the major road access issues for the mobile crane industry were a lack of gazetted roads where permit-free travel is required, exclusions of some types of cranes from accessing these permit-free roads and delays in obtaining permits.
“As the CICA Victorian and Tasmanian liaison, I continue to work closely with NHVR, VicRoads and local government to expand the permit-free access network.”
NHVR national harmonisation manager Matthew Bereni said the NHVR was focused on increasing the number of local roads to the national network for the National Class 1 Special Purpose Vehicle Notice (the National SPV Notice).
“The engagement with state and local governments we undertook in developing the National SPV Notice led to the establishment of a significant network for SPVs on a national scale,” he said.
“In addition to a large numbers of councils from Tasmania and South Australia, 72 local road managers from NSW, Queensland and Victoria have already signed to the National SPV Notice by adding large sections of their networks to the national SPV network. This number increases regularly.
He said the National SPV Notice had been a fantastic catalyst for increased crane access in Australia.
“The release of the National SPV Notice has made a significant difference to the access crane operators have to road networks,” he said.
However, improving the participation is a key factor in improving road access, according to Bereni.
“Uniformity of laws in different jurisdictions would be beneficial, especially for crane operators near state borders,” he said.
Humphries said there had also been some progress made during negotiations with the NHVR.
“There has been good progress with the NHVR in rolling out the road access maps for Special Purpose Vehicles and 4&5 Axle cranes,” he said.
“In their role of road manager, local councils have the key responsibility of reviewing access consent requests lodged by operators and deciding whether the use of heavy vehicles on their network is appropriate,” he said.
“Their participation is then instrumental in removing access red tape on a local level. In cases where councils are less inclined to participate in notices, we provide them with the facts and evidence they need to make informed access decisions.
“The Heavy Vehicle National Law (or HVNL) considerably clarified the role of road managers and clearly states that road managers, including local councils, must decide to grant or deny access when asked by the Regulator.
“We are working with local governments to ensure they meet the 28 days, particularly those areas which deal with a large number of heavy vehicle access consent requests or have limited resources.”
At the recent CICA conference in Cairns, there was some discussion about red and green spots. The NHVR presented its SPV Development Progress map at the conference. This map shows the state of the current road manager consultation being undertaken by the NHVR, using a simple colour code.
Councils that have granted SPVs access to their network under the National SPV Notice are shown in green while councils that do not participate in the National SPV Notice are shown in red. Councils which are currently reviewing access under the National SPV Notice are shown in orange.
Controversial reforms to CoR laws also now means compliance with Heavy Vehicle National Law is no longer the sole responsibility of the driver.
Bereni said the NHVR was developing a range of tools and education material for parties in the heavy vehicle supply chain.
“Under the HVNL, multiple parties may be responsible for offences committed in heavy vehicle operations. A person may be a party in the supply chain in more than one way and legal liability can apply to their actions, inactions and demands,” he said.
“For the crane industry, that could mean a driver, scheduler, operator (company), and the customer could all be liable where demands, requests or agreements cause illegal behaviour.”
National Transport Commission chief executive, Paul Retter, said reforms to CoR laws would ensure a greater focus on the proactive management of safety-related risks.
“These reforms are currently being considered by the Queensland Parliament,” he said.
“Once these CoR laws are passed, there will be a 12-month implementation period to allow the development and dissemination of detailed guidance material.”
The NTC has also just published a discussion paper on possible changes to investigative and enforcement powers under the HVNL.
“We will consider all of the submissions we receive and then provide our recommendations to ministers in May 2017,” Retter said.
NHVR executive director regulatory compliance Tony Kursius said the review was largely directed towards the adequacy and exercise of powers under the HVNL.
“It should present no particular challenge to industry, however industry groups are able to make submissions in response to the discussion paper published on the National Transport Commission’s website.”
Kursius said the review was aimed at ensuring investigative and enforcement officers had the right powers to properly and thoroughly investigate the new laws.
“In addition to the public consultation processes, there are statutory and parliamentary mechanisms in the participating jurisdictions to ensure the contents of any legislative amendments flowing from this proposal have sufficient regard to the rights and liberties of individuals subject to them.”