The ATA and its members appreciate this opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee regarding the inquiry into the Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill (No.2) 2008 and the Road Charges Legislation Repeal and Amendment Bill 2008.
You are here
Submissions
The document offers a set of model amendments from the ATA into the Road Charges Legislation Repeal and Amendment Bill 2008.
This submission details the views of the members of the ATA and the wider trucking industry on the emissions trading design that are of significance to trucking companies and the industry as a whole.
Establishment of an emissions trading scheme, including all emissions generated in the transport sector, will be the core measure of Australia’s climate change response.
Other measures to sit alongside an emissions trading scheme, including rationalisation of the current patchwork of climate change and energy policies, targeted technology policies which complement carbon pricing signals and responsible microeconomic reforms to deliver productivity, will assist to minimise the cost of achieving Australia’s emission reduction targets.
There is broad agreement within the ATA on many of the issues raised in this enquiry. In particular, the ATA community, including the TWU and the Owner-Driver representative, are in full agreement that safety is of paramount importance and that the key objective must be to resolve the safety issues and that the Chain Of Responsibility (COR) and Fatigue and Speed management reforms will play a core role in addressing these issues.
This submission details the trucking industry’s positions on design of the emissions trading scheme and on appropriate complementary measures to be introduced alongside and emissions trading scheme.
The trucking industry faces an extreme shortage of truck drivers over the next five years. One estimate is that the trucking industry will need an additional 10,000 drivers by 2012 as it responds to Australia’s rapidly growing freight task.
The industry’s greatest unmet demand is for heavy combination (semi-trailer) and multicombination (B-double, B-triple and road train) drivers. The unmet demand for rigid truck drivers is not as high, which has important policy implications.
Release of the policy paper follows three months of public consultation on the NGERS Regulations Discussion Paper, released in October 2007. Throughout this time the ATA and its members engaged with the Government primarily in order to resolve operational issues relating to the definition of the terms facilities and operational control that, if left unresolved, would create significant uncertainty and compliance burdens for the trucking industry.
The ATA was consulted by, and provided submissions to the NTC during the development of the Draft National Transport Policy Framework. This submission expands on those consultations and sets out the trucking industry’s views on the national transport policy’s strategic priority areas.
This document outlines the views of the Australian trucking industry on the draft research report on chemicals and plastics regulation.