Lobbying hits top gear for a ‘regulator with teeth’

Last week, industry rolled out an intensive lobbying campaign that had been planned during October to reach almost every Minister and the key Shadow Ministers in mainland Australia.

Further strengthening the teamwork that’s been on display for some months now, several ATA member associations took the running on organising meetings and briefings for these meetings.

To respond to the sheer volume of legislation and information that industry is working through, there’s also been a lot of sharing of skills and knowledge, with all the industry groups pooling their staff, legal advice and documents. It’s been impressive to see the CEOs of the ATA and the ALC sitting in on industry workshops and making their staff available to each other to draft joint industry submissions and position statements.

A particular note of thanks has to go to NatRoad, who have really excelled in the last couple of weeks.

Our ATA colleagues have put a report on last week’s meetings in their national news and I’ll skip over the details they’ve covered.

(Reminder: each week, ALRTA emails out the entire ATA’s ‘Friday Facts’ direct to around half of our members, nationwide. You can sign up by dropping a note to Anna on office@alrta.org.au. Regrettably, we cannot send the ATA’s news by fax.)

… industry’s submission to Ministers

In all these various meetings with Ministers last week, we expressed a strong view that there needs to be more direct industry involvement as the laws are finalised during 2012.

With so much work still to get done in early 2012, we’ve said to the Ministers that there needs to be a set of ‘guiding principles’ so that both industry and bureaucrats have clarity about what is allowed, and required, to be done in the months ahead.

We’ve emphasised the importance of making sure that the Regulator can really make a difference, can promote better access to the road network, make the Chain of Responsibility as effective as possible, and really enhance the safety, productivity and efficiency of road transport.

And we’ve reminded Ministers that, if we’re to have a single National Regulator, then it will need to be able to provide oversight of the regulatory and enforcement services delivered under the National Law, including services delivered by Police.

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