ALRTA News – 11 March 2022

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ALRTA LRTAQ CONFERENCE

ALRTA National President, Scott McDonald, and ALRTA Executive Director, Mat Munro, attended the 2022 LRTAQ Annual Conference in Marcoola QLD. The conference was very well attended despite the widespread flooding in SQLD and NNSW – the legendary Bull Carter’s Ball was sold out!  

The 2022 Bull Carter’s Ball. 


ALRTA Executive Director, Mat Munro, Assistant Minister for Road Safety and Freight Transport, the Hon Scott Buchholz, and Mayor of Barcaldine Regional Council, Cr Sean Dillon. 

LRTAQ ELECTION RESULTS

ALRTA congratulates the office bearers elected at the LRTAQ AGM on 6 April 2022:

  • President: Gerard Johnson
  • Vice President: John Rogers
  • Vice President: Alister Clarke
  • Treasurer: Gavin Swalling
  • Secretary: Gary Willoughby
  • Immediate Past President: Ian Wild

LUKE CANNON WINS LRTAQ YOUNG DRIVER

Luke Cannon of Frasers Livestock Transport took out the LRTAQ Young Person in Transport Award for 2022 at the LRTAQ Conference last weekend.



Luke was one of five very impressive finalists – each of which is a credit to their business and our industry.



Congratulations to each of these young men on their well deserved recognition for their dedication to rural transport.  Luke Taylor – Kahler Transport, Jamie Healey – Seilers Transport, Luke Cannon – Frasers Livestock Transport, Andrew Travers – Travers Transport and Brodie Coleman – Condabri Feedlot.

“The award was developed to recognise and acknowledge the contribution younger transport workers are making to the sustainability of our industry. Member businesses were encouraged to recognise excellence in their workplace and nominate outstanding individuals aged 35 years or younger.”

DRIVER AND ANIMAL WELFARE

ALRTA’s National Driver and Animal Welfare Committee met via video conference this week. Issues discussed include promotion of the national ramp standard, injury reporting, loading densities, animal welfare standards, effluent, standardisation of industry language and dealing with residues in the supply chain.
 
The next meeting will be on 22 April 2022.

ROAD & RAIL SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE

The Hon. Barnaby Joyce MP, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development has commissioned a review into Australia’s road and rail supply chain resilience.  The review will be led by the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (DITRDC) supported by independent advice as required.
 
The review will:

  1. Define and determine key risks to critical supply routes – routes that transport large quantities of freight or are critical to supply of essential goods or services across Australia;
  2. Identify key risks to critical supply routes in the short, medium and long term — including weather events or natural disasters, limited alternative routes, and limited and difficult to access alternative transport modes;
  3. Assess the potential vulnerabilities in critical supply routes;
  4. Complete a stocktake of recent relevant work by government and industry intended to identify and mitigate Australian domestic road and rail supply chain risks;
  5. Identify data generation, capture and use requirements necessary to assess, inform best‑practice and improve road and rail supply chain resilience;
  6. Determine the critical routes at highest risk of failure; and
  7. Develop and present pragmatic options for governments to mitigate or address risks to critical road and rail supply chains, in alignment with the Government-agreed framework to identify and mitigate critical supply chain risks.

The focus of the review is on Australia’s road and rail infrastructure and linked infrastructure. Matters such as international supply chain vulnerability, costs of freight, the transport workforce and critical inputs to the transport sector are outside the scope of the review.
 
For more information click here.

BP GIVES RIDE OF A LIFETIME

ALRTA and LBRCA thank our National Partner bp for lining up a ride in a V8 Super Car for one of our lucky members at Eastern Creek last weekend. That lucky member was David Hayter (Hayters Haulage). 
 
David advises that the driver, Zane Goddard, wound it up to 215km per hour – despite the heavy rain!  Bp also provided four passes for our members to attend the race meeting.



AUSTRALIA’S SECOND DEATH FROM JEV

An autopsy has found that a man aged in his 60s from Victoria has died from mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV). This comes after New South Wales Health have confirmed a man in his 70s from Griffith in the south west of the state who died last month had Japanese encephalitis. The man died on 13 February 2022.
 
There have been confirmed cases in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia  of JEV with about 20 people hospitalised.  Some of those are seriously ill in intensive care.

There is no treatment for JEV but it is one of the few mosquito viruses which has an effective vaccine. The vaccine has been recommended for transport workers, vets who visit pig farms and those who cull or hunt pigs.  Australia has a small amount of the vaccine, with more being sourced.

Caution is being issued to Northern Victorians, especially those prone to illness, older people and children under five.
 
Less than 1% of people infected with JEV will experience symptoms. Some infected people experience an illness with fever and headache. People with a severe infection may experience neck stiffness, disorientation, tremors, coma and seizures. The health department said, ‘JEV can cause inflammation of the brain – in around one per cent of cases who become infected.’

If people experience any symptoms you are urged to seek urgent medical attention.

NSW Health has procured JEV vaccine and will continue to work with other jurisdictions to make vaccine available to at risk populations.  At this stage of the response, vaccination is being prioritised for workers on the affected pig farms and their family members living on-site.

With the recent wet weather, people need to take some simple actions to stop mosquito bites such as avoid going outdoors at peak mosquito times of dusk and dawn, avoid mosquito habitats such as stagnant water, covering up outdoors with clothing to reduce skin exposure, and applying repellent to the skin which contains DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon or eucalyptus.

More Information
Fact Sheet
Vaccine Information

CELEBRATE A WOMEN IN TRUCKING

Do you know a woman in trucking worth celebrating? Of course you do!
It’s time to celebrate the remarkable women in our industry by nominating them for the National Trucking Industry for Woman of the Year award, proudly sponsored by Cummins.

Sounds like someone you know, nominate now.

BP OFFER ENDS 31 MARCH 2022

ALRTA Members can Earn up to 100,000 bonus Qantas Points.

Sign up to BP Plus by 31 March and your business could earn 10,000 bonus Qantas Points, plus earn an extra 10,000 bonus points when you fuel up each month for the first 9 months.

Use Code QBR100ALRTA. Min. fuel volume criteria & T&Cs apply

Sign up – https://www.bpplus.com.au/qbr

TRUCKSAFE INTRODUCES AUDITOR REGISTRATION

The TruckSafe program is now even stronger, thanks to changes to its auditor engagement process.

Under the changes, auditors will need to be granted approval by the TruckSafe Industry Accreditation Council (TIAC) to be registered before they are eligible to be appointed by TruckSafe for each member audit. 

The appointment of a registered auditor by TruckSafe to complete an audit on a member remains unchanged. Completed audits will also continue to be assessed by our independent expert panel TIAC for accreditation.

Kevin Walsh from TruckSafe says the changes will lay the foundation for the future direction of TruckSafe. 

“These measures, together with our unique approval process, combine to make TruckSafe the most rigorous and robust safety accreditation scheme within the transport industry.”

In addition to the registration of auditors we will shortly be releasing a new version of the auditor assessment tool. The new tool follows a different format to previous versions and is designed to be easier to complete for auditors than the current version.

TruckSafe is a world class business and risk management system that improves the safety and professionalism of trucking operators nationwide.

Our vision is that everyone in the trucking industry gets home safe, every day.

For more information, go to the TruckSafe website

SAVE THE DATES FOR 2022

LBRCA (NSW) -26 -28 May 2022 – Wagga Wagga NSW – Information & Registration
LRTASA  (SA) -17-18 June 2022 – Adelaide SA
ALRTA/LRTAV National Combined Conference -12-13 August 2022 – All Seasons Bendigo VIC – Information