ATA lobbies to refine CoR

The Australian Trucking Association is lobbying for a simplification of the existing Chain of Responsibility legislation, as currently laid out under the Heavy Vehicle National Law. The point was one of several recently made in an ATA submission to the National Transport Commission, as a part of the latter's review of the legislation.

The Chief Executive of the ATA, Stuart St Clair (pictured), said the present CoR legislation was complex and often difficult to interpret.

"The ATA has long argued that the complexity and inconsistency of the existing CoR provisions is a problem for industry and regulators," he said.

"Even prosecutors and judges have trouble understanding them.

"From an industry point of view, the lack of clarity and sensible organisation in the law makes it unnecessarily difficult for businesses, managers and employees to understand and comply with their legal obligations.

"To address these issues, the CoR duties in the law should be restructured into a single chapter and duplicate provisions removed."

The CoR legislation currently dictates that business must take "all reasonable steps" to comply – a phrase the ATA argues is misleading and has serious practical problems.

"The ATA proposes retiring the concept of 'all reasonable steps' and replacing it with the work health and safety standard, 'so far as is reasonably practicable'," Mr St Clair said.

"Businesses have a clear understanding of their obligations under 'so far as is reasonably practicable'. In addition, it has a history of consistent interpretation by the courts going back to 1949.

"There is probably little legal difference between the two standards, so the proposal would make the law clearer and more understandable without affecting safety."

The ATA has also recommended that chapter-based duties be introduced for the major areas: vehicle safety and standards; mass, dimension and load restraint; and speeding. These would complement the existing chapter-based duty relating to fatigue.

"These duties would require businesses to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that contraventions in each area covered by the law do not occur.

"Adding these extra duties would fill in some gaps, avoid the need for tinkering as business practices change, and enable seven overly-prescriptive requirements to be removed."

The ATA submission also recommends that the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator publishes guidelines for non-mandatory codes of practice to help businesses meet their CoR obligations.

Click here to view the full ATA submission.