I was musing this week on the plight in which Patties Foods found itself after the outbreak of hepatitis A blamed on contamination of fruit and berries that it imports. The food was packaged in China and may have also involved fruit from Chile. I assume a thorough investigation will determine how it occurred, what steps are in place in China to eliminate the risk of food being contaminated, no matter its destination.
That’s what we would do in Australia. You would probably conclude that this was unlikely to occur very often in Australia, given the degree of regulation of our primary industries. I am not saying it couldn’t occur here, but governments tend to leave no stone unturned when it comes to keeping primary producers on the straight and narrow.
Talking about keeping farmers on the straight and narrow, I guarantee 99 out of 100 Australians will never have heard of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator. It sounds a bit like Thomas the Tank Engine’s Fat Controller. The role of office of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator is to ensure that when people drive vehicles of more than 4.5 tonnes, they do not become a danger to the rest of the community as well as to themselves.
In 2009 the Council of Australian Governments, formerly known as the Premiers’ Conference, agreed to establish a single national system of laws for these heavy vehicles. One of the prime considerations was driver fatigue and the propensity for serious accidents.
It made sense for a uniform law to apply to Australia’s highways and byways. That involved some seriously tedious work by heavy vehicle drivers maintaining diaries of their every move behind the wheel. That included farmers and other primary producers who operate vehicles of that size.
Without going into the full history of this, farmers’ organisations have been seeking some relief from the paperwork, given that most of us are not out there in the middle of the night driving thousands of kilometres at a time, fighting the clock, trying to stay awake.
The good news is that from March 30 Tasmanian primary producers will not be required to keep and record information in a National Driver Work Diary if they work within a 160 km radius of their base. They will have to abide by all the other regulations. That means they must not drive while fatigued and must continue to comply with work and rest requirements.
In addition, they have to record details of the driver, their work and rest times. That sounds a lot, but it is far less onerous than the continuous diary that other heavy vehicle drivers have to keep and which we have to keep until March 30.
The primary production exemption applies to farming and forestry (within the 160 km radius).
“Industry has asked us for consistent work diary practices and less paperwork and we’re delivering,” Sal Petroccitto, the NHVR chief executive said.
“This exemption reduces the paperwork burden in the cab and allows drivers to better focus on the task at hand,” Mr Petroccitto said.
Most other states have the same exemption now, though it is still being reviewed in Victoria. We are one of the last to have this exemption for primary producers.
It’s not perfect; many farmers complain that it is an absolute pain no matter if it is reduced by this measure; but it is a win of sorts.
I wonder if China has a Fat Controller.
TFGA president Wayne Johnston
