A new Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) that comes into place on 1 October will affect safety management arrangements for grain growers who are also carriers.
The changes, which focus on Chain of Responsibility, seek to align the existing laws more closely with workplace health and safety provisions. They aim to ensure that everyone in the heavy vehicle transport supply chain undertakes safe transport activities.
Many growers and carriers will need to take some steps to ensure they are compliant from 1 October. These steps will depend on whether they own their own vehicle or contract the heavy vehicle services from a transport operator.
The legislation requires them to have safety management systems and controls in place that:
- Identify, assess, evaluate, and control risk
- Manage compliance with speed, fatigue, mass, dimension, loading and vehicle standards requirements through identified best practice
- Involve regular reporting, including to executive officers
- Document or record actions taken to manage safety
It is important that grain growers understand what role they play in the supply chain so that they can assess and meet their obligations under this changing legislation.
The individual roles that are affected include:
- Loading managers
- Consignees
- Operators
- Consignors
- Schedulers
- Packers
- Loader or unloaders
- Employers
- Prime contractors
- Executive officers
The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) has put together a number of tools that define these roles and can assist in identifying what roles individuals play in the supply chain. There are also tools that can be used to conduct a gap analysis of what arrangements are currently in place versus what the legislation may require.
Visit the NHVR website to review these tools: nhvr.gov.au/safety-accreditation-complianceundefined