'Product won't be moved': Truck boss warns against NZTA moves

Thursday, 11 April 2019

NZTA CEO Fergus Gammie, Transport Minister Phil Twyford, and NZTA chairman Michael Stiassny announce an independent review of 850 open compliance files.

A haulage firm ordered off the road by the New Zealand Transport Authority for a series of alleged safety breaches claim a series of similar actions around the country could cripple the Kiwi economy.

Stan Semenoff Logging, a company part-owned by former Whangarei mayor Stan Semenoff, is fighting an NTZA decision to revoke their licence after incurring 119 road safety breaches and has won a High Court injunction to stay on the road until an appeal hearing in May.

The log trucking company is just one of many transport operators facing closure after an NZTA crackdown: the NZTA have issued another 114 'notices of proposals to revoke/suspend' transport operator's licences. Revocations mean the operators must get off the roads.

Semenoff Logging argue that without them, logging in Northland would grind to a halt.

In the three years to mid-2018, the NZTA issued 66 revocation notices; in the last six months alone, they have handed out 20, including to Semenoff Logging. Last month, they revoked the licences of two Southland operators, Clutha Transport and McDowall Rural Services.

Read more:

* Semenoff Logging wins reprieve

* Whangarei-based logging trucks ordered off the road over safety concerns

Meredith Connell managing partner Steve Haszard is leading the NZTA compliance action.

The NZTA action came after Transport Minister Phil Twyford said the agency had failed in its duties as regulator, and the agency appointed lawyers Meredith Connell to address their compliance backlog.

'We think the downstream effect alone of our business being shut down is probably going to affect another 1,000 jobs in the north,' said Semenoff Logging general manager Daron Turner. 'The infrastructure is stretched anyway so if the service isn't there, the wood doesn't move. We move about $87million of logs a year - that $87m isn't going to get to market.

The Road Transport Forum's Nick Leggett.

'That's just one company - now there's another 120 the NZTA is threatening to revoke the licences of, and that will cripple this country's economy. Product will not be able to be moved.'

Turner said he knew of two other trucking firms in Northland alone which faced revocation notices. 'I can't believe that people can't see the implications that this is going to have on the country. I can't believe it's not been on the front pages. We are just one of many.'

Zane Cleaver, director of logging firm Pango, said Semenoff Logging trucked 40,000 tonnes of logs a month from his Northland forestry operations, and without them his business would suffer because there were no obvious alternatives: 'It simply wouldn't be a matter of us ringing us someone else in the event of these guys getting shut down.'

Nick Leggett, chief executive of the Road Transport Forum, said the industry was seeing a huge increase in audits and action. He said the NZTA was responding to a 'decade of inattention and lack of resourcing' and while safety was the priority, he was worried about the dial shifting too far.

He said a range of changes by NZTA, including the increased revocation notices, 'put the spotlight on how important the road transport industry is to the economy, and if you take out significant businesses, there will be an economic impact'.

'But at the same time there has been an under-emphasis by the regulator for the last decade, and this is playing catch-up.'

After an investigation into an operator, NZTA can enforce remedial action - such as training courses - can suspend a company until conditions are met or it can revoke its licence. It has to notify the company of its plan and give reasons and allow 21 days for the company to make submissions before a final decision.

The 114 notices to revoke or suspend are in addition to the 20 revocations already issued, which NZTA said it had followed through with, and informed police of. NZTA didn't say how many of those 114 were small or single operators, and how many were large companies.

The NZTA said it wasn't appropriate to respond directly to Turner's claims while the court case was proceeding, and pointed back to its statement on March 19 when the Semenoff revocation was announced.

This said, 'as with every revocation we enforce, we know this will have an impact on people employed by the company, and that is why we have made every effort to extensively engage with Mr Semenoff to avoid getting to this point'.

Semenoffs dispute that - and indeed almost everything they have been charged with. Stan's son Alex, a director of the business, said they refuted every one of the NZTA's allegations and were confident of success on appeal.