Mega-rich trucking tycoons fined $1378 after using F-pass to cross border
A Sydney father-and-son duo who run Australia’s largest privately-owned container logistics company have been slapped with $1378 penalties for failing to comply with a COVID-19 public health direction after they attended a family funeral in Brisbane.
QLD Coronavirus News
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD Coronavirus News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Two of Australia’s richest businessmen have been fined after allegedly using their border passes – which Queensland Health specifies are for freight workers such as truck drivers and logistics operators – to attend the Brisbane funeral of a close relative.
Sydney-based tycoons Terry Tzaneros and son Arthur Tzaneros, who run Australia’s largest privately owned container logistics company ACFS, each have been slapped with a $1378 penalty for failing to comply with a COVID-19 public health direction.
The pair, whose F-passes were approved within days of their mother and grandmother Barbara Tzaneros dying on September 11, attended her funeral on September 17 at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Dormition of Our Lady, Mt Gravatt.
They then laid Mrs Tzaneros, 93, to rest in a family plot at Mt Gravatt Cemetery before adjourning to Belvedere restaurant at Portside Wharf, Hamilton, for lunch with other mourners.
These included Terry Tzaneros’s brother Steve, also a multi-millionaire logistics operator who lives in a waterfront mansion in Raby Bay, Cleveland.
Queensland Health stipulates F-pass holders from interstate must not engage in “recreational activities, including going to visit friends or family”.
A spokesman for the Queensland Police Service, which issues and monitors border passes on behalf of the government, confirmed this week both men had been fined.
But the spokesman refused to answer questions about the decision in the first place to grant F-passes to Terry and Arthur Tzaneros, chairman and managing director respectively of the powerful company they founded in 2005.
According to freight protocol, approved by the Chief Health Officer and published on the Queensland Health website, F-passes apply to “heavy vehicle drivers, rail crew and rail drivers, passenger transport operations, non-heavy vehicle commercial freight operators, logistics and support workers, and any other persons essential to the delivery of freight in the course of the freight movement.
“Essential persons may include, but are not limited to, two-up drivers, a pilot or escort for an oversized or over mass vehicle, or tow truck driver for heavy vehicle salvage.”
The protocol states essential persons must be “providing logistics and support for the transport which requires the person to be physically present in Queensland to provide the logistics or support.”
It also states non-Queensland freight and logistics operators must “only remain in Queensland for the time necessary to complete the essential activity and have no or minimal close contact with the Queensland community, including at truck rest stops, roadhouses, manned border crossings, depots”.
ACFS is one of the largest movers of consumer goods, employing 1200 people and operating from six locations across Australia, including the Port of Brisbane.
In October 2020 the Brisbane site was where Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced she was calling the state election, touting Labor’s focus on economic recovery and flanked by Treasurer Cameron Dick.
In August 2021, ACFS expanded its Brisbane base, acquiring IPS Logistics Group.
Terry Tzaneros also made headlines this year when it was revealed he and wife Anne were the new owners of one of Sydney’s most expensive houses.
The couple paid $38 million in April for a Point Piper waterfront mansion, one of only three residences in the exclusive Wingadal Place, alongside the $100 million+ property of Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond and the $60 million pad of stock trader “Andy” Wenlei Song.
When contacted about the F-pass breach, family spokesman Michael Tzaneros said “the issue has been sorted with the police”.
He said it “just so happened” that his father and brother were in Brisbane at the time of the funeral, and his brother had been regularly flying into Queensland from NSW to “bed down” the IPS acquisition.
“Arthur regularly travels to Brisbane as the managing director and CEO of ACFS Port Logistics who (sic) is an essential services provider to some of the largest food retailers, FMCG products and other essential items that have been in huge demand during this period of the pandemic,” Mr Tzaneros said.
He said his brother had returned a negative PCR test within 72 hours of travel (as required by Queensland Health) on September 13 and 21, ahead of his F passes being issued on September 14 (expiry September 28) and again on September 20 (expiry October 4).
“Terry Tzaneros, also fully vaccinated, has followed the same process in regards to information provided to Queensland police at the airport and on request in addition to PCR testing pre-entry to QLD, but his dates may vary to Arthur.”
The family declined to make any further comment.
Bleijie confirms LNP will ‘consider’ ditching $3.2m in Covid fines
The government will consider waiving $3.2m worth of outstanding Covid fines, Acting Premier Jarrod Bleijie has revealed.
Australian-first dual vaccine to win over the hesitant, compromised
A combined Covid-19 and influenza vaccine is being trialled in Queensland in the hope it will protect people who otherwise cannot have, or are hesitant about, another type.