Coalition’s truck bias hurts trade: rail chief

The chief executive of Pacific National says the government’s bias for trucks is hurting our global trade competitiveness.

Pacific National chief executive Dean Dalla Valle says the government has not modernised regulations for rail. Picture: Norm Oorloff

The chief executive of Australia’s largest rail freight operator has accused the Morrison government of giving preferential treatment to the truck industry, saying the nat­ion’s trading competitiveness was being hampered by onerous regulations on the rail sector.

Pacific National chief executive Dean Dalla Valle said the government had eased regulations on truck drivers — including allowing bigger vehicles on the road — at the behest of the truck lobby but had not modernised the regu­lations for rail.

Mr Dalla Valle, a former BHP Billiton executive, said this was causing a market failure where trucks were transporting goods that would be more efficiently ­carried by locomotives.

“Australia is a very large continent with a small population density, except for capital cities, so the movement of goods and products efficiently is going to directly impact our global competitiveness,” he told The Australian.

“All Australians should be worried about that because we have a very privileged standard of living.

“Moving our goods and products around the country efficiently is critical for us … particularly when you have low populations and big distances to travel.”

His appeal comes after Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack launched a review into truck laws to improve safety and “productivity delivery”. The rail sector expects the review to reduce regulations in the truck industry.

Mr Della Valle said state and federal regulations of the rail sector needed to be streamlined and refashioned to allow for productivity initiatives.