Transporting New Zealand submitted on three pieces of law and policy this week and it is important that our industry is heard by Government.

It’s starting to feel like we are on a rudderless ship, drifting further and further away from the rest of the world.

We aren’t the only business sector asking for a plan.

In Britain this week we’ve watched mayhem at the petrol pumps as they ran out of fuel due to a shortage of truck drivers. Watch and learn New Zealand, this could be us before long. There are a number of lessons to learn from the situation in Britain.

Elimination as the strategy for fighting against Covid-19 came to an end in New Zealand this week.

It is true that you can’t please all the people, all the time. What has become difficult in this time of so many communications channels, is that the people you don’t please can come at you like an angry mob via email, text, phone call and social media.

Let’s be very clear – the road freight transport industry has no problem with Covid-19 testing to ensure we keep New Zealanders safe. We are one of the most compliant industries around and well used to operating in strict health and safety environments.

Insurance is supposed to be the backstop in times of trouble and disaster; the guarantee you won’t lose your shirt.

But what if Government actions, or lack thereof, put your insurance at risk, leaving you with potentially business destroying liability?

That’s the situation some trucking operators are now in as Covid-19 restrictions bite.

I’ve lingered long and hard over the topic of this week’s blog.

The growing public murmurings have led me to say what I’m feeling, and I know many others are feeling it too. Elimination is over as a strategy for containing Covid-19 in New Zealand now that we have experienced the Delta strain.

With New Zealand’s woefully low vaccination rate, the arrival of the Delta strain of Covid-19 was always going to be a problem.

It came, not via the Trans-Tasman bubble, but as it has come other times, with an apparent breach at the border.

Given the inevitably of it happening, you would have expected there was a plan on the Government’s shelves, all ready to go. We certainly aren’t seeing evidence of that.

Quite a lot of what the Road Transport Forum (RTF) does for the industry is behind the scenes around the corridors of power in Wellington.

Inflation, and with it, living costs and wages, are on their way up. This is not good news and many who weren’t around in the 1970s and 1980s, when inflation rates peaked above 12 percent, have no experience in dealing with this economic hit.

Another week, another major weather event, a new lot of significant State Highway road damage and communities cut off as a result.

This time, the top of the South Island and parts of the West Coast got hammered by rainfall that closed mountain passes, roads connecting West Coast towns, Blenheim to Nelson, and Picton to anywhere. We’ve seen the clean-up in will take months and many dollars.