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.

Despite what you hear at the Government’s daily public relations press conferences, getting the Covid-19 vaccine in New Zealand is a bit like throwing the little ball into the roulette wheel at the casino – it’s a game of chance.

My luck came in on the weekend when I got a call to say the local vaccination centre had 1,000 doses of the vaccine and only 500 people had turned up; so, 500 vaccines were going spare.

Covid-19 has taught businesses the world over the need for an open mind and agility.

If we are looking for an upside of the virus that has crippled the world for a year and a half, it is that employers have become much more aware of the health and hopes of their employees.

Some employers have adjusted well, while others are trying to fight the tide and go “back to the way things were”.

It has been a busy couple of weeks for the Road Transport Forum (RTF) as we work to keep up with the Government’s short consultation timeframes on major changes that will impact the road freight transport industry.

Even though we are a small organisation, we believe it is essential to keep up our democratic right to have a say on law, rule, regulation and policy changes that impact road freight operators.

Roads are the lifeblood of the economy. Trucks move 93 percent of New Zealand’s freight around New Zealand roads – goods for export, imports from wharves, and all the things that people need daily.

So, it is a concern to us that Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency is cutting its share of the local road maintenance programme, and that the Government is taking another look at the New Zealand Upgrade Programme.

On your bike, says this Government to New Zealanders.

Whether it’s the billion-dollar bike bridge across the harbour in Auckland (let’s face it, it will be over budget, or more likely, never delivered) announced last week, or the Climate Change Commission’s (CCC) roadmap released this week, the message from the State is clear: you will get out of your car and walk, bike, or use public transport.