It has been a busy, challenging year most recently culminating in our Executive Director, Roz Chivers leaving the organisation in early December to be able to focus on her family. We’d like to extend Roz all the best for the future and thank her wholeheartedly for her years of contribution to BIC and the greater industry.
At the same time, we bid farewell to long-time friend of the industry and National Industrial Relations Manager, Ian Macdonald. Thanks for all of your years of service and support, Macca.
Meanwile… the governmental wheels continue to turn slowly, occasionally bumping up against a pothole, at other times copping a flat. We’ve even arrived at our destination a few times. The BIC Council and Secretariat have most definitely been kicking those wheels on behalf of the industry as required.
Case in point, take the issue of chassis approvals under the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018 (RVSA). Chassis are considered components (like headlights or seats) despite their complexity. The new Act removes the ability to vary existing chassis approvals when new Australian Design Rules (ADRs) are introduced, requiring new component type approvals for every chassis combination. This results in extended lead times for vehicle approval, and increased finance and resource impacts on industry, currently gauged at over $1 million yearly.
Extensive departmental collaboration established practical workarounds to policy framework constraints, significantly reducing impact to industry. This will be the key focus of our submission to the RVSA review in 2025.
Our technical efforts, often strategic and with other peak bodies, extended to new ADR concerns (did you know that there were an unprecedented 12 new or updated ADRs this year?), always ensuring practical and pragmatic resolutions in the best interests of bus and coach, with safety at the helm.
We’ve taken a leadership role in the inter-governmental bus safety working group (established in the wake of Greta) to remove anomalies and alleviate operator uncertainties around ADR 68 – seat belts. We’re also working towards inconsistent driver safety screen mandate resolutions, with current ADRs challenging ADR compliance interpretations.
Once again, industry was left to do the government’s heavy lifting to guarantee driver and passenger safety.
And it’s this highly recognised technical expertise and collaborative work that saw us addressing the United Nations at a regulations workshop on how Australia mitigates the risk of children left in vehicles.
We continue to support the transition to low- and zero-emissions: Two ZEB advisories were released featuring vehicle operations and maintenance, and fixed systems and infrastructure, plus Driving Towards Zero Emissions which informs our talks with government and submission to the Commonwealth’s Transport and Infrastructure Net Zero Roadmap. Despite strong advocacy and grand gesticulations by government, there’s still lacklustre leadership on the transition to zero and green refuelling challenges.
Our input into the Commonwealth’s Transport and Infrastructure Net Zero Roadmap reflected our submissions to the Commonwealth’s draft National Urban Policy. We emphasised the importance of mode shift to achieve zero emissions and create better cities, highlighting the fact that buses are the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to improve surface transport. A relatively small investment by transport standards, buses can deliver significant benefits with overall cost of new services coming in 70 to 80 percent lower than rail. Yet, we know that only 2.6% of transport capital expenditure went to bus between 2019 and 2027 in NSW, despite carrying more than 40% of passengers. Other states are similar, and we are amping up our drive to improve bus travel funding.
We reinvigorated our Industry in Crisis campaign, which addresses multiple supplier challenges. Core to this is understanding the procurement pipeline and national consistency defining and measuring local content. The establishment of a Bus Working Group was a pleasing development, and we look forward to seeing the outcome of the Infrastructure and Transport Senior Officials Group’s efforts.
Industry in crisis is not constrained to suppliers, however. Operator contractual arrangements are no longer appropriate and devoid of daily operating realities. A BIC Council priority in 2025 is determining what a fair contract looks like, how to address performance (are there alternatives to abatements?), and if contracts are fit for purpose for transitioning fleets.
These contract issues were identified in the joint BIC and APTIA Recruitment and Retention Project. The research – exposing the structural problems negatively impacting bus and coach, its image and culture – were outlined in the Policy Manifesto which addresses these failings via a series of all-level recommendations. The accompanying Workplace Culture Toolkit and Operator Guidelines offers interventions to improve workplace culture and, by proxy, recruitment and retention rates.
Not only has the Secretariat added to its specialist ranks this year, but has produced (and continues to produce) multiple government submissions, represented industry in even more political forums, and participated in numerous roundtables. Overall, we continue to engage in big impact reforms, such as the National Heavy Vehicle Law, the Disability Standard for Accessible Public Transport, heavy vehicle licensing and fitness to drive. Plus, we also implemented the final recommendation in the 2021 Independent Review into Bus Industry Representation.
2024 was a VERY big year. We wish all of our members the very best for the holiday season and a prosperous new year.
Roll-on 2025…
Tony ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins
BIC Council Chair
