Asia-Pacific

New truck sales figures broke records in Australia last year but, what goes up must come down. Expert analysts are worried that 2018 may have been a peak and that a decline in new sales is on the way. The Truck Industry Council reveals which brands of trucks sold best in Australia last year in each of the heavy duty, medium duty and light duty trucks along with the light duty vans. (Photo: Mitsubishi-Fuso).

Coming back for more: unsatisfied with having drenched the very far northern tip of Australia, ex-Tropical Cyclone Penny has done a U-Turn in the Coral Sea and is heading back to Queensland. Trucking operations are likely to be hampered by rain, strong winds and local flooding. (Graphic: Bureau of Meteorology and MetEye).

Although it’s early in 2019, there has already been a major restructure of Australia’s byzantine freight-related governmental advisory sector. Ownership of Transport Certification Australia has now transferred – by order of one of the nation’s top transport decision-making bodies – to Austroads.

Australian trucking continues to prove fatally dangerous to drivers with a death rate in Australian road transport nearly six times greater than the national industrial average.

China announced wide-sweeping changes to its import and export tariffs over the Christmas break; Australia-based expert China-watchers are divided as to Beijing’s motivations and what it might mean for Australia. Photo: Shutterstock.

Redstar Transport, a large long-distance and heavy-freight trucking business, collapsed in Australia after running out of cash just days before Christmas. Hundreds of people have been thrown out of work. Cargo has been returned to the depot. And the liquidation of Redstar may have wider consequences than is first apparent.

After a series of high-profile scandals involving the dumping of asbestos-containing waste on Sydney streets, the local authorities have welcomed a series of guilty pleas and court-imposed jail time on offenders. Meanwhile, the authorities have increased the value of fines and lengthened jail sentences for transport-related asbestos crimes.

Australia’s state and federal governments are together investing billions of dollars in much needed road infrastructure. “We need to invest in transport infrastructure and we require integrated solutions. That’s the guts of it,” say local experts.

Trucking operations around the east coast of Australia are being hampered as two separate weather systems bring widespread disruption to roads up and down the eastern part of Australia from Far Northern Queensland all the way down to Melbourne on the south coast – that’s 1,921 miles of bad weather.