Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand

“Almost all OECD countries and all industries are experiencing labour force shortages; they will get worse and immigration won’t fix the problem.” This was the blunt message delivered to the road transport industry at last year’s Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand Conference by Director of Predictive Performance and recruitment expert, Andy Foy.

Every transport business that has had to recruit drivers in recent times knows how true Andy’s statement is, which is why we, as an industry, need to invest more to grow our own drivers and solve our long-term workforce issues. 

It is widely acknowledged that the Government’s reluctance to loosen immigratio...

The Road Ahead Conference held at the end of September was not only the first conference for our members since 2019 but also marked the one-year anniversary of the merger of RTANZ into the Road Transport Forum to form Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand. 

Unfortunately, National Road Carriers and the NZ Trucking Association (OCANZ) decided that the desire to form one management structure to advocate on behalf of the industry was not for them and went in their own direction. Despite this there has been considerable progress in the past year to rationalise and make better use of our resources and provide better advocacy and support for our members.

Th...

Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand members will by now be familiar with Cameron Bagrie’s style of economic analysis. Bagrie is a trusted voice amongst the endless noise of economic and political commentators, which is why over a number of years we have trusted him to provide sound advice to our industry. 

At the recent Road Ahead Conference in Invercargill Bagrie provided some typically hard-headed analysis of the state of the economy, where it is heading and the type of environment our businesses will be operating in. 

After a long period of market resilience, the old laws of economics are back in play, he told the Conference. If you print a ...

Firstly, I want to further reflect on the nationwide operator survey we undertook back in June and the encouraging signs of our industry’s increasing competitiveness in the labour market.

Eighty per cent of the 400 operators who responded had increased pay for their drivers over the last year with more than half having increased wages by at least 6%. The median hourly wage for our industry has moved from around $26 per hour from in March 2020 to over $31 per hour in 2022. There has also been a threefold increase in professional drivers being paid between $33 and $40 per hour.

Transporting New Zealand has shared our survey results publicly because we see it as an important ...

We are delighted the Government has heeded the call from Transporting New Zealand to extend fuel tax discounts and the reduction in road user charges (RUC) until early next year. It’s a good win and it shows our association is a proven and effective voice for our industry. 

In recent weeks we had written to the minister and spoken with officials and media about the need to extend the RUC discount. Our recent survey showed that 96% of the industry supported our move to secure the extension, and over 40% of transport businesses said that their costs would be eased by the continuation of the road user charge discount. 

Road transport is massively impacted by the cos...