Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand

Unless you were purposely ignoring the news over the summer holiday period, which can be a pretty sensible thing to do, you will be aware of some negative publicity that came the road transport industry's way in relation to a piece of research into the health and wellbeing of truck drivers.
The AUT research (which formed the basis of a PhD thesis) and the media interest that it generated focused heavily on drivers' working conditions, unreasonable expectations placed on some drivers resulting in breaches of the worktime rules and high levels of stress and fatigue.
The research and subsequent media coverage highlighted the absolute worst examples of driver exploitation, whi...

The Ministry of Transport's review of the New Zealand Transport Agency's performance of its regulatory functions and its compliance failings is a timely reminder that regulation is an absolutely pointless exercise without the appropriate resources dedicated to enforcement.
The whole integrity of the road transport system – not just the rules around heavy vehicles – relies on having a regulator that is focused on making sure that vehicles, their assessors, and vehicle operators are compliant.
Otherwise, it's like having a game of rugby without the referee. Sure, some of the obvious infringements will still get picked up by the touch judge, but players will quickly...

The Road Transport Forum is pleased that its advocacy in opposition to late payment terms has helped to convince the Government – resulting in the release of a discussion paper on the issue.
"RTF has lobbied Government ministers, ever since they took office in 2017, to find a legislative solution to protect small business against late payment terms," says Forum chief executive Nick Leggett.
Late payment terms, or unilateral deferred payments as they're often called, are typically used by large companies to extend invoice payment times out to two or three months, in order to exploit small suppliers as a cheap source of finance.
This has a major impact on many smal...

When Ken Shirley was first elected to Parliament in 1984, replacing former Prime Minister Bill Rowling in the Tasman seat, he said he couldn't fill Rowling's shoes….but he would try to follow in his footsteps.
The boot is now on my foot – so to speak – as I replace Ken as chief executive of the Road Transport Forum. Ken is synonymous with the RTF in the minds of many and so to immediately step into his shoes would be a very big task.
However, I do wish to follow in his footsteps – and, while I will be different to Ken in many ways, like him, I have a deep appreciation for the road transport industry and the critical role it plays in the New Zealand...

Most people outside the tech sector have never heard of the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The reality however is that he could well become one of the most influential names of the 21st Century.
Nakamoto is credited as the inventor of cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which through its implementation is also the invention of the transaction ledger process called blockchain.
Interestingly, Satoshi Nakamoto is a completely fictitious person. He is merely a pseudonym for an anonymous person or group that in 2009 developed Bitcoin.
While the value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin has become extremely volatile in recent times, the blockchain process at their heart is threatening to complet...