This is the second of three Transport Minutes drawing on Aka Raupapa, the inaugural Freight & Supply Chain Superhui at the University of Waikato on 1-2 July. Last week I wrote about our changing workforce. 

This week: how Australia already solved the strategy problem we are still wheel spinning about. 

On the panel, Samantha Leighton, Head of Government and Industry Affairs at the Australian Logistics Council (ALC), walked us through something New Zealand does not yet have: a genuine, government-endorsed National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy.

It didn’t happen by accident. The ALC spent years building the case, convincing government that freight deserved the same strategic status as energy or health. 

Here’s what makes it work. The Strategy is built on shared, multimodal data that is captured, standardised and published through a National Freight Data Hub the ALC pushed to establish. That data doesn’t just sit in a report. It drives intermodal planning and tells government where to invest – not only in roads and rail, but in inland ports, seaports and warehousing, treated as one connected system rather than competing silos. 

Good data also provides the evidence base needed to hold decision-makers to account. 

New Zealand has just stood up its own Freight Advisory Council – chief executives across road, rail, maritime and air, sitting alongside government – perfectly placed to do exactly what Australia has done. We do not need to invent our own version from scratch. Lift the Australian model, and drop it here. Steal with pride from our cousins across the Tasman, rather than sweating years reinventing a wheel they have already built. 

And if anyone doubts the urgency, here is a great quote on the importance of “system coherence” from an ALC submission to Australia’s Productivity Commission this year: 

“Freight productivity is often framed in terms of modal efficiency or infrastructure utilisation. This framing is incomplete.

Freight operates as an integrated system in which road freight, freight rail, ports, aviation freight, and warehousing are interdependent. Productivity is therefore not determined by the performance of individual assets in isolation, but by system coherence across interfaces, regulatory frameworks, and operational handoffs. This explains a persistent feature of the Australian freight system: significant investment in corridor infrastructure does not consistently translate into system-wide productivity gain.” 

Read that again and swap “Australian” for “New Zealand.” It could have been written about us. We have the evidence, we have the model, and now we have the Freight Advisory Council to act on it. 

Let’s not waste the opportunity.

Justin Tighe-Umbers, Chief Executive, National Road Carriers Assn