Justin's Transport Minute

Justin's Transport Minute

26 April 2024

This week I joined operators and representatives from industry , government and global organisations at the opening of two Hydrogen refuelling stations in Auckland.

Justin's Transport Minute

19 April 2024

This week I met with Minister for Infrastructure, the Hon. Chris Bishop at the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. Two hot topics came up:

How can we build infrastructure faster?
How do we protect projects from stopping and starting on political whims, and just get it built?

Before going to the meeting, I heard the Minister for Regional Development, Hon. Shane Jones, on the radio refer to our “constipation” when it comes to building infrastructure. Eloquent as ever, but not wrong. So what is Minister Bishop looking to do to unblock the infrastructure pipe?

Justin's Transport Minute

12 April 2024

Last Sunday, a quiet afternoon resting with the family after a busy morning at the school fair, my phone lit up with TVNZ wanting comment on the closure of the immigration pathway for truck drivers.

What closure I asked?

Turns out that we, along with the rest of industry, were blind-sided by the Minister of Immigration announcing that the special immigration status for class 4 and 5 truck and bus drivers was revoked with immediate effect

Justin's Transport Minute

05 April 2024

Following on from the “Big Picture” issues that I ran through in the last Transport Minute, today I’d like to give a flavour of how the team at NRC are helping out our members at the grass roots level. It never ceases to amaze me the breadth of issues that our team helps members with on a daily basis, and I thought I’d run through some of these as it highlights the range of challenges we can assist with.

Justin's Transport Minute

22 March 2024

Another week where daily a new major transport story hits the headlines. So much is happening that you’ll have to forgive me – my column is probably more accurately called Justin’s Transport Five Minutes this week.

Justin's Transport Minute

15 March 2024

This week I’ve spent an energy boosting couple of days in Christchurch attending our hugely successful Teletrac Navman Technology, Maintenance and Safety Conference & Exhibition at Te Pae. With over 600 attendees including 130 students, 36 speakers, a strong contingent from Australia, and the media in tow – it was a fantastic event to be at.

Justin's Transport Minute

08 March 2024

Times up on the first hundred days of the coalition government comes today, so what’s the score card for the road transport industry?

Let’s do a quick survey of what’s across the line so far.

Justin's Transport Minute

23 February 2024

At midnight on Monday, a nine-week closure of the country’s main national highway arterial begins. This length of closure of a main arterial between two major centres would be unthinkable in any other modern economy, but here we are.

Justin's Transport Minute

16 February 2024

As I do the rounds with officials in Wellington, one refreshing new trend that is taking off is talking about productivity and efficiency. I’ve heard these two words more there in the first 6 weeks of the year than over the last 6 years.

Justin's Transport Minute

09 February 2024

Yesterday Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister of Transport Simeon Brown announced the end of the regional fuel tax in Auckland.

NRC welcomed this announcement

Justin's Transport Minute

02 February 2024

Welcome to the first Justin’s Transport Minute for 2024. While my holidays felt like they passed in one hot minute, spending time with my wife and three boys in the beautiful Bay of Islands did wonders for recharging the batteries. I hope you managed to get some precious down time with loved ones too.

Justin's Transport Minute

08 December 2023

This week at NRC we’ve made further ground preparing for the upcoming closure of State Highway 1 in the Brynderwyns. Paula Rogers our Northland Commercial Transport Specialist,

Justin's Transport Minute

24 November 2023

This week I’ve had the pleasure of visiting our NRC members in Northland, staring with our Taipa event last night. While I always enjoy meeting with our members,

Justin's Transport Minute

17 November 2023

The big news this week has been the recommended two-month closure of State Highway 1 in the Byrnderwyn hills, the main arterial road between Auckland and Whangarei.

Justin's Transport Minute

10 November 2023

November has arrived, and that means the NRC team is heading to beautiful Northland for our annual member meetings.

This year we will be at Taipa on

Justin's Transport Minute

03 November 2023

Today the country has been waiting for the announcement on the make up of our future government. Some seats may swing, the power-balance may shift a little between coalition partners, but the outcome is already clear – New Zealand has voted for change.

Justin's Transport Minute

27 October 2023

One topic that frequently comes up when I’m visiting members is how hard it is to get HPMV permits in anything like a reasonable timeframe.

Justin's Transport Minute

13 October 2023

One of the great things I love about NRC is the passion our members have for the industry, and the people that work in it. A great example happened this week. Paula Rogers, one of our Commercial Transport Specialists received a call from a concerned member who could see an unsafe steel girder load being transported on the motorway.

Justin's Transport Minute

06 October 2023

Justins Transport Minute

“Driving down the expressway, the number of trucks on the road have halved – she’s getting light out there”.

Justin's Transport Minute

22 September 2023

Another busy week for NRC with plenty of exciting initiatives underway for our members. The team have been busy signing up lots of new members. It’s really pleasing

Justin's Transport Minute

15 September 2023

Yesterday I had the privilege of presenting at the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders (CBAFF) conference in Wellington, along with NRC board member Pamela Bonney.

Justin's Transport Minute

01 September 2023

This week some of the NRC board and I took a road trip (admittedly by air for some of us) to the mighty Taranaki to meet with members at the Plymouth Hotel. Chairman John Baillie, and board members Glen MacKay and Pamela Bonney joined me on a panel discussion where we discussed all things NRC.

Justin's Transport Minute

25 August 2023

Here at NRC we are always busy everyday representing your interests, and I wanted to share with you some of the ways we are working so that both your views are heard, and also so that you stay informed. It is a two way road, after all.

Firstly, next in line for our successful webinar series is Heavy Vehicle Permitting Changes. Riccardo Areosa, Programme Manager-Permits at Waka Kotahi will be joining NRC to talk through and answer any questions on suggested changes to the vehicle permitting system.

Justin's Transport Minute

18 August 2023

Another flurry of political activity this week on the transport front…anyone would think there’s an election coming.

Yesterday, the government announced a transport “Government Policy Statement” (GPS) out for consultation. With less than 60 days to the election, the danger is many will consider the GPS a dead rubber, as they say in sport. In its simplest form, the government’s transport policy amounted to $20b of spend on roading, public transport, and yes, cycleways. The sting in the tail is that it will be paid for by fuel excise duty going up 12c a litre. And as we know, where FED goes, RUC goes.

Justin's Transport Minute

11 August 2023

Another busy week with the gun having been fired on election season, even before parliament has finished and the MPs left the building. This week I enjoyed a fascinating conversation with the ACT Party’s transport spokesman Simon Court, on their transport and infrastructure policies. Talking with Simon it was clear he has a deep understanding of the road transport sector and how it has been failed over the last decade in roading and policies.

Justin's Transport Minute

04 August 2023

Roading as an election issue? Why it’s not necessarily great news…

In many ways having road transport front and centre of the election is exactly where we don’t want to be. The reason roading is an election issue is because the network is failing, and everyone has had enough. NRC members have been pointing this out over the last 30 years until they were blue in the face. Finally, now that the deterioration is impossible to hide, everyone else has caught up.

Justin's Transport Minute

28 July 2023

This week Ian, Paula, James Smith and I headed to Hamilton to attend the EROAD Fleet Day at the Claudelands Event Centre.

It was a really worthwhile trip, over 800 attendees and an interesting programme of presentations split out in relevance between heavy and light fleets. Naturally, there was a lot of attention on the next generation of electric, electric-fuel cell and hydrogen trucks – which I took the opportunity to familiarise myself with.

Justin's Transport Minute

21 July 2023

It’s hard to know how to appropriately address the terrible incident that occurred in Auckland’s CBD yesterday, but I think I speak for the entire team when I say our thoughts are with all of those affected.

The beginning of the week was stark contrast to the end with NRC throwing our support behind the National Party’s pledge to repair potholes within 24 hours and rehabilitate at least two per cent of road surfaces each year.

Justin's Transport Minute

07 July 2023

Afternoon,

This week I was called by a producer on Seven Sharp asking if I wanted to come on to talk about the harbour bridge closures. There had been media earlier in the week that Waka Kotahi were being too risk averse

Justin's Transport Minute

30 June 2023

TRANSPORT MINUTE

I really enjoyed the opportunity on Friday to have a chat with our members and partners over a beer at the AGM, thanks to all of those who attended what was a very successful event.

Some members couldn’t get there in person so, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share the top themes of the evening.

Our strategy is simple invest in our organization.....

Justin's Transport Minute

23 June 2023

Another week of NZ politics that was so surreal I’m not sure what the right adjective is to describe it.

In amongst the endless media fascination of who said what to whom, our former Minister of Immigration, Minister Wood made a quiet but important announcement for the transport industry. You can be forgiven for missing it.

Justin's Transport Minute

16 June 2023

This week there have been a number of roading achievements worth celebrating. All state highways in Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti are now open following completion of the Hikuwai Bailey bridge restoring access for residents in Tokomaru Bay, Waipiro Bay, Te Puia Springs and communities all along SH35 to Gisborne. This work is on the back of the re-opening of the Waikare Gorge Bailey bridge on State Highway 2 last month, reconnecting Wairoa and Napier.

Justin's Transport Minute

02 June 2023

This week Treasury has warned that both FED and RUC will need to be increased in order to manage pressures on the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF), and the need to service the $2 billion Waka Kotahi loan.

On Wednesday, I spoke to Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB about what this means. In a nutshell, I said New Zealand needs to recognise the contribution a functioning road network makes to our economy, and the road funding model needs to reflect this.

Justin's Transport Minute

18 May 2023

While this year’s Budget addresses the urgent need to respond to the devastation caused by the recent weather events it does not address the long-term funding deficit caused by decades of under-investment in New Zealand’s roading network.

As a country we don’t have the luxury of focusing on the nice to haves. If the recent cyclone and flooding has shown us one thing it’s how we urgently need to get the basics right. In terms of roading we need to focus on the three R’s – Resilience, Rebuild and Restorative maintenance.

Justin's Transport Minute

12 May 2023

Yet again it’s been another week where mother nature has flexed her power with torrential rain causing havoc across Northland, Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty. A tornado hit Taranaki and the rain continued to march South ensuring Nelson, Tasman, Marlborough and the West Coast were all left sodden. I continue to be amazed at how well transport operates weather these relentless challenges – but it takes its toll.

Justin's Transport Minute

05 May 2023

This week kicked off with our submission on the much needed second Waitematā Harbour Crossing, which promises to be the largest single infrastructure project in the country. This is much more than just another expensive Auckland project, fixing the current State Highway 1 arterial constraint will deliver transport benefits from Northland to the lower-North Island and beyond.

Justin's Transport Minute

28 April 2023

It’s been a busy week on the political front with some positive announcements for the transport sector.

First up, Wednesday’s announcement from the Minister of Immigration and Transport Hon Michael Wood that the transport sector will be eligible for work to residence visas from 29 September 2023 is being universally welcomed across the industry. This change is a direct result of ongoing conversations by NRC, Bus & Coach, Waste Associations and NZ Shipping Federation with the Minister to highlight the urgent immigration changes needed to enable the sector to attract and keep much needed workers.

Justin's Transport Minute

21 April 2023

This week we’re seeing some significant signs that the economic slowdown is definitely hitting home. Two major construction companies, Scarbro Construction and AH Construction have sadly gone into receivership, joining 183 other construction companies hitting the wall since August.

Justin's Transport Minute

14 April 2023

Yet another week where potholes and road cones were the talk of the town.

Tuesday morning I jumped on Newstalk ZB to talk with Tim Dower about Waka Kotahi’s announcement that they fixed 54,000 potholes over the last year. Less a badge of honour and more a testimony to the state of our roads, it was further evidence of what NRC members have been saying all along – our roads are falling apart.

Justin's Transport Minute

06 April 2023

As most of the country heads into Easter looking forward to a break, I know many members will continue doing the hard yards to make sure Kiwi homes are well stocked with hot cross buns and chocolate bunnies. Many of you may not get much of a break but I do hope you at least get a bit of downtime to relax and regroup before tackling into the busy winter months ahead.

There’s been a bit going on behind the scenes at NRC. Following on from our investment in the business and communications strategy we are now ramping up our marketing capability. Over the last couple of weeks, we have welcomed two new members to the team to sharpen up our marketing capabilities.

Justin's Transport Minute

31 March 2023

It’s been a big week in terms of road re-opening announcements following Cyclone Gabrielle. SH5 Napier to Taupō is now open 24/7 after a mammoth effort by road crews to make the road safe for night-time travel. Hot on the heels of this announcement is the welcome news that SH1 Brynderwyn Hills re-opened in both directions at 9am today, for the first time since Cyclone Gabrielle struck last month. A major relief for transport operators who have been forced to take lengthy diversions via Dargaville. Knowing this critical piece of roading infrastructure has re-opened gives Northland operators a much-needed morale boost.

Justin's Transport Minute

24 March 2023

This week saw us have a great working session with WorkSafe who told us that in their view the commercial transport industry has not been doing a great job of telling a cohesive story about how important we are to the fabric of the country – and how the major challenges faced by the industry are placing the economy’s supply chain capacity at risk.

Justin's Transport Minute

17 March 2023

They say a week is a long time in politics. This week’s “bonfire of the priorities”, as the latest jettisoning of unachievable policy goals has been called, shows the truth of this age-old adage.

Common sense has prevailed, even if its hand was forced by mother nature.

Justin's Transport Minute

10 March 2023

Late last month the NRC Transport & Logistics Advisory Group had its first meeting of 2023 and top of the agenda was industry response to the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle. Having Simon Bridges chairing the Advisory Group gave us a head start, with his insights as the former Minister of Transport bringing a unique perspective on how to get government to set the rebuilding and resilience of our critical highways as the number one priority.

Justin's Transport Minute

03 March 2023

This week got off to a flying start with our announcement that NRC has formalised our working relationship with NZ Trucking Association (NTA). We’ve been working together since 1988 and have delivered some great collaborations for members including the Trucking Industry Summit, Trucking Industry Show and HARMfree Transport.

Justin's Transport Minute

24 February 2023

Nearly two weeks on following cyclone Gabrielle, the adrenaline of the event is wearing off and reality is starting to set in.

For those in the trucking industry, that reality is ranging from “I’ve just lost my entire yard, 30 vehicles and life’s work” through to dealing with major detours on delivery runs.

Justin's Transport Minute

17 February 2023

Around the country we are all catching up with the enormity of what we are seeing unfold in Hawke’s Bay and East Cape, on top of the already extensively damaged Northland, Auckland and Coromandel regions. Watching the news last night was a heart-breaking affair, seeing how the lives of our fellow kiwis have been upended.

Justin's Transport Minute

10 February 2023

With all too frequent regularity a large part of New Zealand’s trucking community finds itself preparing for yet another spell of road closures and disruption.

Justin's Transport Minute

03 February 2023

RUC should be left for building roads, not political capital

Confusion reigned this week for RUC purchasers, when a few short hours after the discount was removed at midnight on January 31, the new Prime Minister announced it would be re-introduced until June 30.

Justin's Transport Minute

27 January 2023

Happy New Year, and for those members in the Auckland region – happy anniversary weekend!

After a well earned break the team at the NRC offices have been off to a busy start signing up new members, taking lots of support calls for existing members, and even shifting furniture round the office just to mix it up.

Justin's Transport Minute

16 December 2022

Sitting down to write Justin’s Transport Minute today it’s hard to believe it is the last one for the year already. And if you think you missed last week’s, you didn’t. Unfortunately I brought back an unwelcome present with me from my last trip to Wellington for the year - Covid

Justin's Transport Minute

02 December 2022

We’ve all managed to take a bit of a breath after a hugely successful TMC Trucking Industry Show which saw nearly 40,000 people check out what was on offer on Saturday – pretty much double what we had anticipated. And a really fantastic result for the industry - well done to NZ Trucking Assn for running such a great event.

Justin's Transport Minute

25 November 2022

This week’s TMC Trucking Industry Show promised to be a ‘complete trucking festival’ and boy did it deliver. I’m writing this on day one of the Show, and I have to say it looks like tomorrow is shaping up to be even bigger day which is awesome.

Justin's Transport Minute

11 November 2022

With COP27 filling the headlines this week, my thoughts naturally turn to what this means for New Zealand’s road transport sector.

Justin's Transport Minute

04 November 2022

This week’s member road trip saw me head to the sunny North! I started my trip by continuing my tour of our ports, followed by member briefings and one-to-ones with operators.

Justin's Transport Minute

28 October 2022

Over the last week I’ve managed to visit both the Ports of Tauranga and Auckland. In Tauranga I spent time with Manager Terminal Operations, Grant Wilson and the team, who gave me insight into how critical expansion of the wharves will be to allowing the Port of Tauranga to grow and meet the future needs of the community over the next 30 years. It was impressive to see up close the efficiency of the trucking operation at the container terminal, and how well transport operators and the Port work together.

Justin's Transport Minute

21 October 2022

This week we launched our new partnership initiative ‘Snap Send Solve’. Speaking to members over the last couple of months the number one concern I’ve heard is the state of our roads, and that the number of potholes and other serious hazards have sharply increased, putting road users at risk.

We felt it was important to act urgently on this issue as road safety is critical. NRC met with the team at Snap Send Solve who have a really easy to use mobile phone app where you can post problems on the roads direct to your local council. Snap Send Solve provides one central location for issues to be recorded and councils to be alerted so they can take immediate action. They can send reports to every single council and roading authority in New Zealand.

Justin's Transport Minute

14 October 2022

This week, New Zealand almost unanimously voted for change in the country’s local body elections with new mayors elected in many of our major cities and a sharp tilt to the political right being felt across the board. With many councils welcoming a number of new councillors, many who may be unfamiliar with the transport industry, our priority now is to make sure we are connecting with the relevant transport infrastructure sub-committee’s or transport leads in each council. While they work through this period of change, our focus is on offering assistance on the key transport issues and ensuring they know who to reach out to at NRC.

Justin's Transport Minute

07 October 2022

Another week of some extreme weather across the country, which means more high-profile road damage and potholes to be fixed. NRC members in Northland are all too familiar with this. State Highway 1 has nearly 40km closed in the Mangamukas, and there are serious questions whether some parts will ever be rebuilt. Down the road the Brynderwyns are down to one lane, causing over one hour waits.

Justin's Transport Minute

23 September 2022

This week I have a couple of thoughts to share.

Accident on the Auckland Harbour Bridge illustrates need for greater resilience in our road network. Sunday’s accident on the Harbour Bridge acts as a reminder that we are often only one incident away from entire communities being cut off. Strengthening the resilience of our roading infrastructure needs to be given far more focus that it is currently.

Justin's Transport Minute

16 September 2022

Another busy week for the team here at NRC.

Reshaping streets MOT initiative - we’ve sent through our submission on the MOT’s Reshaping Streets consultation, you may have seen James’ e-mail earlier this week.

Justin's Transport Minute

02 September 2022

This week had a couple of clear stand outs…

Firstly, I was lucky enough to spend some time on the road with National Road Carrier’s Chair John Baillie, who introduced me to a range of operators around Auckland.

Justin's Transport Minute

09 September 2022

This week I’m getting seriously close to being able to count my time at NRC in months versus weeks – the last four weeks have flown by with a crash course on roading issues, a whirlwind of member meet and greets, industry leading announcements (HARMfree Transport) and this week we ticked off our first Transport and Logistics Advisory Group meeting chaired by Simon Bridges.

Justin's Transport Minute

26 August 2022

Well, two weeks in and I am feeling very welcomed by the NRC Team, our industry partners and members. It’s a huge industry to get to grips with, but an exciting one with loads of opportunities and challenges.