Heavy Vehicle National Law Regulatory Impact Statement

Background

The HVNL, administered by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR), is a set of provisions designed for heavy vehicles in Australia that exceed 4.5 tonnes in gross vehicle mass. The HVNL has been adopted across multiple jurisdictions in Australia, including Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia.

While the HVNL has improved road safety and laid the foundation for a streamlined national system for heavy vehicles, it has faced criticism for being overly prescriptive, inflexible, and complex. A review of the HVNL led by the National Transport Commission (NTC) and subsequent consultation processes also identified a series of foundational changes to the HVNL that are critical for the law to accommodate the current and future needs of Australia’s heavy vehicle industry.

Our role

As part of the HVNL review and reform program, NineSquared was engaged by the NTC to develop a Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement (C-RIS) and Decision Regulatory Impact Statement (D-RIS) to help inform three key policy changes to the new HVNL. Changes to the law were considered under fatigue management, vehicle access and in relation to the NHVAS accreditation scheme.

NineSquared delivered both a C-RIS followed by a final D-RIS, involving:

• Confirmation and articulation of the problem to be solved
• Quantitative and qualitative analysis of identified options to determine the potential impact of changes.
• Review and consolidation of feedback provided by over stakeholders in over 47 submissions into a concise set of themes and issues raised.
• Drafting of complete C-RIS and D-RIS documents to Office of Impact Analysis (OIA) standard.

Results

The package of legislation and core regulations as recommended in the RIS was presented to ministers at the Infrastructure and Transport Ministers’ Meeting (ITMM) in June 2024. Ministers agreed to changes including updates to fatigue record-keeping and enforcement, an increase to general mass limits, and the introduction of a new National Auditing Standard.

The RIS is published on the NTC website, here.

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