New fit to drive duty sails through parliament without changes

Major amendments to the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), including the controversial fit to drive duty, were passed in the Queensland Parliament this week without changes.

As host jurisdiction, Queensland must first pass HVNL amendments before they can be applied by other participating jurisdictions. The updated law is expected to commence in mid-2026.

Just 11 submissions were made during the month-long inquiry period for the Heavy Vehicle National Law Amendment Bill 2025 that also included a public hearing in Brisbane on October 1 and in Cairns a week later.

In its 13-page submission, the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) said it was disappointed with the extended length of the review that stretched back to 2018 and also included a campaign with Big Rigs a year later that reached more than 188,000 people and received 119 pieces of constructive feedback via its SMS, email and Facebook platforms.

The ATA, however, said it recommended the Bill be passed, although stipulated that the process of reviewing the HVNL should not end with the current legislation.

“The review process was not able to finalise important changes to the law; there will always be legislative maintenance and minor policy issues to address,” the ATA said in its submission to the State Development, Infrastructure and Works Committee.

“Governments should agree to a systematic process for reviewing and updating the HVNL, with a package of amendments to be introduced into the Queensland Parliament every two years.”

The ATA also recommended that the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator’s (NHVR) offence revenue be allocated to road safety education and awareness.

In the NHVR’s submission, CEO Nicole Rosie said the regulator considers that the introduction of a driver duty not to “drive if unfit” is a key improvement in addressing the importance of shared responsibility in the heavy vehicle road transport task.

“The duty encourages drivers to manage their health and fitness and empowers them to cease driving if they are unfit to continue for any reason,” Rosie said.

“Likewise, it requires that supply chain parties must ensure their business practices do not cause or encourage the driver to drive whilst fatigued or unfit.”

According to the Bill’s explanatory notes, the existing duty to not drive a fatigue-regulated heavy vehicle while impaired by fatigue will be combined with a new duty to be ‘fit to drive’, which will “enhance public safety”.

“The Bill’s amendments place obligations on drivers to take a proactive and preventative approach to managing their health and fitness as they have a shared responsibility with operators to ensure they are fit to drive.

“The duty is designed to empower drivers to stop driving if their health or fitness impacts their ability to drive a heavy vehicle safely at any point in time.”

The amendments define ‘unfit to drive’ alongside the existing definition of ‘impaired by fatigue’ and prescribes the matters a court may consider when deciding if a person was fatigued or impaired by fatigue.

But there doesn’t appear to be any definitive guidelines on how that is to be measured and many drivers are concerned about increased powers police and NHVR officers will have to pull drivers from the road and the increased fines that could result, up from $6000 to $20,000.

According to the Amendment Bill,  when deciding whether the driver of a heavy vehicle was fatigued or unfit to drive, a court may consider the following:

• what is commonly understood as being fatigued or unfit to drive;
• the causes of fatigue or being unfit to drive;
• the signs of fatigue or being unfit to drive;
• any relevant body of knowledge;
• any other matter prescribed by the national regulations.

High profile interstate truckie Rod Hannifey is concerned that the tougher new duty appears to vastly widen the scope of what being fit to drive entails.

“Who decides whether I’m fit to drive? That’s what I want to know,” said a frustrated Hannifey.

“The NTC’s [National Transport Commission] answer to that was it won’t be until you go to court. But where does that leave us?

“It’s like standing on the edge of a chasm, and what happens when someone pushes you?”

In its submission, NatRoad also raised concerns about the fit to drive duty and the ambiguity in the duty’s wording.

The association said caution must be advised to ensure that drivers must not be unfairly disadvantaged should they deem themselves unfit to drive, resulting in punitive action by an employer.

“This should be a consideration in the development of the SMS standards,” NatRoad said.

Other key HVNL review reforms include:

• An enhanced accreditation framework to improve safety that requires operators to have a Safety Management System and that broadens the types of accreditations that the NHVR may grant.

• Improved enforcement arrangements that remove regulatory red tape, particularly for fatigue management record keeping and the issue of notices.

• Amended penalty amounts which deliver proportionate outcomes without reducing deterrence or increasing road safety risk.

• Shifting prescriptive detail and offences into regulations to simplify the law and allow for more flexible risk-based obligations to improve productivity, including for permits and authorisations.