The long-awaited Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) Amendment Bill 2025 has landed in Queensland Parliament after a six-year review process that promised reform but has ultimately delivered incremental amendments. Among the Bill’s most notable features is the introduction of a Safety Management System (SMS) Standard — a framework designed to embed proactive safety practices across the road transport industry.
While the intent is sound, NatRoad warns the SMS must be practical, scalable, and developed in genuine consultation with operators to lift safety outcomes without unfairly disadvantaging smaller businesses.
When the HVNL review began in 2018, expectations for genuine reform were high, and industry groups, including NatRoad, invested heavily in consultations. The terms of reference promised a risk-based fatigue system, improved accreditation frameworks, and a greater use of technology to reduce red tape. The Productivity Commission itself had called for legislation to adopt an outcomes-focused approach, arguing prescriptive compliance adds cost without improving safety.
In 2022, Ken Kanovski was engaged by the Infrastructure Transport Ministers Meeting to conduct extensive industry consultation to produce an independent report outlining recommended changes to the law. The report findings particularly focused on a more flexible and outcome-focused regulatory framework, making changes to the Performance Based Standards (PBS) scheme and addressing compliance issues. Despite Ministers endorsing the findings of the report, the 2025 Bill delivers only piecemeal amendments. For many operators, fatigue and mass management will remain complex, access decisions are still plagued by red tape, and the promised productivity uplift is yet to materialise.
One of the most notable amendments included in the Bill is the transition of prescriptive legislative requirements into regulations, which should make it easier to progress future amendments.
This amendment resulted in the introduction of the SMS Standard. The Standard is currently under development by the Regulator and NatRoad has been firm in calls for the SMS to be developed in close consultation with industry.
The SMS concept is based on the following pillars:
Risk identification and control. Operators must have systems to identify, assess, and manage risks, from fatigue to vehicle maintenance.
Shared responsibility. Drivers are required to proactively assess their own fitness for duty, aligning with the new “fit to drive” duty.
Continuous improvement: Operators should collect and analyse data to refine their safety practices over time.
In theory, this approach mirrors best practice in other high-risk industries such as mining and aviation, shifting the focus from reactive enforcement to proactive prevention.
NatRoad supports the concept of SMS in principle, however, once again warns the benefits must outweigh the risks. We need to avoid the experience we’ve had with accreditation schemes of the past, which often imposed heavy audit costs without apparent safety gains.
The SMS must be scalable and proportional to business operations, keeping in mind many of the 50,000-plus transport operators in Australia are small, family-run businesses.
Further, the SMS must be integrated with the proposed Alternate Compliance Framework, currently under development by the Regulator. Fatigue, mass, and maintenance risks should all be managed proportionately under this umbrella, giving operators flexibility while ensuring risks are controlled.
Equally, the SMS must be aligned with efforts to reduce red tape in enforcement and access. For example, operators adopting robust SMS practices need to see tangible benefits, such as reduced inspection frequency or streamlined access approvals. NatRoad has long advocated the need to remove 80% of access permits.
Without these incentives, the SMS risks being viewed as another compliance burden rather than a pathway to safer and more productive operations.
The introduction of the SMS could be a turning point, embedding a proactive safety culture across road transport — but only if designed in close partnership with industry, scaled to fit businesses of all sizes, and supported by incentives that reward compliance.
For now, operators and drivers are watching closely. The question is whether the SMS will deliver safer roads and fairer compliance, or whether it will become another layer of paperwork in an already heavily regulated industry.
*Warren Clark is CEO of the National Road Transport Association.
