You can’t get blood out of a stone, so the driver in our lives tells us, yet the industry and society (or customer(s)) seem to expect it.
Generally, the working population can achieve at minimum a 3 per cent CPI wage increase per annum. For transport drivers, that simply doesn’t happen due to the hypocrisies of the Award system.
Common sense tells us that when you change jobs you go to a better paying one, so then in turn the household budget is still manageable and there are no increased stresses on income.
However, the increased cost of living does put added stresses on our budgets and without any increase in income, and in some instances decreased rates, that is a given.
As of April 6, 2025, there have been 535 insolvencies recorded for the transport industry in this year alone.
How many of that 535 use the ‘phoenix’ system to reinvent themselves. It could change that number significantly but who knows?
In May 2025, articles in Big Rigs and sister publication OwnerDriver referred to the secondhand truck sales dropping by as much as up to 70 per cent. To buy a new car, the immediate depreciation is 10-15 per cent, you wouldn’t buy one if it was 70 per cent… that’s ludicrous!
Other challenges currently impacting the industry include:
High operating costs
Interest rate pressures
Stricter government regulations, which are further squeezing margins and increasing operational difficulties
Poor economic situation for Australia means customers are squeezing harder than ever for reduced rates – including through internet bidding wars
Increased insurance rates
Ignorant newcomers that don’t know the real cost of doing business and therefore undercut thinking they only need to cover their costs for the trip (fuel and tolls but not include any funds for wages, administration, insurance, maintenance, repairs, damages and other “cost of doing business” such as customers not paying or not paying on time)
Payroll and compliance (or lack thereof)
Over enforcement for petty and/or administrative errors
ODs/Small business not being paid promptly or at all.
A recent post by Blake M – Paramount Freightlines on LinkedIn interested the BNH as it was a pretty good observation of one of the industry’s current pitfalls:
“Sure, reporting a monthly freight saving to the board might tick a KPI box. But what happens when:
• Your customer receives damaged goods?
• Your brand ends up associated with an incident on the road?
• You have no idea where your freight was or who touched it?
That’s more than a freight bill. That’s a reputation cost, a risk cost, and ultimately a business cost.
You Have a Choice
Choosing the right freight partner should never be just about price.
• It’s about accountability.
• It’s about safe, compliant operations.
• And it’s about protecting your brand from shortcuts and carelessness.
Make the choice that supports your long-term goals not just your short-term incentive targets.”
Another quote attributed to Blake M, Paramount Freightlines on LinkedIn:
“Cost increases, rate reduction, and competing against companies not towing the line with payroll and compliance.
Yet here we are, major’s customers allowing it or allowing brokers with no equipment to cut the guts out of the rate and getting bottom feeder transport companies doing it!“
It’s like a BNH choosing a long-term partner with the same/similar goals rather than just looking for the immediate gratification. Long-term partnerships must build trust and have an equitable relationship to work out.
Funny, well not really, how difficult it can be to sustain a relationship when the bank balance is going backwards, very much like the trucking business. If the customer is always dictating, the transport business is the one that is going to fall over.
Undercutting is rife within the industry, apart from the use of the magical, ‘return load’ malarky. The word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious comes to mind. Both terms are made up but have become used so much that they are now recognised as if they really have meaning.
When you have an expectation set by a customer/allocator that it is quite ok and sustainable for your business to offer $1200 one way, $900 ‘return load Bris/Syd/Bris’, it’s possibly business suicide.
This has become acceptable by larger logistics companies who allocate the work and become the price makers. The rest of the industry then become the price takers. Problem with this is that one business’s main freight is south bound, while another business’s main freight is north bound.
The customers then pick the cheapest freight option for each direction, which brings down the overall price any one business can economically sustain.
Do industry associations care? Especially about O/Ds in this circumstance of return loads, or is this part of their ‘productivity’ drive? Certainly, some of the broader industry appear to think it’s ok as it still continues.
Every time we do an opinion piece we seem to ask if the Australian Trucking Association and member associations do really care about the drivers themselves rather than what their ivory tower desires are. Think we know the answer and it’s all in the name of “safety” and their “productivity”.
All the pressures that an owner-driver/small business operator has to cope with are very much like a silent partner in the adverse. You have ATO pressures, especially with all the new changes they have made, their expectations and where they are looking for blood this financial year.
Then we have the pressures of the double-edged sword commonly referred to as regulations. While appearing to add safety and a level playing field it can also complicate the business. 2025, transport companies will navigate a minefield of requirements under compliance, from environmental standards to workplace safety laws and road access restrictions.
How much will it cost an O/D or small business to stay on top of the ever-changing regulations? How much time, money, and expertise will be demanded from them to sustain their business? It proves that the system and its processes need to be streamlined and clearer than the current UBD that needs to be followed.
The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR), state enforcement authorities and the operators are never on the same page, not at the coal face at least.
How hard was it, for example, for the states/territory police, relevant road transport authority and NHVR all to agree on their cuts of the pie before it was handed over to the NHVR, only to have the police still run their own heavy vehicle operations?
People wonder why they can’t get decent bums on seats. Well, most drivers don’t have to.
Often, we hear ‘training, training, training’ is the answer. The old-fashioned way worked well, but alas since we are driven more by insurance companies and underwriters in today’s climate we can’t work or rather, they won’t let us work that way anymore.
Have any of the BNHs tried to get insurance for their car lately – OMG and the price variations. There’s no chance for the truckies without increasing prices to cover the insurance.
Then we have the ‘fly by night’ companies owned by non-industry people i.e. accountants looking for a tax dodge from their primary company, who have no care on who or what they undercut.
Senator Glenn Sterle spent a lot of his time spearheading the recent government Senate inquiry on the transport industry and its conundrums. A successful senate enquiry. Then he’s not appointed head of that portfolio. See people don’t like truckies – it’s a reality.
What’s happened with the Senators recommendations? Not much, more’s the shame, but at least we had a few million thrown at parking bays. Like that’s going to fix the problem. Not Senator Sterle’s fault, at least he has tried, and continues to try.
It’s hard when the current climate seems to be productivity versus sustainability when in fact it should be and is paraded as, productivity engaged to sustainability.
The big businesses, like Don Watson’s, Scott’s Refrigeration, Avro, were all clambering over the top of each other to sustain their businesses. These ones couldn’t.
Productivity brings along a whole new element of issues, sorry requirements, especially in the name of safety. These don’t run cheap, and the costs are not added into the charges for freight. They can’t be, you’ll lose the contract no matter how long or how good your transport company is.
There are a lot who have been with the same company as subbies for many years. They do their job properly, they don’t turn down work, they also don’t break the rules, they are reliable AND they have an agreement, verbal or written, to manage rate increases six-monthly, 12-monthly or whatever is agreed. Unfortunately, there are many more that don’t do this.
I’m starting to think that BNH might have to start op-shopping, or should BNH start donating more to the Salvation Army for when our doors close so there is more emergency accommodation for us all?
Just the way customers are op-shopping for transport companies who have no ‘salvation’ to fall back on.
Bored Neurotic Housewives are a passionate group of truckies’ wives and partners doing their bit to lobby for positive changes in the industry.
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The post Insolvency in the trucking industry: also known as ‘blood from a stone’ appeared first on Big Rigs.