More proposed adjustments for one state ahead of new national heavy vehicle regulations, this time seeing New South Wales grant an extra half hour of work time amidst a new fatigue management regime.

The New South Wales government has reportedly given up some ground on work hours in a change to the Heavy Vehicle (Adoption of National Law) Amendment Bill made yesterday before the Legislative Assembly. The NSW Government granted the move to bring it in line with other states.

At the moment NSW limits work time to 15 hours for trucking firms under the advanced fatigue management (AFM) system. The AFM will be scrapped when the NHVR is up and running, replaced by a new risk-based assessment.

Under the new system drivers could work for 15.5 hours in a 24 hour period. The governments of Victoria, Queensland and South Australia have already agreed to the time limit, the new amendment in NSW removes reference to the specific 15 hour allowance.

“This means that a driver would, for the first time, under tightly controlled circumstances, be able to work 15.5 hours in a 24-hour period. This is an increase of half an hour compared to what is currently in place in NSW,” Parliamentary Secretary for Transport and Roads Stuart Ayres says.

New South Wales will retain some say though, including a stipulation in the amendment to allow the state’s roads minister to impose extra fatigue-management conditions if it feels it is appropriate.

“It is expected that the NSW minister would only exercise his ability to apply additional conditions in those circumstances when an accreditation approved by the national regulator is considered to be inappropriate or unsafe,” MP Jai Rowell said in Parliament.

The roads minister said the plan would go ahead, but reviews would be conducted with the door always open to further adjustment: “The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator will conduct a post-implementation surveillance review of the risk classification schemes at 12, 24 and 36 month intervals following its implementation,” Mr Ayres said,

“Once the evaluation of the new approach is complete and it has been demonstrated that it effectively manages fatigue, the removal of the NSW minister’s ability to apply conditions will be considered.”

Queensland has led the way on adopting the NHVR, national regulation will begin to be enforced from October 1.