The NHVR officers run the ruler over the big load during the recent intercept. Images: Doolan's Heavy Haulage Legendary Victorian operator Warwick Doolan is calling for urgent reforms to the oversize, overmass permit system, warning it’s strangling the sector and causing costly ripple effects all the way through the supply chain. Doolan’s Heavy Haulage has a fleet of nearly 80 big rigs working out of depots in Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania on some of Australia’s biggest and priciest infrastructure projects. But Doolan, 77, is at his wit’s end over the red tape constantly putting the brakes on his operation’s ability to deliver the massive loads to clients on time. Doolan said the final straw came on May 16, when one of his trucks was intercepted on Melbourne’s Dingley Bypass by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) for an alleged breach of an “ambiguous” height provision and a second one for an alleged length breach. The combined total of the two resulting fines could be as high as $99,850, with the first court date on the matter scheduled for October 1. The combination in question was made up of a prime mover and four-axle low-loader carting a machine from the Port of Melbourne in a flat rack container. Doolan said the intercepted combination was assessed at 4.52 metres high, well within the gazetted allowable height of 5 metres with a length of 20.47 metres. With the Class 3 (Miscellaneous) Permit, the load could have travelled down the same OSOM-approved route 30 metres long, 5 metres high and 5 metres wide. Yet because the load didn’t have the right paperwork – a state requirement for freight being transported on a flat rack container – Doolan’s is alleged to have made “severe” and “substantial” risk breaches. [caption id="attachment_107192" align="alignnone" width="510"] Doolan’s has been safely carrying loads like this for 37 years.[/caption] “The exact same freight can and does move along this exact route under a Class 3 permit, so if Doolan’s Heavy Haulage had obtained a Class 3 permit, there is zero risk?” asked the company’s frustrated WA-based Operations Manager, Mike Dunbar. “There cannot be risk without a piece of paper and zero risk with one. If the same machine wasn’t on a flat rack, you wouldn’t even need the additional permit, you were covered under your Class 1. “The ludicrous thing is that generic transport operators are pulling these things off the wharf on a drop deck and overloading because they don’t need any permit to do that.” Dunbar believes the reason the Class 3 Permit on this occasion wasn’t obtained was simply due to the enormous time pressures operators are under. “It could and often does take 28 days to acquire the permit,” Dunbar said. “Meantime, the importer is paying for that sitting on the wharf. “It’s a ludicrous scenario. We’ve had scenarios where it’s taken longer to get the permit than it is to ship [the freight] from overseas.” A discouraged Warwick Doolan vividly remembers being “in the room” when the Heavy Vehicle National Law was introduced a decade ago, with the NHVR promising a one-stop-shop to expedite the processing of permits. But more than 10 years on, Doolan said the exact opposite is now true. “I’ve had a gutful of it,” said Doolan, an inductee into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame in 2010. “I just don’t want to operate in this sort of area when you have these sorts of restraints. There’s got to be some sort of leeway. “You shouldn’t have to work in a grey area to make a living, it’s just a shambles.” Doolan said if he is ordered to pay the fines for the alleged May breaches, that’s at least a $1 million worth of work he needs to do to pay the bill, based on a 10 per cent margin. “Right now, the industry is so tough, you’re probably getting three or four per cent; we’re almost back like general carriers but with more expensive equipment to maintain.” Doolan said the Dingley Bypass incident is not an isolated one in terms of the red tape that’s choking the sector. “All the biggest operators are experiencing exactly the same thing,” Dunbar added. WA-based Dunbar said the WA permit system should be adopted nationwide. “We can get a permit over here within 24 hours, sometimes 36 hours. It’s very unusual if we go more than 48. “Anything to do with the NHVR you can be 28 days, 60 days, or 90 days. We’ve had people from Western Australia that I’ve been associated that have tried to move stuff from Queensland across the top to mining operations in Western Australia. “We got the permit for the Western Australia leg within 36 hours, and it was 90 days before we got the permit from NHVR.” Dunbar said the NHVR has not delivered on what it promised the heavy haulage sector in terms of a streamlined approval system – the exact opposite now exists. “It’s a very complicated, messy, multi-tiered, multi-level bureaucracy that cannot deliver on what I believe its charter would be to improve the service to the oversize, overmass industry.” To further illustrate just how tangled the web of red tape has become, Dunbar cites the example of an upcoming contract Doolan’s has to move a number of beams from China from the ship’s hook, which vary in weight up to 90 tonne. They first take them to a lay-down area off-site, before moving them to an install position over a two-year period. “To give you an example of how ludicrous it is, NHVR can’t keep up with the volume of permit applications they receive. “So, we went back and said, ‘why could we not obtain a permit for the largest envelope that we require’, which I have to tell you happens in the Northern Territory and WA, then we get approval to move anything within that envelope. “And they have said no, you need to make individual applications. So, hundreds of applications will be made to move items that would come underneath, within the parameters set on the maximum one. “So, on one hand they’re saying we can’t keep up, and then on the next they’re saying no, we won’t look at it logically. You’ve got to do 90 permit applications, and when we put those in there’s no guarantee we’ll get them back in time to move them down the road.” Dunbar said the permit headaches increase ten-fold if you’re crossing state lines. “Heading up to Brisbane area and coming back down, that’s a disaster, that’s a nightmare. “If you’re coming from Victoria, you’ve got to tick the box in New South Wales and tick the box in Queensland, and then along the journey there’s also local government they now feed into that can also hold it up. “So, it’s a very tough space to play in and it’s certainly not the message that was delivered when the HVNL and NHVR was set up. “It’s affecting mental health; there are people bailing out.” [caption id="attachment_107233" align="alignnone" width="693"] The DTP said it is cutting costs and red tape for heavy haulage operators such as Doolan’s.[/caption] Gary ‘Doc’ Dockrey, now 73 and retired after more than 40 years in the heavy haulage industry, which included driving, knows all too well the detrimental impacts the permit system can have. For years he was passionate about his role as an operations manager, which included a three-year stint at Doolan’s, among many other major heavy haulage players. When VicRoads was calling the shots in the state, he’d get permit approvals back in two hours – the slowest might be two or three days from South Australia, or Queensland. “When the NHVR came in, I thought, ‘you beauty, a one-stop shop for a permit’, but was not the case, and it’s still not the case after all these years.” After years of battling incessant delays, sometimes up to three months for some jobs, Doc didn’t realise the huge toll it was taking on his mental health. He’d often clock off only to come home and still be trying to untangle what council he’d have to call up to get the paperwork for the third-party approvals. Doc, who was still working at 69 for another heavy haulage operator, remembers the morning when it all got too much. “It was around 6.30am and one of the operations guys said something to me and it was nothing to do with permits and I just flipped, I lost it. “I loved that job, but I handed the keys to the boss and said I’d had enough. “I knew after three or four weeks when I’d settled down that it was the permits that had got through to me. “I never went to the quack – I’m old school – but I reckon I must have had a mental breakdown.” Doc, who drove locally for a couple of years after that to get himself back on track, says he’d still be in the heavy haulage game if it wasn’t for the permit system. Big Rigs sent a series of questions to the NHVR about the Dingley Bypass incident and the OSOM permit system in general. But the regulator instead directed our line of inquiries to the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) in Victoria. A DTP spokesperson said the department is cutting costs and red tape for operators. “From January 1, 2026, structural bridge assessment fees will be removed ahead of launching our automated assessment permit system,” the spokesperson said. “While we prepare for the system’s launch, our teams are continuing to process permit applications as quickly as possible.” DTP said it supports the gazettal of the transport of flat racks on platform trailers and has been working with the NHVR to implement this gazette. [signup] The post Heavy haulage legend calls for urgent permit reform appeared first on Big Rigs.