Hi all,
As I have returned back to the real world, I think things will deteriorate from here on as the new charges and regulations start to bite.

On reflection of the shutdown I believe it was a demonstration of an industry divided by those who couldn’t afford to shutdown, those who were bullied into not shutting down and those who did shutdown, how we overcome the negatives here I’m not sure.

The actual shutdown on the Monday was a resounding success with over 75% of trucks off the road, and those of you who stayed the course can be rightfully proud of your contribution as I am of you all, I know the good people in this industry are worth their weight in gold and worth fighting for, and I will continue to do that.

From here we need to separate from the transport associations that abandoned us in our time of need and indeed attacked us on the very essence of what we were fighting for, there will be some major fallout for these associations and they deserve all they get.

I will be instrumental in building a new grass roots freighter’s association that will guarantee industry representation first and foremost; parallel to that we will build a fighting fund to challenge Government in future on constitutional grounds.

I will be appointing a working committee to establish the association and we will be registering the new entity as well as building a new website.

The challenge I put out now is to build a membership of Five thousand plus and that will make us the ‘Peak Industry Group’, membership fees will be kept to a minimum and will be determined by the ‘working group’. We will most likely fund the association through sponsorship from all sectors of community.

I will use this site to keep you all informed of our progress, keep checking it.

Drive Safely

Mick Pattel