LRTAQ president Gerard Johnson opening the national conference in Toowoomba this morning.

WHETHER it is a decent feed at the roadhouse, a place to dump effluent or a bridge big enough to handle the weight of an extremely heavy electric truck, livestock transporters have called for foresight at the industry’s national conference today.

Some of the shiniest livestock trucks and trailers in the country descended on the Goods Shed in the transport hub of Toowoomba, for the combined Australian Livestock Transporters Association and Livestock and Rural Transporters Association of Queensland conference.

A growing legislative pressure to manage effluent load on trucks and targets to significantly reduce emissions in the next decade were two of the persistent topics through a series of panel discussions – which led to calls for the public and private sectors to show foresight in decisions about infrastructure.

Poor road conditions across the country also featured heavily in discussions.

In opening the conference, Toowoomba Regional Council incumbent mayor Geoff McDonald said the council had been lobbying the Government to back up regulations with infrastructure.

“If the Government is going to legislate effluent disposal then they need to fund the infrastructure to do it,” Mr McDonald said.

“To accommodate for electrification of trucks, we need an increase in carrying capacity to take heavier trucks.”

Animal welfare was another major of discussion in the panels, with ALRTA driver and animal welfare committee chair Graeme Hoare giving a rundown of a plan to industry is putting together to demonstrate a standard for transporting livestock.

Mr Hoare said looking after drivers was the number one priority.

“We need to protect our drivers loading and unloading and association has done good work in that with our standards for loading ramps and forcing yards,” he said.

“The other big issue we are finding is that you can’t get a decent feed anywhere, all our roadhouses are fast food chains now. A lot of the drivers are now cooking a feed on the side of the road and that is a big change.”

• Beef Central will have more from the conference

Photos from the event

Blake Daley and Trent Reck from Rytrans with Gary Nofke from JBS (middle).

Jack Johnson from Smedley’s Engineers, with Sam Gwynne from Byrne Trailers and David Clarke from Smedley’s.

Mick Taylor from Cummins and Lachlan Ross from Shelleys Transport.