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ARTICLE · 01 MARCH 2016

Changes to Chain of Responsibility laws in 2016

Holding Redlich
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CoR will be remodelled in 2016, to better align with national safety laws, improve compliance and simplify enforcement.

AustraliaTransport
Geoff Farnsworth
Geoff Farnsworth
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Chain of Responsibility (CoR) was introduced in 2005, and substantially amended in 2012 with the introduction of the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL). It is due to be extensively remodelled again in 2016 to "better align with national safety laws, improve compliance and simplify enforcement". So what changes can you expect and what impact are they likely to have?

The concept of Primary Duties

Existing obligations will be reformulated as 'primary duties'. Each CoR party under the HVNL will now have a primary duty of care to ensure, so far as 'reasonably practicable', the safety of road transport operations.

Under this formulation, what is considered reasonably practicable will be key. Given the stated intention is to align CoR with the Work Health and Safety Act (WHS Act), we can expect 'reasonably practicable' to be defined in similar terms to the WHS Act, which states:

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