Does the new road transport law apply to my small courier business in Victoria?

The situation

I run a small independent courier service based in Melbourne, Victoria, and I have been operating as a sole trader for about three years now. Since the start of this month, I have been hearing a lot of chatter at the local depot about new minimum standards being introduced for the road transport industry. My business mainly involves delivering heavy parcels for large retail chains, and I operate my own van. Last Tuesday, I spoke with my main client, a large logistics firm, and they mentioned that I might need to comply with some new industry-wide rules or orders regarding how I work and how I am categorised as a contractor. I have spent the last few days looking through some government websites, but I am struggling to find a clear list that tells me exactly which types of transport businesses or specific kinds of delivery work are actually included in these new regulations. I am worried that I might be working under the wrong set of rules or that my specific type of courier work isn't even covered by these new standards. Can someone tell me how to figure out if my specific business class and my type of contract work are officially covered by these new road transport minimum standards?

Detailed Analysis

Whether your Melbourne-based courier service is covered by the new rules depends entirely on how the Fair Work Commission (FWC) has written the specific 'road transport minimum standards order'^[2].

Under the law, a minimum standards order is a set of rules created by the FWC to regulate certain workers or businesses. For these rules to apply to you, the order must explicitly include your business or your type of work. The law requires that a road transport minimum standards order must include "terms setting out in accordance with this section: (a) the work in the road transport industry covered... (b) the regulated road transport contractors covered... and (c) the road transport businesses covered"^[1]. This means the order cannot be vague; it must define exactly which businesses and which types of work are included^[1].

Specifically, the order must be "expressed to cover: (a) specified road transport businesses; and (b) specified regulated road transport contractors"^[1]. The law allows the government to group businesses into "specified class or specified classes"^[1]. These classes can be described by a specific industry, a sector, or even "particular kinds of work"^[1].

Because you operate as a sole trader delivering heavy parcels in a van, you need to see if 'courier services' or 'parcel delivery' falls into the specific 'class' of work defined in the order. If the order is written to cover 'heavy vehicle transport' but excludes 'light courier vans,' you might not be covered. Currently, the provided sections do not list the specific classes of work included in the new order, so it is impossible to say for certain if your van-based delivery service is included without seeing the text of the order itself.

Statutory Citations

Related Questions

• Can I still be charged for a visa mistake I made four years ago in Victoria?
• Will my local court case still be valid if the federal rules change halfway through?
• Will my pending migration agent application be affected by the new rules starting next month?
• Will the new higher fines apply to my business if the mistake happened last year?
• Can I ask for more time to reply to my visa request in Victoria?