The adage is that desperate times call for desperate measures. But often, a considered approach will likely yield a better longer-term result. Then there’s the middle ground when a hint at what might happen keeps all parties firmly focused and ensures everyone’s interests are considered. Displaying your war chest, or even demonstrating it, is how the world superpowers have operated and maintained relative peace since the end of WWII.

Hard on the heels of the recent infrastructure cutbacks, the government’s response to an illegal protest took the form of a brand new billion-dollar bike bridge for Auckland. In the wake of those jewels, I fielded several calls from irate truck operators and drivers wanting to reinvigorate the idea of blockades.

Before I comment on that, I have to say I’m not sure why I got those calls. I’m acutely aware I’ve been vocal about political abuse levelled at the road transport industry, resulting in a less than appropriate response from a muddled representation. But they are the avenues of industry representation nonetheless. Any strategy to counter or respond to the Beehive’s contempt for road transport needs to be channelled via those mechanisms. If the membership of any association is dissatisfied, they should signal the need for change, and effect it appropriately. It’s the reason places like Gettysburg were strewn with bodies – the preservation of democratic choice.

Having cleared that up, once again I need to be clear. The best resolutions are always the result of both parties understanding each other’s needs and reaching a point of mutual satisfaction. Democracy means you’re unlikely to leave the negotiation table elated by the outcome; that’s just the nature of respecting and accommodating opposing views. If you weren’t opposed in some way, you wouldn’t be negotiating to start with. And look on the bright side, if we didn’t have compromise, innovation would suffer immeasurably.

However, sad as it may be, negotiation is most effective when both parties clearly understand the size of the Rottweiler tied to each other’s clothesline.

As reliant on trucking as the nation is, our industry’s issues have found the ear of a contemptuous unsupportive administration for some time now. We are long overdue when it comes to delivering a wake-up call.

The question is then, what does that look like? I’m not an advocate of blockades. Blockades simply invoke the ire of innocent parties, and we all know today’s news media will turn up and hunt down the biggest ‘raggedy’ meathead outlier they can, to say something inane into the camera.

If your industry doesn’t hold the power to turn an economy, acute acts of defiance, a.k.a blockades and pickets, are a potential course of action. But we potentially hold omnipotent economic sway. In the unlikely event that we do stop talking and ‘buy whiskey’, so to speak, my preference would be to simply stop. Stay home. Such an act would pose no immediate threat to the safety of families and people attempting to make ends meet and put food on the table. There’d be no nose-to-tail accidents because someone didn’t see the cars all stopped for the blockade. There’d be no roadside scuffles filmed for TV. And when the phones started ringing after about an hour on the first day, we could simply direct the caller to Minister Wood’s office, wish them a lovely day, and hang up. If we want a clear demonstration of how important we are, simply stopping and remaining polite and non-confrontational would be it. We don’t need to shout and bellow like stuck pigs.

Of course, it would be interesting to see how long it took for calls to come back the other way.

‘Minister, we can stop your economy in under an hour. Right… now, about that billion dollars. Let’s talk about the Napier-Taupo Road, Takaka Hill, and that Mill Road cancellation.’

Speaking to one operator of significant size and seriousness, we thought two strategically chosen days would be sufficient to fire a warning shot.

If we decided to press such a button, would it need to be carefully managed for fear of trigger-happiness in the future? This is not a tactic you deploy every second month because you can’t get your way. This is a strategy you deploy when the government is chasing ideological votes, while key project infrastructure is binned, and the country’s largest workplace is falling into ruin in front of Worksafe and Waka Kotahi’s eyes. If we got their attention, we could chat about work hours, the ferry terminals, engineering certification, any number of irritating loggerheads.

But, the reality is, I’m not worried about any realisation and consequential abuse of power on our side of the fence. As an industry, we’re incapable of finding cohesion on much at all. The reality is, there’ll be some operators who would only see a stop work as a blue-sky opportunity to enhance their market share at the expense of truck drivers risking life and limb every day on places like the Napier-Taupo, Shenandoah, Brynderwyns, Wharerata and countless other places.

It’ll be interesting to see what the farmers do when they reach the same point we’re at.

Happy cycling.

All the best

Dave McCoid

Editor