Senator Bridget McKenzie plans to get heavy rigid licence

Senator Bridget McKenzie has said her next ambition in 2024 is to get her heavy rigid truck licence.  

McKenzie, who has led the National Party of Australia in the senate since 2019, made the announcement at the Australian Trucking Association’s annual conference, Trucking Australia 2024.  

“I’ve just got to find the 1200 bucks that it’s going to cost me,” she said.  

“But hopefully by the time I’m speaking to you next year, I will have been out with some of you on the road. 

“Showing you that I can actually make my way through the gears and get the job done.”  

During her speech, McKenzie hit out at the current federal government, particularly Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King, for cutting funding for infrastructure projects and not fixing the truck licensing system.  

“It’s time that federal minister Catherine King got out of her office, stopped cutting and delaying projects and took a leadership role, and called all the players that are making these decisions to the table and sat them down and knocked this out,” she said.  

McKenzie said it makes “no sense” that we still have different licensing systems in operation in the various states and territories of Australia.  

“It is nothing more than ego over practicality that this still exists,” she said.  

“If Covid taught us something it’s that sometimes these borders between states are arbitrary and premiers and ministers can use them for completely arbitrary barriers.  

“This licensing stuff is absolutely within that.”  

She said every operator needs to be able to be confident that a driver can competently drive a truck before they put them behind the wheel.  

“That means drivers actually being able to reverse, to know how to tow, to turn in traffic, with a high level of competency before being entrusted with your very, very expensive rigs.  

“And before they are put on our very, very busy road networks.”