State government puts another $1 million into heavy driver training

The partnership offers accredited training for aspiring heavy vehicle drivers and assists them in securing employment as part of the VTA's successful heavy vehicle driver delivery program.

Victoria's freight industry, contributing $21 billion annually to the state's economy, employs more than 260,000 Victorians who play a crucial role in maintaining the state's supply chains.

Freight Minister Melissa Horne said the partnership would see more Victorians "get skilled up and behind the wheel to keep our state's multi-billion-dollar freight industry moving".

Victorian Transport Association chief executive Peter Anderson said the industry was thousands of drivers short.

"Nobody wants to come into our industry," he said.

"The reason is licencing process is too easy and people won't take on people to drive trucks, because they haven't been trained.

"If someone got their car licence yesterday, would you throw the keys to a $300,000 Ferrari at them and say 'go for a drive?'

Trucks were expensive and drivers needed to be trained properly, he said.

"We don't train them and the current (federal) licencing system for heavy vehicles puts unsafe drivers on our roads."

VTA was running an eight-day course through Armstrong's Driver Education - "we have trained more than 400 people since 2016," he said.

But he said the federal authorities did not understand what the sector required, when it came to licencing.

He said the funding would encourage people to enter the industry and build careers.

"There is a career in in transport, people think its just a job I'll do because I can't get one anywhere else," he said.

But Livestock and Rural Transporters Association of Victoria president Russell Borchard, Merbein, said more money would not fix the problem.

"Everyone, in every transport sector can't get anybody - money won't fix it," he said.

There was no incentive to encourage young people to enter the industry, he said.

"People are getting a bit of age about them, by they time they can get a licence, so by then they are settled down and their family and partners don't want them going away all the time.

"Where you are at an age when you can get into the industry, you have already made other choices in life."

The image of the industry in the community needed to be lifted, he said.

"The media portrays drivers as being big, bad people - if any younger person came home to their mum and said they wanted to drive trucks, she would say no," he said.

"We are pushing ourselves from being working class citizens, in that all we want to do is go to college and get a desk job," Mr Borchard said.

Potential drivers had to "step through" licence classes, which took a number of years, before being able to take charge of heavier vehicles.

"It's not a skills-based approach, it's a one-size fits all," he said.

"We want more of a skills-based approach, based on what you can do - there are young kids in the bush who have been driving heavy vehicles around all of their lives and they are at a disadvantage to get their licence."

He said the government needed to put programs in schools, to encourage young people to get into the workforce "and see what it's like".

"With a rural carrier service, there would be a range of jobs you can do, so that would give them a feel for whether they want to be a mechanic, a welder, or a livestock carrier," he said.

Mr Borchard said it would be good to see school-based apprenticeships, releasing young people one day a week to work trucking firms to find out if it was for them.

"There is not enough money in anyone's business any more that we can pay two staff to one person's job," he said.