Runnymede Trucking boss Sharna Chapman is confident she’ll survive the latest fuel hikes – but the second big surge at the bowser this month has left nothing spare in the kitty.
She’s still in catch-up mode after being slugged with $70,000 worth of breakdowns on top of a fuel bill that spiked $100,000 in the first three months after the Strait of Hormuz conflict began in late February.
Echuca-based Runnymede Trucking runs general freight along the east coast and across to Adelaide, with Chapman driving one of its four B-doubles.
She said the business had so far been able to recover some of the increased fuel costs since the full excise rate resumed on August 3 because of the strong relationships developed with customers over many years.
“They understand what’s happening, and they understand that just like themselves, we can’t wear all the cost either,” Chapman said.
Chapman said the excise relief should have remained in place to help operators and also questioned whether money collected through the Road User Charge was delivering visible improvements to the roads truckies use every day.
“The road user charges are supposed to go back into road maintenance and stuff,” she said.
“It obviously clearly doesn’t go back into that. So, where’s the money going?
“At least show us that the money you’re paying is actually fixing the roads you’re driving on.”
She was equally dismissive of suggestions that fuel tax credits would adequately offset the higher costs imposed on operators.
“Whoop de doo,” she said.
“It’s going to do absolutely nothing. Not one cent a litre.”
Chapman said she also applied for assistance through the federal government’s Economic Resilience Program, which was supposed to help trucking businesses, but was unsuccessful.
Chapman said she contacted the government department for an explanation after her bank’s rejection of her scheme application but had still not received a response four-and-a-half weeks later.
The experience had left her questioning whether the program was capable of helping the transport businesses it was intended to support. Big Rigs also contacted the Economic Resilience Program for comment.
Chapman said the financial struggles of the last few months has reinforced her belief that governments did not properly understand trucking’s contribution to the Australian economy.
“They just don’t take it seriously. I think that is half the problem,” she said.
“They sit at their table every night and their food turns up.”
Big Rigs also checked back in with owner-operator David Bailey, who runs the family-owned Bailey Brothers Haulage in the Blue Mountains.
At the peak of the fuel crisis earlier this year, Bailey wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister imploring him to take action, or many in the industry wouldn’t survive the diesel hikes.
Bailey says the latest price rises have landed at the worst possible time for his two-truck business, as he battles a shortage of work, delayed payments and a recent health setback.
“I’m ready to go back to work, but there’s nothing here to go back to,” he said.
The diesel hikes have added pressure to unstable cash flow, with Bailey saying money was not moving properly through the transport chain.
“It’s getting harder to survive. I’ve got invoices that haven’t been settled for a couple of months. Obviously, it’s not just me who is feeling the pinch. Other guys higher up the chain are feeling the pressure as well.
“Cashflow is king, especially in small business.”
Bailey applied for support through the Economic Resilience Program, but said his bank rejected his loan application because his “account conduct was not sufficient”.
He said fluctuations in cash flow meant direct debits were occasionally missed by a few days before money arrived, which counted against him.
“I did get a letter from them [the Economic Resilience Program] other day that said there had been 130 [transport-related] businesses that had applied for it and something like $2 million had been dished out, but it’s an absolute pittance.”
Despite the setbacks, Bailey said he was determined to keep fighting. His plan is to secure more steel work, while developing a B-double shuttle service across the Blue Mountains.
Bailey is proposing to help operators move combinations between Emu Plains and Tunnel Hill, where B-double access restrictions force trailers to be dropped at either end.
“I’m confident that when operators do the sums they’ll appreciate the gains in productivity and reduction of
operating costs by enlisting my shuttle service.”
Whiteline Transport operator Sharon Middleton told ABC Radio the end of fuel excise relief will add thousands of dollars to every truck movement and force negotiations with customers.
“It’s just diabolical,” said the President of the South Australian Road Transport Association.
“Fuel is certainly the four-letter word. It’s just really, really difficult.”
She said each truck used 3500 litres of diesel per trip every week, meaning a sharp rise in prices could quickly add “a couple of thousand dollars per truck, per run, every week”.
Middleton estimated the increase would mean spending more than $70,000 extra on diesel almost overnight. The challenge, she said, was deciding how much of that cost the business could absorb and how much needed to be passed on.
“When it comes up so rapidly, you’ve got to go through the whole negotiation phase because your customers, their customers and the end user — it’s a domino effect,” she said.
The Livestock, Bulk and Rural Carriers Association (LBRCA) also warned that the end of fuel price relief will increase pressure on regional businesses, with many operators under significant financial pressure.
“Every kilometre travelled in regional Australia costs more. Operators are covering hundreds of kilometres between communities, often with limited or no opportunities to recover increasing costs,” said LBRCA President Wade Lewis.
“Rural carriers are therefore vulnerable to fuel prices shocks and we are about to see fuel price relief come to an end, in addition to a suite of big changes to the rules governing our industry. We call for the government to extend relief measures, to ease the significant diesel price pressures from volatility in the fuel market.
Lewis said that while operators were resilient, they could not keep absorbing higher costs and there was also a strong view that transport agencies had more work to do in communicating the Heavy Vehicle National Law amendments.
“Diesel price relief ending and all these regulatory changes are a double blow, placing greater pressure on an industry already under strain,” Lewis said.
Extracted in full from: https://bigrigs.com.au/2026/08/10/trucking-operators-count-cost-of-second-fuel-surge/
