Lord takes on transport
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• Transport Minister Gus Macdonald will take charge of road haulage and will attend the forthcoming Industry Forum, a Government spokesman confirmed this week, ending fears that the haulage brief might go to a more junior figure.
In a letter to Freight Transport Association president Lawrence Christensen and Road Haulage Association national chairman John Bridge, Macdonald answers correspondence originally sent to Helen Liddell (see Letters, page 19).
In it he gives hauliers little hope, stating: "there is no question of going back on the decisions in this year's Budget".
Macdonald also states that "overt confrontation from sections of the industry—such as we saw in London on 26 July— does make that more difficult".
RHA director-general Steven Norris claims the letter "is a predictable and a crude attempt to divide and rule. The Government is
obviously worried—the whole industry knows it's the RHA's initiative which has brought the issue to the top of the pile,"
Norris hopes Lord Macdonald will consider the RHA's essential user rebate. "If he simply wants to persuade the industry that it doesn't have a problem, he will no doubt go the same way as his predecessor," he says.