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Safe Freight Program · Enforcement register

How the register is built

What the register is

A record of completed enforcement outcomes against parties in Australian road transport: court outcomes, enforceable undertakings, supervisory intervention orders, prohibition notices and infringements under the Heavy Vehicle National Law, and work health and safety and industrial manslaughter prosecutions of transport businesses. Each row is tagged with the law it was brought under.

It is a record of what public sources report. It is not legal advice, it does not rate any business, and a party's absence from it says nothing about that party.

Two layers, never joined by inference

The named layer holds an action only when a public source names the party: a regulator's media release, a court's published reasons, an enforceable undertaking, a regulator's prosecution summary, or a trade press report. The name is shown exactly as that source gives it, and the source is cited on the row.

The unnamed layer holds the NHVR's court-outcomes page, which lists outcomes by state without the defendant's name. Each entry is kept under its own reference and never given a name by the register. Because the NHVR reuses an AS number for more than one outcome, the register joins the AS number with the hearing date to make the entry's reference (for example AS-12839/2026-06-16).

The register's pages show an entry as the NHVR writes it, by the type of party and the AS number (for example Company AS 12839), with the hearing date in its own column. An entry the NHVR gives no AS number reads "no NHVR reference".

A named row is linked to an unnamed one only when the named source gives the same court, the same hearing date and the same penalty, and only when exactly one entry on each side matches. The linked row then carries both citations. A name is never inferred from timing, location, a similar penalty, or anything else.

Sources

Trade press items are read only when their text reports a fine, a conviction, a plea, a court, a prosecution, an enforceable undertaking, a prohibition notice or a supervisory intervention order. Work health and safety items are read only when they concern a heavy vehicle, truck, transport or logistics business. New items are read each week; the archive back to 2014 was read once.

How a row is made

The NHVR's court-outcomes page is read field by field from its own structure, with no model involved. Every other source is read by a language model that copies the facts into the register's fields; every figure, date and section number it returns is then matched against the source's own text. A value that cannot be matched is left blank and the row is marked as partial. A date must be written in the source with its year; a day and month written without one is read as falling in the twelve months before the source's own date, and the row is then marked as partial. Nothing is estimated, rounded or filled in from elsewhere.

How names are handled

A party is named only when a public source names it, and the row cites that source. The register never names a party in the unnamed layer, never joins a name to the Safe Freight Program's own records, and never lists anyone because of a similarity of name.

Companies and other organisations are named on every decision, for as long as the action is on the register. A party whose name does not show it is a company (Pty, Ltd, Limited, P/L, Inc, Corporation, Council or the like) is treated as a person, as is a person acting as a trustee or trading under a business name, even where the source calls the party a company, and so is a name that joins a company to a person. Enforceable undertakings, prohibition notices and supervisory intervention orders name the party as the regulator publishes it.

A person is named only where they were convicted, gave an enforceable undertaking, received a prohibition notice or a supervisory intervention order (named only from the regulator's own publication: its release, or the NHVR's undertakings page and the undertaking documents it links), or lost an appeal against a conviction that is itself still named. Where no conviction was recorded, the charge was dismissed or withdrawn, the matter was an infringement, or the conviction was set aside on appeal (or the outcome of the appeal leaves it in doubt whether the conviction stands), the register shows "Individual" instead of the name. Where a source does not settle whether a conviction stands after an appeal, the register says that in those words, and an individual's name stays withheld. Words in a source of a conviction quashed, set aside or overturned, or of an appeal allowed, leave an individual's conviction in doubt whoever the source says they concern. A person's name is also withheld from the day ten years after the hearing, and when the source does not give the hearing date.

Withholding a name removes it everywhere the register publishes: the action's page, the lists, the comparisons, the download, the figures and the search, which matches only the published text and so does not find the action by the name. The name is also taken out of the facts of any other action that gives it, and where a passage of a source's text would still name the person, that passage is not shown. The action itself stays on the register with its facts, its penalty and the date and publisher of its source; a link whose address or title carries the name is withheld with it. The comparisons on an action's page never include the other parties to the same matter. The register's summaries refer by their role to every other party the source calls an individual. Any other party appears in them as the source names it, and is taken out of them wherever the register withholds that party's own name. An action's own summary may name its own party, and is shown only while that party is named. The page of an action whose name is withheld shows no account taken from the source: only the court, the dates, the provisions and the penalty. Nothing is deleted.

To ask for a correction, or for a name to be withheld, write to info@safefreightprogram.com with the address of the entry.

How maxima are computed

The maximum beside a fine is the maximum court penalty the NHVR's published schedule gives for the provision charged, in the period the offence was committed. Maxima are shown only for the periods and sections in the register's table; for any other period or section, or where the source does not give the offence date, no maximum is shown and no share of the maximum is given.

Every share of the maximum the register gives is of the individual maximum, and only for a fine the source gives for one charge: no share is given where the source reports several charges in any words, or where the number of charges the reading gave could not be matched to the source. Where the schedule prints one figure, that figure is an individual's maximum, and no maximum is shown for a company: the register does not compute the higher figure the Act allows for a body corporate. Where the schedule prints a figure for a body corporate (sections 26F to 26H), that maximum is shown for a company, with no share.

Sections in the table: s 26F, s 26G, s 26H, s 96(1)(a), s 96(1)(b), s 96(1)(c), s 250(1), s 254(1), s 569(2), s 569(7), s 570(3), s 570A(5).

Where a section's maximum depends on the risk category of the breach, the category is read only from the NHVR's own court-outcomes entry, where the entry states it as the category of that breach (never one claimed, refused or given for another breach); an action from any other source shows no maximum for such a section. Where the schedule prints one figure, that figure is an individual's maximum and no maximum is shown for a company; no maximum is shown where the party's name and the type the source gives disagree (a company without a company's name, or a person with one), or where the name joins a company and a person. A mass breach at severe risk carries an addition for each 1% over 120% of the limit, so its base amount is shown with the addition beside it and no share of the maximum is given. A minor risk breach from 1 August 2026 has two possible maxima, depending on when the accreditation was granted, and both are shown.

The as-at convention

Every figure and every download carries the date it was computed. The headline figures are recomputed each week from the rows on the register; none is entered by hand. Pages are rendered on request and may be up to ten minutes behind the database.

Corrections

Each action page has a Report an error link. Write to info@safefreightprogram.com with the entry's address and the source that shows the error; a correction changes the row and keeps its address.

Known limits

Figures

5

orders in force (a stated term not yet run)

18

named parties with more than one action

61% of 31

of outcomes stating the incident involved an injury or death

1073 days

median time from offence to hearing

As at 20 October 2026.

2018: 4 actions20182019: 12 actions20192020: 14 actions20202021: 23 actions20212022: 73 actions20222023: 171 actions20232024: 51 actions20242025: 65 actions20252026: 49 actions20261 October 2018: Chain of Responsibility reforms and primary duty (ss26C–26H) commence1 July 2020: Victoria: workplace manslaughter offence commences16 September 2024: NSW: industrial manslaughter offence commences1 August 2026: Heavy Vehicle National Law Amendment Act 2025 commences
Actions by year of hearing. Dashed lines mark law changes: 1 October 2018, Chain of Responsibility reforms and primary duty (ss26C–26H) commence; 1 July 2020, Victoria: workplace manslaughter offence commences; 16 September 2024, NSW: industrial manslaughter offence commences; 1 August 2026, Heavy Vehicle National Law Amendment Act 2025 commences. Penalty amounts are indexed each 1 July. The unnamed layer begins in June 2026.

Law changes drawn on the series