Border trucking company Ron Finemore Transport, which supplies much of the food and produce into Canberra and other state's Woolworths supermarkets, has braced itself for possible logistics upheavals after the Victorian/NSW border went into lockdown at midnight.
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The head office of Ron Finemore Transport is located in Wodonga, on the Victorian side of the border, and it runs more then 250 prime movers around the clock in its freight operations up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia, as well across to South Australia.
The company had successfully negotiated its way through the COVID-19 border restrictions imposed in Queensland and South Australia by drivers holding a signed company declaration which gave them unfettered freight passage through the border controls.
Those declarations were signed back in March and are on the dashboard of every Finemore's interstate prime mover.
The company has updated all those declarations as a stop gap measure to keep the trucks moving through the NSW border until all are issued with government permits.
Finemore's managing director Mark Parry said the swiftness with which this specific NSW/Victorian lockdown had been set up had created its own set of challenges.
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One of Australia's most sophisticated road transport operators, Finemore's runs at a 99.7 per cent on-time delivery schedule because of the tight time frames in which heavy vehicle access is granted to supermarkets.
"We are an essential service for food and fuel so we are reasonably confident there won't be any freight delays at the border for our customers, which includes many of the Canberra Woolworths stores," Mr Parry said.
"We're in constant contact with our clients, of course . . . but there are a number of unknowns involved and we're working through these.
"One major issue we face is getting our workforce in place without knowing what the potential extent of the border delays will be in them getting to work.
"We have between 200 and 250 drivers and support staff to get across the border ... to start their shifts over a 24-hour period.
"We run a 24/7 operation with tightly scheduled pick-up and delivery times.
"From a driver's perspective, there are specific hours they can drive for, and mandatory rest times between shifts and out on the road, so everything has to be worked into that schedule.
"It would have been useful to have had the cross-border permit system [already] in place but that being said, we understand the situation is fluid and we're very supportive of what the state governments need to do in this COVID-19 environment."
Mr Parry said that the first 24-36 hours of the border lockdown "will be challenging" for his company. "If there are delays and the goods don't get there [to the supermarkets] when they are supposed to, that's when there is a reaction from the public side," he said. "People see there's shortages of certain things and that triggers panic buying."
On Tuesday, Woolworths announced it was lifting all product sales limits, except those on toilet paper. It said it would "continue to monitor the situation closely and will not hesitate to reinstate product limits if needed".
