"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water" has been dubbed the best horror movie tagline in motion picture history, and if you've seen Jaws 2 you'll probably agree.
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Unlike the first film in the series, the villain of the piece appeared early and often. The thrills might have been cheap but audiences had a sense of impending carnage.
The newly-elected federal government will be met by lurking issues - none of them involving a real or mechanical shark.
There's the ongoing impact of the recent budget that eliminated the Fuel Tax Credit for heavy vehicles, giving truck operators an effective excise cut of 4.3c per litre instead of the 22c a litre afforded to car drivers.
The national shortage of truck drivers isn't going away, even as we learn to live with COVID.
There's the unpredictable impact of global supply chain issues that will continue to be felt in Australian shops and supermarkets.
Whoever wins office on May 21 also faces questions about the supply of AdBlue, a diesel exhaust fuel, which most of the country's medium-sized and large trucks need to run.
Is that the Jaws theme music playing in the background?
AdBlue is mandatory for modern diesel engines in Australia. It takes the nastiest pollutants out of exhaust fumes. You can make illegal modifications to run without it but there's no guarantee you won't damage your engine or void the manufacturer's warranty.
The trucking industry faced a drought in December 2021 when Australia's major source, China, pulled the pin on its exports to dampen prices in its domestic market amid a global shortage.
The sole local manufacturer, Incitec Pivot, had started to close its manufacturing plant at Gibson Island in Brisbane because it deemed its operation unviable.
NatRoad was something of a lone voice when we went public about the issue in response to member concerns and few in the bureaucracy seemed to realise the problem's extent.
When the penny did drop, the same bureaucracy couldn't get its head around how much AdBlue remained in the supply chain and had to call in $12,000 a day consultants to tell it.
The Morrison government convened a task force of businesspeople to devise a workaround. Shortly after, a $29.4 million grant persuaded Incitec Pivot to delay closing Gibson Island.
That plant currently meets about 80 per cent of our AdBlue needs, with the rest coming from imports.
Incitec Pivot recently told its shareholders that it's back on track to close Gibson Island by the end of 2022. It will work with Twiggy Forrest's Fortescue Future Industries to convert it to a green ammonia facility.
Last summer's AdBlue drought forced many regional transport operators off the road and tripled the price of the product in a matter of days.
Most small road transport operators (who make up the vast majority of the industry) operate on a wafer thin profit margin of 2.5 per cent.
If AdBlue dries up again, a sector already struggling with the loss of the Fuel Tax Credit will take a bigger hit than Chris Rock at the Oscars.
Just prior to dissolution of the recent Parliament, a Senate estimates hearting was told the Department of Industry is now paying another bunch of experts from Boston Consulting Group $1.6 million to tell it how to solve the problem.
This is Canberra, not Hollywood. There isn't enough cash to splash around like it's Tinsel Town.
Our industry was grateful that the government acted quickly to source stop-gap AdBlue supplies from alternate markets to keep trucks running while Gibson Island was pulled out of mothballs.
There is talk about a new local manufacturer entering the market - but that's years off.
If the worst scenario eventuates, no government (especially one in a minority) is likely to suspend anti-pollution regulations to allow modified trucks to run, even temporarily.
Australia needs to find long-term and reliable suppliers in countries other than China - fast.
An already stressed road transport sector can't afford more red ink - or figurative blood in the water.
- Warren Clark is CEO of the National Road Transport Association.