Free Chain of Responsibility Checklist

NHVR names ten parties: employer, prime contractor, operator, scheduler, consignor, consignee, packer, loading manager, loader and unloader. Each is defined by an activity rather than a title — NHVR says a business is a CoR party because of a function it performs, not because of a job description or the words of a contract. One business commonly performs several functions at once.

Not for driving. NHVR states that driving is not a CoR function, so an employed driver is not a party merely because they drive. But if a driver performs another CoR function — loading the vehicle is NHVR's own example — then the driver and their employer become parties as loaders. Drivers do carry other duties under the HVNL.

NHVR describes the primary duty under HVNL section 26C as the duty to ensure the safety of transport activities, so far as is reasonably practicable. Parties must eliminate public risks or, where elimination is not reasonably practicable, minimise them. The duty also bars directly or indirectly encouraging a driver or another party to speed or to breach the HVNL.

Section 26D places a duty on an executive of a CoR business to exercise due diligence to ensure the business complies with its primary duty. NHVR notes this is the executive's own obligation, distinct from the business's duty — so an executive can be exposed even where the company has also been charged.

No. NHVR states that under section 26B the primary duty cannot be transferred or delegated, and that it does not shrink when several parties share it. Section 26A describes safety as the shared responsibility of each party in the chain. NHVR also says contracting out a transport activity does not remove a party's primary duty, and that shared responsibility is not equal responsibility — a party's share follows what it does and its capacity to influence or control the activity.

NHVR's primary-duty guidance describes a Category 1 offence as the most serious, and publishes maximum penalties it states are accurate as of 1 July 2025 and adjusted each July for CPI: more than $424,794 or 5 years' imprisonment or both for an individual, and more than $4,113,837 for a corporation. Because those figures are CPI-adjusted every July, treat them as a floor rather than the current number and check NHVR for the latest adjustment — we did not find a published post-July-2026 figure on 8 October 2026.

No. The Heavy Vehicle National Law is not applied in Western Australia or the Northern Territory, which run their own heavy vehicle regimes. If your activity touches either, the CoR duties in this checklist are not the law that governs it there, and you need the state or territory requirement instead.