Chain of Responsibility (CoR) Explained

The Primary Duty: HVNL Section 26C in plain English

 

Under HVNL Section 26C, each CoR party has a Primary Duty: to ensure the safety of transport activities, so far as is reasonably practicable.

That sentence carries the entire CoR framework. Three parts of it matter.

“Each party”: the duty is not transferable or delegable. A consignor cannot push the duty down to the transport operator. An operator cannot pass it across to the driver. Each party holds the duty for the functions they perform, and they hold it regardless of what other parties are doing. HVNL Section 26A makes safety the shared responsibility of every party in the chain. Section 26B confirms that multiple parties can hold the Primary Duty for the same transport activity at the same time, and the level of responsibility never reduces because other parties also have it.

“Transport activities”: this is broader than most businesses assume. The HVNL definition covers every activity associated with the use of a heavy vehicle on a road. That includes the obvious activities (loading, driving, unloading, scheduling) and also the activities most businesses do not consider part of their transport footprint. NHVR explicitly identifies the following as transport activities:

• How heavy vehicle procurement and maintenance is undertaken and managed.
• Recruitment strategies, including consideration of driver skill and experience.
• Induction and training.
• The layout and configuration of premises.
• Board decisions and how they are implemented.
• Organisational structure.
• Policies and procedures that influence the use of heavy vehicles on the road.
• Communication systems, negotiation, and contracts with other parties.

That is the scope. A board decision that constrains maintenance spending is a transport activity. A procurement contract that locks delivery windows so tight they create scheduling pressure is a transport activity. A loading dock layout that forces drivers into hours of waiting is a transport activity. The Primary Duty applies to all of it.

“So far as is reasonably practicable”: this is the standard against which compliance is judged. It is the same test used under WHS law. A party is required to do what can reasonably be done to eliminate or minimise safety risks, weighing up: the likelihood of harm, the severity of harm, what the party knows or ought reasonably to know about the risk, the availability and suitability of control measures, and the cost (where the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk, it may be reasonable not to take that step). It is a proportionality test. What is reasonable for a small operator running three trucks differs from what is reasonable for a national logistics business with a thousand vehicles. The threshold scales to the party’s capacity to control or influence the activity.

The Primary Duty differs from prescriptive HVNL requirements like mass or dimension limits. Prescriptive requirements tell you exactly what is allowed. The Primary Duty tells you the outcome you must achieve (ensure safety) but does not tell you how. A pattern of breaching prescriptive requirements can be evidence of a Primary Duty breach. The reverse is not necessarily true: a business can comply with every prescriptive requirement and still breach the Primary Duty if its broader systems are inadequate.

Executive duty and due diligence: HVNL Section 26D and personal liability

 

HVNL Section 26D creates a distinct duty for executives of businesses that are CoR parties. An executive of a CoR business has a duty to exercise due diligence to ensure the business complies with its Primary Duty.

This is a personal duty. It sits on the executive, not on the business. It cannot be insured against. It cannot be delegated to a safety manager or a compliance team. An executive who fails to exercise due diligence can be prosecuted personally, with personal financial penalties and, for the most serious offences, imprisonment.

“Executive” under the HVNL is broad. It captures directors, senior managers, and anyone making decisions that affect the whole or a substantial part of the business. For most SA transport operators, freight businesses, manufacturers with logistics functions, and warehousing operations, this catches the CEO, the operations director, the logistics general manager, and often the heads of procurement, scheduling, and warehouse operations.

The NHVR sets out what “due diligence” requires. An executive must take reasonable steps to:

• Acquire and maintain knowledge about how to conduct transport activities safely. Executives are expected to understand the regulatory framework, the safety risks of the business’s transport activities, and current good practice. Ignorance of CoR obligations is not a defence.
• Understand the nature of the business’s transport activities, including the hazards and risks associated with those activities. The executive needs to know what the business actually does, where the risks sit, and what controls are or are not in place.
• Ensure the business has and uses appropriate resources to eliminate or minimise the hazards and risks. Resources means funding, people, time, equipment, training. An executive who underfunds safety to hit a margin target is not exercising due diligence.
• Ensure the business has and uses appropriate processes to eliminate or minimise hazards and risks, and that information about hazards, risks, and incidents is received, considered, and responded to in a timely way. This is the management-system test. There needs to be a documented Safety Management System (SMS), it has to be operating, it has to be producing information that reaches the executive, and the executive has to be acting on what it shows.

The NHVR has been explicit about what executive due diligence looks like in practice. Examples it has published include: fostering a just safety culture where employees feel comfortable reporting incidents and near misses; collecting incident-rate information to test whether the SMS is working; participating in industry forums and safety seminars; ensuring work procedures are being followed and are producing safety improvements; investigating safety incidents; implementing learnings from investigations.

What does not count: signing off on a safety policy and never looking at it again. Approving an SMS without reading it. Receiving incident reports and filing them. Hiring a safety manager and treating that as the limit of the executive’s involvement. NHVR’s Acting Director of Prosecutions said it directly in 2022: “These charges demonstrate that the NHVR will always consider if executives are complying with their personal obligations to exercise due diligence.” Section 26D charges are not theoretical. They are being laid against directors of companies that breach the HVNL.

A worked example: how CoR applies to a typical freight task

 

NHVR uses the following example to illustrate how CoR functions overlap across parties on a routine freight movement.

The scenario:

• Company A orders goods from Company B.
• Company B engages a transport operator to pick up the goods from Company B’s warehouse and deliver them to Company A’s premises on a specified date.
• The transport operator rosters an employed driver for the job.
• Company B contacts the transport operator to confirm the timeslot to collect the goods.
• Company B contacts Company A to confirm the timeslot to deliver the goods.
• The driver arrives at Company B’s warehouse at the agreed time, where Company B employees load the heavy vehicle.
• The driver travels the scheduled route to Company A’s premises, where Company A employees unload the vehicle.

The CoR functions each party performs:

• Company A: consignee, unloader, loading manager (if the premises handles 5+ heavy vehicles per day).
• Company B: consignor, scheduler, packer, loader, loading manager.
• Transport operator: operator, employer, scheduler.

Every party holds a Primary Duty for the functions they perform. If the load shifts in transit and causes an incident, the investigation will not stop at the driver. It will examine: how Company B packed and loaded the goods (Company B’s packing and loading duties); whether the schedule the operator built gave the driver adequate time and rest (operator’s scheduling duty); whether Company A’s premises layout contributed to the incident (Company A’s loading manager duty); whether the contract Company B negotiated with the operator created cost pressure that compromised safety (Company B’s consignor duty).

This is the practical effect of shared responsibility. Each party answers for its own decisions, regardless of what the others did. The driver may face their own consequences under road traffic law, but the CoR investigation will look up the chain to every decision-maker whose actions or omissions contributed to the unsafe outcome.

How to comply: Safety Management Systems and the executive’s role

 

The HVNL does not prescribe a single way to comply with the Primary Duty. The duty itself sets the outcome (ensure safety so far as reasonably practicable), and the path to that outcome will look different for each business. There are, however, well-established patterns.

A documented Safety Management System (SMS). NHVR has published the 9 Step SMS Roadmap as the operative guidance. An SMS is a systematic approach to managing safety, including the organisational structures, accountabilities, policies, and procedures that integrate safety into how the business runs. Regardless of business size, an effective SMS is the most defensible way to demonstrate that the Primary Duty is being met. Work Life Safety Systems builds SMS implementations aligned to NHVR’s 9-step framework and, where the business benefits from it, to ISO 45001 certification standards. See our WHS management systems service.

A Registered Industry Code of Practice. Adopting a code that is registered under the HVNL is one way of demonstrating reasonable practice for the activities the code covers. The NHVR maintains a register of these codes. For most general freight, the 2026 Master Industry Code of Practice is the operative reference.

Risk assessments tied to actual transport activities. Not a generic risk register sitting in a folder. Risk assessments that map the specific transport activities the business performs, identify the hazards each activity creates, document the controls in place, and assign accountability for review and update. WLSS provides structured risk assessments tailored to heavy vehicle operations.

Contracts and procurement processes that build in safety. A consignor that negotiates delivery windows without considering driver fatigue is not exercising its Primary Duty. A purchasing team that selects the cheapest operator without checking the operator’s safety credentials is creating a Primary Duty exposure. Contractual safety expectations, supplier pre-qualification, and ongoing review are part of compliance.

Active executive engagement. The board or executive team needs to be receiving safety information, considering it, and acting on it. This is the test Section 26D applies. Executives should be able to demonstrate: a documented process for incident reporting up to executive level; regular review of safety performance data; documented decisions in response to safety issues; training and information sessions attended; participation in industry safety forums.

Independent review. Internal systems are checked by people who built them. An external review is the most reliable test of whether the business’s CoR position would withstand a regulator’s investigation. WLSS provides independent WHS and CoR system audits against NHVR expectations.

Incident investigation that produces change. When something goes wrong, investigate properly using a structured methodology like ICAM. Identify the contributing factors at the systems and decisions level, not just the immediate cause. Implement the learnings. Document it. WLSS provides incident investigation support for transport businesses.

Chain of Responsibility: frequently asked questions

 

I’m a small business. Does CoR apply to me?

Yes. The HVNL applies to every CoR party regardless of size. A sole trader who consigns goods for transport by heavy vehicle is a CoR party. A small farmer whose produce is collected by a truck is a CoR party as a consignor. The duty scales to the party’s capacity to control or influence the activity, but the duty itself applies. There is no small-business exemption from CoR.

We don’t own the trucks. We just send goods. Are we still covered?

Yes. Consigning goods for transport by heavy vehicle makes the business a CoR party as a consignor. The Primary Duty applies to how the business handles its consignor functions: how it negotiates contracts, how it packs goods, how it schedules dispatch, how it sets delivery expectations on operators. Not owning the trucks does not exempt the business from CoR.

If the driver causes an accident, why is anyone else responsible?

Because CoR’s premise is that the conditions producing unsafe driving are usually set well before the driver is in the cab. An overloaded truck is the loader’s loading decision. A fatigued driver is often the scheduler’s scheduling decision. A poorly maintained truck is the operator’s maintenance decision. The driver remains accountable for their own conduct under road traffic law. CoR adds accountability for everyone who influenced the conditions that produced the unsafe driving.

Can the executive duty be insured?

No. Section 26D creates a personal duty on the executive. Directors and officers (D&O) insurance can cover legal defence costs in some circumstances, but it cannot indemnify against the underlying personal duty. An executive who fails to exercise due diligence faces personal penalties that no insurance can absorb.

What’s the difference between CoR and WHS?

CoR is the road transport safety framework under the HVNL. WHS is the workplace safety framework under the Work Health and Safety Act. They overlap where the workplace is also a transport activity (a loading dock, a warehouse, a depot), and the two regimes are designed to align. A business with heavy vehicle activities needs to comply with both. For transport businesses, integrating CoR and WHS into one management system is the cleanest compliance approach.

We’re ISO 45001 certified. Does that cover CoR?

ISO 45001 is a strong foundation for managing CoR risks, but the certification is not a CoR certification. ISO 45001 covers occupational health and safety management systems generally. CoR compliance also depends on specific HVNL requirements that ISO 45001 does not explicitly address. The right approach is to align the ISO 45001 system to CoR requirements, so the management system covers both regimes. WLSS provides ISO 45001 consulting with CoR alignment built in.

What happens in an NHVR investigation?

NHVR can issue education and improvement notices, issue infringement notices, or pursue prosecution. For a Primary Duty breach, the investigation typically examines the business’s systems, documentation, training records, incident history, contracts, and management decisions. Executives can be required to provide information personally. NHVR has confirmed it considers Section 26D executive due diligence in every Primary Duty investigation.

How quickly can we get our CoR position in order?

For a transport business with established operations, getting a defensible CoR position typically takes eight to sixteen weeks depending on the current state of the management system and the scope of operations. The work covers SMS development or refresh, executive training and engagement, contract and procurement review, risk assessment, and audit-readiness. WLSS scopes engagements to the business and produces a system that operates rather than a folder of documents.

I just took on an executive role at a CoR business. What should I do first?

Three things. One, request the current SMS, recent incident reports, and the business’s compliance history. Read them. Two, request a CoR briefing from a qualified consultant or in-house specialist. Three, document your due diligence steps from day one: meetings attended, reports reviewed, decisions taken, training completed. Section 26D defences depend on a documented record of executive engagement, and that record starts on day one.

Why WLSS for Chain of Responsibility compliance

 

• Triple ISO certified. ISO 9001 (Quality), ISO 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety), ISO 14001 (Environmental). We hold the standards we help others implement.
• Integrated WHS and CoR experience. Most transport operators need both regimes managed together. WLSS designs management systems that cover WHS and CoR simultaneously, avoiding the cost and complexity of running two parallel systems.
• 80+ years of combined team experience across SA transport, logistics, manufacturing, and freight.
• 500+ South Australian businesses and organisations supported.
• Executive engagement specialists. We work with directors and senior managers to build the documented due-diligence position Section 26D requires, not just the operational systems sitting underneath it.

To talk through your CoR position, see our Transport and Logistics WHS service or book a free advisory call.

Book a Free Advisory Call → | (08) 8322 2279

Authoritative sources cited in this guide

• NHVR Regulatory Advice on the Primary Duty, including current penalty figures (CPI-indexed annually).
• NHVR Chain of Responsibility overview.
• Heavy Vehicle National Law (Queensland), the consolidated text of the HVNL that applies in participating jurisdictions including South Australia.
• NHVR 9 Step SMS Roadmap, the operative guidance on building a Safety Management System.
• NHVR Schedule of HVNL Penalties, updated annually with current Category 1, 2, and 3 figures.