BPAY delay sees gas delivery trucks parked up in WA

A BPAY processing delay affecting registration renewals has been identified as the cause of a temporary interruption of bottled gas supplies in Perth on October 23.

Gas supplier Supagas parked a portion of its fleet when it identified its truck and trailer registrations, paid on the due date, had not cleared with the Department of Transport by close of business and became unregistered.

The stand down saw trucks parked up for about 24 hours, and saw a number of truck drivers left waiting with their trucks to get moving again.

The Transport Workers Union raised concerns over the shutdown, the potential risk it posed to community safety and the impact it would have on the truck drivers in relation to payment for the downtime.

“Drivers have been parked up for nearly half a day because their trucks can’t be legally driven,” TWU WA State Secretary Tim Dawson said.

“This isn’t just an administrative oversight,” he said.

“It’s a safety and compliance issue that could cost drivers their licenses and their jobs. These are workers who take pride in doing their jobs safely, and now they’re paying the price for management’s negligence.”

Supagas Managing Director Erol Arican said once the company identified the problem it had quickly taken steps to find a solution.

“Safety is our number one priority,” Arican said.

“No driver was asked to operate unsafely, illegally or go without pay for their time. We paused operations and worked closely with regulators and our transport partner to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. 

“We regret the disruption to our drivers and customers and have strengthened our internal processes to prevent a recurrence.”

Registrations for the affected vehicles were confirmed by the Department of Transport this morning, October 24, and Supagas said services have now recommenced.

In a statement responding to the TWU concerns, Supagas said it had worked with KTrans, its bulk gas haulage partner, to coordinate safe staging of assets and a rapid restart, prioritising hospitals, aged care and other essential services.

“Process improvements are underway focused on payment method cut-off times, automated confirmation checks and real-time alerts,” the company said.