Industry award coverage

The Road Transport and Distribution Award and the Road Transport (Long Distance) Award (transport awards) aren’t the only awards with driver classifications. Some industry awards include classifications covering delivery drivers.

A delivery driver’s classification may come from the industry award which covers their employer’s business, or from one of the transport awards. This depends on which award has the most applicable classification for the employee.

Example

Marsden works at a plant nursery. He drives a truck and delivers plants to customers. His employer is covered by the Nursery Award.

The Grade 3 classification in the Nursery Award covers a regular driver. The grade 2 classification in the Road Transport and Distribution Award covers a driver of a rigid vehicle (including a motorcycle) not exceeding 4.5 tonnes GVM.

The Nursery Award covers Marsden’s employment, even though both awards have a suitable classification. This is because of the connection between Marsden’s work and the nursery. He delivers orders for customers of the nursery.

An industry award may also cover employees where the delivery driving is considered part of their duties.

Example

Ella works at a retail grocery store. She picks, packs and delivers orders to customers. Her employer is covered by the Retail Award.

The Retail employee level 1 classification in the Retail Award covers a range of duties, including the delivery of goods. The grade 2 classification in the Road Transport and Distribution Award covers a driver of a rigid vehicle (including a motorcycle) not exceeding 4.5 tonnes GVM.

Ella is covered by the Retail Award. The level 1 classification lists tasks and job titles which specifically cover all the parts of her role. The Transport Award doesn’t apply, because its classification only covers Ella’s driving work and not the picking and packing work.

Road Transport Award

A delivery driver will be covered by the Road Transport Award if their employer is in the road transport and distribution industry.

They will also be covered by the Road Transport Award if:

• their driving work is ancillary to their employer’s main business, and
• there’s no classification matching their duties in an industry award that applies to their employer.

Drivers covered by this award will generally be doing local driving.

Road Transport (Long Distance) Award

A delivery driver will be covered by the Road Transport (Long Distance) Award if their employer is:

• in the private transport industry
• engaged in long distance operations.

Long distance operations include:

• an interstate journey, from a point in one state or territory to a point in a different state or territory, where the distance exceeds 200 kilometres
• a return journey where the distance exceeds 500 kilometres.

The private transport industry means transport by road of raw or manufactured materials and livestock throughout Australia. Whether the Road Transport (Long Distance) Award can apply will depend on the exact nature of the employer’s business, and whether they can be considered to be operating in the industry.

The driver may be requested by their employer to temporarily perform driving duties which are not on a long distance operation. In this case the employee will be covered by the Road Transport Award while performing those duties.

No industry award coverage

If there's no industry award covering the employer of the delivery driver, and the driver doesn’t have occupational coverage under the Road Transport Award, they can be covered by the Miscellaneous Award and classified according to their duties and qualifications.

Give us feedback on this article

Use our Feedback form to give us feedback about the information in this article.

If you have a question about pay or entitlements or need our help with a workplace issue, you can submit an online enquiry.