Matthew Mauger
Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame in 2023.
Matthew Mauger, known as Matt was born in Subiaco, Western Australia in 1951. Matt was introduced to the transport industry in 1973 when he started working for Dunnings, then Sawyers Valley Traders, carting drums of fuel from Fremantle, WA, to Sawyers Valley, WA. He also carted hay from York & Beverley to Fremantle WA in a ‘B’ Series Ford.
In 1978 Matt moved to York with his wife and three sons. He was living on a farm and driving an N12 Volvo carting grain and fertilizer as well as some general freight east/west in between the farming seasons. Matt went on to buy a 4-deck sheep crate and started subcontracting to Granich’s but unfortunately, they closed their doors. He then bought his own truck, a 100 series Kenworth and continued to cart sheep into the Midland Sale Yards.
Later Matt went to contract for Cream’s carting sheep out of the Gascoyne region of WA long before it was known as cattle grazing area. This was the beginning of the export sheep market and was a very busy time for livestock transporters. Matt spent a lot of time working away from his family who were still based in York, WA. It was also around this time that Matt became involved with the Livestock Transports Association.
From 1980 – 1985 Matt worked with Klopper carting sheep to the eastern states. Matt recalls a particularly busy time in 1983 while carting sheep from the west to anywhere between Swan Hill in Victoria and Penong in South Australia. With the help of a co-driver he did 50 trips in 53 weeks across the WA border. The sheep crates back in those days were rather heavy so they had a busy time avoiding the weigh bridges.
It was also during his time with Klopper that Matt was involved in carting cattle from Broome to the Harvey Beef Meat Works. He was based in Broome pulling triples all around the Northern parts of WA, spending long periods of time away from his family. This continued for a few years until Klopper were bought out by Road Trains Australia.
Matt spent a short amount of time managing RTA’s Broome depot before deciding that wasn’t for him. When RTA sold to Heytsbury Pastoral Group Matt found himself back in the livestock game moving large quantities of cattle from Halls Creek and Esperance to Brisbane, Darwin and Perth. Heytsbury later sold the livestock division back to RTA and Matt again found himself in the office and again decided that was not for him.
Matt did a short stint at Bagshaws managing their depots in Perth and Broome before finding himself at Marley’s Transport out in Merredin, managing their bin-to-bin transfers. These had gotten rather busy due to the closure of the tier 3 railway lines. This was also the first time Main Roads had allowed rigid and two combinations to operate south of Geraldton.
In 2010 Matt bought another truck and a set of tippers and carted grain and fertilizer out of Moora for Tierney Transport before deciding to hang up his hat in 2015 and attempt retirement. Although officially retired and spending much of his time fishing on his beloved boat Matt continues to help with some truck and header driving on a seasonal basis.
