Andre Keune

Andre Keune was born in June 1945, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  His father was a truck driver and by the age of four, Andre often accompanied him on trips.  

With a mate,  18 year old Andre hiked through Europe, the Middle East as well as North and East Africa before settling in Zambia in 1964, mainly due to a lack of funds.  In 1967 he began his truck driving career, carting dried fish from Lake Tanganyika to the capital, Lusaka, and on to Rhodesia in a door-less Leyland Beaver with a 34 foot trailer.  Once, Andre drove to Cape Town in South Africa, a distance of 4,000 kilometres which took eight to nine days one way. A year later, Andre started hauling fuel to Lusaka from Salima due to a fuel crisis from imposed political sanctions. This trip was known as the Death Run due to extreme road conditions and frequent accidents.  Andre carted out copper bars which were positioned on brackets on the side of the tanker and returned with diesel fuel.  He drove both a Hino ZM 120 and a Kenworth W model.  Andre continued carting a variety of freight across Zambia but due to the increasing political unrest, he decided to  immigrate to Australia in 1973.   

Within a month or so after arriving in Western Australia, Andre was driving haulpaks for Goldsworthy Mining in the Pilbara. Later that year, Andre purchased an International truck with a concrete agitator in Perth. Less than a year later, he purchased a Kenworth K124 which he used to cart ammonium nitrate from Geraldton to the Pilbara mines.  He doubled his fleet with the purchase of a Scania 140, to cart ammonium nitrate as well. Andre drove a variety of trucks throughout the seventies but it was not until  early 1975 that he was able to proudly purchase his first brand new Kenworth W prime mover.

In 1981 Andre gave away carting ammonium nitrate and started subcontracting for Brambles Manford, carting refrigerated freight from Perth to the Northern Territory.  He did these runs twice a month for eight years.  In January 1990, a large contract saw Andre hauling ammonium nitrate prill in both bulk and liquid form from Kwinana to the Pilbara and Kimberley regions. 

During the 2000’s Andre purchased additional units for ammonium nitrate quad trailers and for hauling refrigerated and general freight from Perth to Darwin, Northern Territory.  This included the purchase of the very first 700hp  Volvo FH in Australia. 

In 2015, after driving approximately four million kilometres, Andre sold his business, Keune Transport, and finally retired.                                Inducted in 2021