Page 442 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
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Miss C Burch has asserted in her motion that the government reforms have disadvantaged the profitability of taxi services compared to other on-demand services. That conclusion is the stark opposite of the outcomes that are being delivered by our reforms. She appears to be advocating for one small segment of the industry and then calling it the whole industry.
In 2015, with the arrival of online rideshare platforms, the government recognised the potential impact of the substantial competitive differences of the models. Reforms targeted a levelling of the competitive landscape, to the extent that was possible by the government, with a focus on reducing the costs for taxi operators and drivers. The government introduced a range of measures to level the field and is continuing to find ways to do this.
Back in 2015 the government announced that the annual lease cost on government-issued taxi vehicle licence fees would be lowered from $20,000 to $10,000 and that a year later they would again be lowered to the current rate of $5,000. These fees constituted a significant expense for taxi operators, inevitably passed on to drivers, and were an immediate lever for the government to assist the sector to remain competitive. The government also eliminated operator accreditation fees, the English language assessment fee for taxi drivers and some regulatory burdens for drivers, including uniforms requirements.
Two years after these reforms were delivered, the government remained concerned that key costs had not sufficiently declined for taxi operators and drivers. Annual lease fees charged by some holders of perpetual taxi licences, and certain transport booking taxi affiliation fees, remained high. One way that the government can help operators and drivers in the industry is to make government-issued taxi licences more available.
Miss C Burch stated that the government planned to release 142 new taxi plates. That figure is simply untrue. If she had looked at the government websites or releases, she would see that the government announced in September 2018 the release of 80 licences by the end of March 2019 to further level the playing field.
Miss Burch’s motion alleges that the 2018 government evaluation of on-demand transport industry reforms describes a dramatic decline in demand for taxi services since the introduction of rideshare services in the ACT. The report did note that the volume of booked taxi trips declined to the level of volumes in 2013. For the sake of accuracy here, the Centre for International Economics, which contributed to the evaluation, cited a decline in booked trip volumes from around 1.1 million toward the end of 2015, when rideshare commenced, to one million trips during mid-2017—a decline of around 13 per cent.
The decline is notable, but it is far from dramatic. It is obviously important to note that this figure also does not include the utilisation of rank and hail taxis, which remains the sole domain of taxis. The taxi industry is not under threat of collapse, as some individuals suggest. In fact, taxi services remain central to a growing on-demand transport service offering for Canberrans and visitors, particularly during federal parliament sitting periods.
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