Page 451 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
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plates have got their money back, have had years of a good run and have had a return on that investment. There may be a return on their investment, but what about the capital outlay they made in the first instance?
To put this in a simple way that most people can relate to, this is an equivalent situation to someone buying an investment property in Canberra, as thousands of people do—and the government needs this to keep economic stability—and then in 20 years time the government saying, “Well, you’ve got your rent for that. We’re going to trash the economy now to the extent that the unit you spent half a million dollars on is now only worth $50,000.”
Mr Coe: Cancel the lease.
MR WALL: Cancelling the lease on the property would be a classic way of doing that. If that happened there would be riots in the streets. But for all intents and purposes that is exactly what this government has done to those who invested their hard-earned money in a perpetual taxi plate. It is outrageous.
The Chief Minister said there are no guarantees on investments; things change. In a competitive marketplace everyone accepts that supply and demand will influence their return and that competition and innovation may eventually see them out of the market unless they adapt and change with it. But the taxi industry is starkly different to any other free market that operates—it is regulated by government. The powers of a government far exceed that of any other business in competition. The government, for instance, has the power to walk into this place and move the goalposts and change the rules of the industry. And that is what has happened without any consideration for the impact on the lives of those who operate within the industry.
But this is not the first time that Labor and the Greens in this place have taken these sorts of decisions. Let us look at other industries across the ACT—those hardworking individuals who for many, many years have operated green waste collection businesses. The same deal there—the government has moved into an industry and sought to nationalise it by providing that service for free. What consideration was given to those who have been servicing the community for years, many of who have taken loans out against their properties to buy trucks and essentially buy themselves a job? Like many in the taxi industry they are now left with absolutely nothing.
For the party that supposedly stands up for fairness, social justice and equality, it seems the equality comes from the lowest common denominator—if one person has very little let’s just make sure everyone else has the same amount. There is no fairness in that; there is no fairness in gouging those who have worked hard to better themselves, to better their families and invest in their communities.
The government has failed to recognise the error of its ways. Instead, the Attorney-General has nit-picked the details of the motion brought by the opposition and then sought to justify the government’s action—or more correctly inaction—in this space. That is a kick in the teeth to those families, some of whom are here in the gallery today, but there were many more yesterday. It is a kick in the teeth to those families that the government does not represent them.
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