June 2006

GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE, BUT UNDERSTAND WHY

The Government’s long awaited Transport and Liveability Statement was announced on 17 May.

Apart from providing a $10.5 billion plan for improving transport over the next ten years, it also provided for assistance to the taxi industry.

The assistance for taxis comes through:

• A $3million fund to assist country taxi operators to purchase wheelchair accessible taxis
• A reduction in licence and administration fees for country taxi operators
• Funding for country taxi operator training in business operations
• Funding for promotion of taxi use as part of community transport services
• Ability for country taxi depots to negotiate fares for contracted services and permanent bookings
• Ability to align service availability times with the needs of the community
• The allocation of $0.5million for the compulsory training and accreditation of all Victorian WAT drivers

The first six of these come out of the recommendations from Phase 1 of the Country Taxi Review.

In addition, the announced package includes additional funding for the Taxi Directorate to double its compliance staff, and introduce new systems to improve administration.

The Federal Government has also provided a grant to the VTA to produce a suite of training CD’s to assist taxi drivers and trainee taxi drivers to improve their English language skills.

By now you might be thinking that governments have suddenly recognised the taxi industry and thought it was a good idea to assist taxi operators and drivers because they are jolly nice people.

Well think again, because it is not the case.

What motivates and guides governments is the public interest, commonly called a triple bottom line approach – economics, environment and social. Whilst each of these are highly significant in respect to the taxi industry at the strategic, tactical and operational planning levels and the resultant policies, programs and projects, I will only briefly address my comments here to the ‘social’ bottom line.

 ‘Social’ in the context of taxis includes public interest issues such as safety, security, accessibility and social inclusion. Clearly, the taxi initiatives contained within the Transport and Liveability Statement accord with these, particularly accessibility and social inclusion.

The reality is that government is not about providing assistance to taxi operators to sustain the viability of a taxi business for the sake of the taxi operator. Rather, government is about providing assistance to taxi operators to sustain the viability of the taxi business so that the taxi operator can provide a service that is in the public interest.

Always remember, governments regulate the taxi industry because it is in the public interest. If there was no public interest basis for regulation then there wouldn’t be any regulation. And guess what - service standards, safety, security, accessibility, social inclusion and industry investment would evaporate.

Neil Sach
VTA CEO