Page 3934 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 23 October 1990
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Liberal organisation did not see it as necessary to provide the amendments to this legislation to allow such matters to be processed quickly and efficiently.
Mr Speaker, cost-based increases should be given when they are warranted and there is no merit in delaying them unnecessarily. In addition, the taxi industry, like all industries, in applying for an increase, supplies current data to justify its claim. Its fare increase application is then considered by the Taxi Industry Advisory Committee, which advises the Minister on an appropriate level at which to set fares. So, Mr Speaker, in other words, there is often a significant time lapse before the legislative process can commence. While measures are in hand to speed up this part of the process, these efforts will be wasted if implementing the new fares still takes a considerable time to finalise.
Consequently, the purpose of this Bill is to enable fare rises to take effect when they are intended, and to free up scarce legislative resources - something that already has clearly been identified, Mr Speaker, as we seek to ensure that some of the more important legislation is brought before this Assembly as soon as possible. It would be unfortunate if we had to tie up those important resources in drafting such simple changes to legislation.
There will be no decrease in the degree of consultation undertaken during fare reviews. The setting of fares will still be open to scrutiny in the Assembly, and increases will be disallowable. This is important as increasing taxi fares has an impact on the whole ACT community. It is only reasonable that all members of the Assembly have the opportunity to debate any increase should they believe it impacts unduly on the community.
Taxi fare increases are of immediate interest to the ACT Government because they influence the cost of servicing the taxi scheme for the disabled. In the ACT the scheme is run by the Housing and Community Services Bureau. It provides subsidised transport to disabled or aged individuals who are unable to access other forms of transport. Soundly based increases will be applied when they should be and not delayed by legislative process. This will assist stability in the taxi industry and remove any wish to seek catch-up increases.
Overall, Mr Speaker, I believe this Bill will make the whole process of assessing fare increases a more rational and more orderly one, and I am pleased to commend it to the Assembly.
MRS NOLAN (8.42): I also am pleased to support this Bill, to amend the Motor Traffic Act 1936, which will allow future taxi fares to be set by ministerial determination. The implementation of taxi fares has historically been characterised by long delays due to lengthy legislative procedures. This Bill will reduce the time taken to implement new fares.
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