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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (26 October) . . Page.. 2084 ..

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, I know that they do not want to hear this, but these are the facts. We have seen 20 per cent less than they budgeted for these things because of a change in market forces. What changes happened in the last five weeks? I will tell you what changes happened in the last five weeks. Mr De Domenico announced that he was going to flood the market with 45 new taxi plates. That is what has happened in the last five weeks. That is what has driven down the price. What has wiped one-third off the value of a taxi licence in the ACT is Mr De Domenico's decision to flood the market with 45 new taxi licences in the next two years.

Mr De Domenico: To provide a better service to the consumers. Wow! Have you ever lined up at the airport waiting for a taxi?

MR WHITECROSS: Mr De Domenico makes some interesting interjections about what the benefits of this might be. Let us go back to the Estimates Committee and the discussion we had on this.

Mr De Domenico: Let us have some evidence about what your mob is alleging.

Ms McRae: Why do you not zip your mouth instead of asking me to do it all the time?

MR SPEAKER: Why do you not both be quiet and let Mr Whitecross get on with it?

MR WHITECROSS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I asked Mr De Domenico, "How did you evaluate the impact on the taxi industry, on the taxi market in the ACT, of releasing 45 plates?". He said, "We got some phone calls in my office". I said, "Apart from the phone calls to your office, what analysis has been done?". He said, "Let me repeat again. We talked to the taxi owners, we talked to the Taxi Industry Advisory Council" - neither of whom advised him to release 45 plates - "we talked to Treasury". Surprise, surprise! Treasury wanted to release 20 plates this year and presumably dozens more next year and the year after. Once again, there was no actual analysis. I said, "But wait a minute. Okay, you have had all these people giving you ambit claims. So what analysis did you do?". The transcript continues:

MR DE DOMENICO: Taking all that into account, having talked to people from the tourism industry, having talked to the people from the Olympic 2000 Committee, having talked to all the people involved in tourism, in other words, as well, the Government decided on 15 taxi plates this year, 15 next year, 15 the year after ...

MR WHITECROSS: ... you have got a series of ambit claims on the table?

MR DE DOMENICO: Yes.

MR WHITECROSS: And some wishful thinking from Olympics 2000 and various other people ...

MR DE DOMENICO: Yes, and some solid decision-making processes from the Government.

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