Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3732 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

Let me sound a note of warning. When that same thing happened in the milk industry, I believe the people concerned got less than fair compensation. I acknowledge that compensation was given but they got less than what was fair. This issue dragged on for so long that the value of their businesses dropped. Valuation of the worth of their businesses reached an all-time low and quite a number of people went to the wall. That should not have happened.

Let me put on the record that, should compensation be needed, $120,000 is the minimum which ought to be acceptable to reimburse the people for their plates. We need to flag to the government of the day that the compensation price tag is going to be around the $2 million mark. You might even find, Mr Speaker, that it will probably be cheaper just to go away and not do anything.

Recommendation 4 is a good one. I was glad to see it because, whilst the ACT government cannot tell the federal government what to do with its contracts, the committee has recognised that unfair practices seem to have been attributed to Comcar in respect of hiring. This committee recommends very strongly that the ACT government use whatever leverage it has with the federal government to ensure that our hire cars in the ACT have a fair shot at that marketplace. Right now they are being frozen out, and it costs them heaps. I think something like 30 or 40 per cent of income was lost when the Comcar rules were changed. It is a case of taking away the bread and leaving them with the butter.

I was pleased to see recommendation 5. I do not see any need to encourage further hire cars from New South Wales. I would hate to see, for example, a franchise business set up in Queensland putting vehicles on the road in the ACT and saying that it is a local business. That would be just dreadful. I believe that would probably be tacking a little bit close to the wind.

I am pleased to see that it is recommended that the existing three New South Wales hire car operators be permitted to continue to operate in the ACT. This arrangement has been embraced by the industry, so there is nothing wrong with that. But we need not open up that marketplace any further because to do so would be to shrink a quite clearly defined market.

I was thrilled to see the recommendation that hire cars be permitted to rank at the Canberra Casino. If in fact the casino is the success that people say it is and it attracts the high rollers from interstate, these people are not going to necessarily want to get in a cab to go from the casino to the Hyatt or to see the sights. They may want something a little bit more luxurious, they may want special treatment, and I think that this is a good move. If we can have, in a sense, hire car ranks at the airport, why can't we do it at the casino? I think we should. I think it is an excellent recommendation.

I pay credit to the work done by Mr Hird in respect of recommendation 7 and the subsequent recommendations which deal with the identification of the types of vehicles-the RHVs, the hire cars and the vehicles with special plates. Mr Hird pushed for clarity of identification. We all know that the big problem is not the operators in the industry but the cowboys who give it a bad name. If we can clearly delineate the legitimate operators as the people who do the right thing, then hopefully members of the public will not access those cowboys.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .