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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2315 ..

Urban Services, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and Minister for Arts and Heritage): Mr Speaker, for the information of members, I present the following paper:

Planning and Environment—Standing Committee—Report 24—Inquiry into the Road Transport (Public Passenger Services) Amendment Bill 2003—Government response, dated June 2004.

I ask for leave to make a statement.

Leave granted.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, I have presented for the information of members the government’s response to the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment report No 24. The Road Transport (Public Passenger Services) Amendment Bill 2003, which I will refer to as “the bill”, was introduced into the Assembly in February 2003. It gave effect to the government’s taxi and hire car reform program announced in December 2002.

The main features of the legislation were:

• the introduction of an accreditation scheme for hire car operations;

• regulating powers to provide for categories of restricted hire cars—“wedding and school formal” and “tourist services”;

• the deletion of provisions allowing the minister to determine the maximum number of taxi and hire car licences; and

• regulating powers for the staged release of additional taxi and hire car licences by auction.

The objective of the legislation was to create a stable and controlled licence release program based on specific formulae. That would ensure that additional licences are released only in response to demand, but at a rate that would not impact significantly on licence values in any year.

During the debate on the bill, the legislation was referred to the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment for consideration. It is pleasing to see that the committee has reached the same conclusion as the government that the current restrictions on the number of taxi and hire car licences cannot be justified on public benefit grounds and should be removed.

The committee has recommended that the removal of licence quota restrictions be facilitated through a government buyback of hire care licences and an off-budget buyback scheme for taxi licences.

Mr Speaker, the government will offer to buy back hire car licences and will made additional hire car licences available on a lease basis. Hire cars are a small element of the transport sector and one where no real changes have occurred for many years. Therefore, direct government intervention is clearly warranted. The price that will be offered will

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