Page 582 - Week 02 - Thursday, 9 March 2006
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service. We talked about this before. We are talking about demand-responsive transport going down specific routes approved by the minister. I am not talking about someone ringing up and saying, “I have got 10 people and I want to go somewhere else.” That is why we talk about any possible competition between ACTION bus routes and that sort of thing. It is a route service that we are talking about. For example, going from the airport to Parliament House, a good part of that journey follows the same route as an ACTION bus would or could go. So we need to look at it in that context.
Mr Pratt raised the issue of the level of controls contained within legislation, particularly in relation to delivery. You might remember that he was a bit worried that people might be—how do you put it?—discouraged in a sense from getting into the game because of all of these controls. I just say that there are no more controls on this than already exist for the taxi system or for the hire car system. They are exactly the same. They are a series of standards that the industry must apply. So there is no intention to make it any more or less difficult than it is to apply in those other industries.
In fact, having particular legislation available will encourage people, if they want to get into the marketplace, to do so. The accreditation is not terribly onerous when you consider that a lot of these operators are already operating buses anyway. If you look at the CBD limousine service, they have a number of small buses, MO plated, which run charter services. They pick up some disabled kids and take them to school. Under this system, they will be able to define a particular route and run that bus. They can, if they want, make an arrangement with airport management about ranking and all that stuff out at the airport and do a run from the airport to Civic, the airport to Parliament House, the airport to Belconnen Mall, or whatever. That can happen under this legislation. It cannot happen at the moment. There is that issue.
We will not be supporting the two amendments that will be put forward. My colleague Mr Gentleman will explain why that is with respect to Dr Foskey’s amendment in a minute. I might now address the reasons why I am not going to support the ICRC amendment and save us a bit of time when we come to the detail stage.
I urge members to look carefully at the legislation. We are talking about the minister establishing the minimum level of fees; we are not talking about a minister setting a particular fare; we are talking about a minimal level and a calculation methodology; we are not talking about $25 a trip, or 45c a kilometre, or $16 a passenger or anything like that; we are talking about setting a minimum level. The market will then determine the level above that. That mechanism exists.
Another reason why I have not given my support to the amendment about referral to the ICRC is that, when we change the taxi fares, that group of people—and it is now the limited company, Canberra Cabs; it was a cooperative at one point—must apply to the ICRC for that taxi fare increase. Remember that the taxi fare increase is a maximum, not a minimum, which is what I am proposing in this legislation. They have to apply for that fare increase and they have to pay the ICRC for the privilege of making that determination. When ACTION buses want to put the fares up, they do the same thing. I do not have an exact figure but I was told recently it was something up around $200,000. It is not going to be a free thing.
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