Page 1740 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 6 June 2006
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consider investing in because if it gets too difficult to get to that airport, there will be a lot of disgruntled people hanging around the lounge.
What happens at the moment is that the system falls apart when cabs fail to arrive for airport bookings or when people with a disability, who really depend on a taxi service, cannot get one. We have to look at what we are doing. We know that if the taxi service is not reliable, if there is not going to be a taxi there, people from Canberra will seek other alternatives. They will drive their private cars to the airport and pay the rather massive fees to stay in Mr Snow’s car park and add to his revenue, rather than to the taxi operators.
An integrated public transport system, especially one that is based around the light rail service that I outlined, would make more use of taxi-sized vehicles, but this is not going to happen without a collaborative approach and a more fundamental restructure of the industry. That collaboration has to be not just by the ACT government and the taxi operators, but also by the federal government and the airport owners. This bill does not actually help us to get there, but it will put more cabs on the road and, importantly, more operators leasing their own plates, presumably with an investment in providing a responsive service. That is how this bill will assist.
It seems to be generally conceded that Canberra is not doing too well out of the freehold title approach to cab licensing. Too many absentee owners are sitting on an investment with no urgent need to provide a coherent service. By leasing plates at a regulated rate, there can be a bit more demand and response on how our system operates. It also means that further down the track it might be easier for government to change the parameters and create a more integrated system.
The ACT government is taking a kind of suck-it-and-see approach to taxi services. Things have loosened up little by little over the past few years. The hire car industry has been opened up and we have seen a few mini buses and minicabs around. Some people are prepared to pay more, it seems, for a reliable service. We do not know how well these changes will go to really address the need, and we have to remember that not everybody can afford the taxis, even when there are more of them on the road, and that the buses from the airport are still relatively expensive—
Mr Hargreaves: It is $7 in every half hour.
DR FOSKEY: and not always convenient and only get you to certain destinations. However, interjections apart, drivers can be hard to find largely because they can work very long hours for low incomes. But because there is a general race to the bottom going on in wages, taxi driving might end up a bit higher on the rungs as an attractive option for people.
We are still a long way from putting in place affordable, fast, convenient and seamless public transport for all. Sadly, we do not have a vision for achieving it. Once we do develop a plan, this bill may assist us to put it in place. It seems to me that the first place for us to consider light rail is that route from the airport. The guaranteed source of customers will assist our tourism and other industries. I look forward to seeing something about that later on.
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