Commonsense solutions to country taxi crisis

The Nationals Member for Benalla, Bill Sykes, says Northeast Victorian taxi operators have come up with a list of commonsense solutions to the country taxi crisis.

Bill Sykes met with Northeast taxi operators earlier this week at which Hans Zonneveldt from Cobram tabled a summary of practical changes which would ease the financial burden on country taxi operators.

Dr Sykes said, “The commonsense solutions fall into two categories. The first category offers solutions which involve no cost to the Government and the second category will remove the current discrimination against country operators and/or produce better results for money spent on our needy, disabled and frail elderly.

“The options which come at no cost include better integration of country taxis into community transport systems. Successful trials have been conducted in Mount Beauty and Maryborough, where taxis provide a great proportion of the transport needs of people attending medical appointments and community activities.

“Further to that, country taxi operators, especially those in small communities, should be exempt from the requirements to provide a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week service and allow operators to do less late night work during the week, whilst retaining the late night service on Friday and Saturday nights.

“Allowing taxi operators in smaller country towns to get their yearly Roadworthy Certificate locally rather than travelling long distances to regional centres is another simple cost saving measure.

“Simple regulatory changes to licensing of areas and removing the ridiculous and costly need for border taxis to be accredited in both Victoria and NSW would again reduce the cost of operating and improve efficiency at little or no cost to the Government.

“The current subsidy system could be made much fairer by country taxi operators receiving the same subsidies for providing wheel chair accessible taxis as city operators currently receive. At the present time country taxi operators miss out on $1,300 a year for each wheel chair accessible taxi (WAT), plus $3.30 for each booking and $1 per kilometre to travel to each call out.

“Similarly, given that country taxis have been recognised as a proxy form of public transport, appropriate more general subsidies should be considered, as in Melbourne, where public transport is subsidised by over $2 billion per year.

“Furthermore, operators of buses used for public transport are subsidised for the cost of alterations to achieve disabled access – why can’t a similar subsidy be applied to WAT in country Victoria. (Note: WAT cost twice as much as a standard taxi).

“The issue of banning advertising on taxis needs to be revisited in the light of advertising being perfectly legal on public trams and buses. The revenue from advertising would offset many basic operating costs and has little,if any,downside.

Dr Sykes continued, “If the Minister for Transport and his city based bureaucrats would only listen to country taxi operators the taxi industry would not be in the current crisis.

Dr Sykes concluded, “I call upon on the Minister for Transport to immediately implement the above commonsense solutions and use his proposed review to explore broader issues such as extensions of the Multi-Purpose Taxi Program.”

Media contact: Bill Sykes(03)57622100 or 0427 624 989