For your information and better understanding of the unethical Labor / Green governance of the ACT.

On 14 September 2024 “Canberra Times” correspondent, Lucy Bladen posed the question –

“Will integrity matter on October 19?”  

In response I drafted the following to enlighten her of the government’s non caring attitudes and plight of a number of people who had been playing a vital role in the provision of public transport, in the form of taxi services, that thereby satisfied a basic government responsibility for them to do so.

Therefore, on behalf of 170 odd business people (owners of 217 taxis) and their families, who were badly treated by Messrs Barr and Rattenbury and the ACT Labor Green Government, their treatment by these men now needs to be told.

One should understand some background and appreciate the governments’ position with one of its primary responsibilities being among others to provide public transport went resulted in the creation of transport networks for both the operation of buses and taxis.  The government bought buses which they continue to own and staff them with drivers who became members of the ACT owned “company” now known as the ACTION bus company.  Conditions of service of the drivers was / is determined by the government always answering to the demands of the strongest and most powerful union in the territory.

The other form of government public transport responsibility lay in the provision of a regulated taxi service owned and operated by private enterprise.  The number of taxis was strictly controlled by the government’s periodic release of plates to meet growing public demand.  Initially, some (very few) taxi plates were allocated by ballot.  Later it was determined to release plates in parcels at periodic public auctions.  The government at all times controlled, by regulation, the operation of taxis to ensure standards of public safety by ensuring both vehicles and driver standards of performance.  They also determined from time to time, upon application, taxi fare increases to meet running costs in keeping with CPI increases.  Drivers had to be trained, tested and licenced to government standards to ensure public safety.  It was an industry in which plates were bought and sold with government backing for their future continuance as being on-going ventures with appropriate returns for those investing in plates.

Annual excessive registration and insurance costs were required to be met by owners.  Yet plates sold by the government or later transferred in ownership were regarded as being “perpetually” owned private numbered taxi plates.  With population growth, (most marked between 1970 to 2010) the number of taxi plates released and sold by government also increased.  Their values also increased over that time too from $80-90K to $250-300K and it was stipulated that ownership was to be limited to just two plates per owner.  Plates were also allowed to be leased by owners to drivers for terms ranging from 2-5 years with annual lease fees climbing to around $20K pa.

Plates sold at the last auctions conducted in 2007 for as much as $300K for it was understood, as stated above, that the taxi industry had government backing and assurances for future operational benefits.  Many owners mortgaged their residence and /or sought bank loans to purchase plates with banking support and understanding of there being a soundness in their investment.

As the population grew from less than 20,000 in 1926 to what it is today so too the number of plates from around but a few (ten) to 217 perpetually owned plates up to 2007 that, without any increases since, remain the number today.  With the growth of the number of plates the need for drivers needing continual training to standards was also necessary.   Plates could be leased out to drivers who earned an income from 50% of the fares taken during their shifts worked.  They could also be leased to drivers wanting to undertake the full operation of plates over terms of 2-3 years.  Such lease fees were set at around 20K per annum.  Owners and / or operators of the plates were required to provide the vehicle and meet all other running costs, fuel maintenance base fees etc.

Then, around 2010 the ACT government decided to enter the ACT taxi industry as a player by releasing some taxi plates periodically directly to drivers to lease for token lease fee amounts of around 50% of that usually paid and sought by private owners at the time.

This situation continued until the unexpected announcement by the ACT government that they intended UBER to operate legally in the ACT territory.  The “feather bedding” of the UBER operations became quickly apparent by the government demonstrating a disparity in the absence of regulation of both UBER vehicles and drivers.  (It was strongly rumoured at the time that UBER executives “sold” their case to the ACT government after some monies had changed hands to close the deal that allowed UBER a much sought after victory in having a government body accept their presence in their territory which permitted them to operate legally for the first time internationally.)

CHECK OUT UBER GATE, Mark MacGann, Uber’s former Chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa leaked a staggering 124,000 records spanning 2013 to 2017.  It was during that period 2015 that the small inane (on world standards) government of the ACT – Messers Barr and Rattenbury beat their chests claiming to be the first jurisdiction in the world to permit UBER to operate legally within their territory.  The modis operandi for UBER was to seek out small not very powerful jurisdictions where they were heavily regulated to burst through government and their red tape.        

As the government had by that time decided that they would not sell any future plates at auction or otherwise the need for more taxi plates needed to meet public transport demands would in future be released by the government for their own control and lease in competition with the small number of remaining plates privately and permanently owned by members of the ACT public.  Those were/are the plates still owned but struggling to survive under what can only be seen as government maladministration, lack of integrity and morals in the absence of any acceptable business acumen whatsoever.

Here is a case where the ACT Government became a major player in the taxi industry by releasing plates for their direct release to drivers for lease at their ridiculously low set annual leasing rate of just $5K pa undercutting industry leasing standards that had been long set.  They became a major player by having more taxis plates at their disposal to release at their leisure thereby outnumbering those privately and perpetually owned by people who had bought their plates from the ACT Government with assurances of their longevity as worthwhile and ongoing enterprises.  The plates leased by the government resulted in a surge of nationals arriving from outside the territory with little or no driving experience or skills with little or no training as taxi drivers.

Similarly, with the arrival of UBER to operate saw many gravitate to the territory with the view of prospering using their own car in an environment fostered by the ACT government.

In very short time from the arrival of UBER and the flooding of taxi plates at ridiculously reduced lease fees the ACT government rendered perpetually owned and operated taxi plates worthless and economically unviable.  The plates, sold by government for as much as $300K, then owned and once valued like any property have fallen dramatically in value to as low as $20K.  With no buyers wishing to take up ownership in competing with a monopoly government, in full operational control of the taxi industry, it is not at all a bright picture for the future of those owners who had suffered losses and financial ruin.

At that time the government was asked to consider just two responsible options that would be seen as being both reasonable, ethical and appropriate (given their original sale of the plates with assurances).  They were: –

1. To enter into negotiations to “buy back” the 217 privately and perpetually owned plates at varying valued amounts from owners. This would allow the ACT Government to then entirely own the taxi industry as they do the buses in their responsibility to provide public transport.  The figures of $150K – $200K could have / should have been seen as being just compensation for those indebted with monies still owed to creditors.  But NO, the government was of the view then that their priority lay with the creation of a tram line from Gungahlin to Civic and later beyond and have no such financial resources to cope with what would have amounted to a sum of about $32-44M.
2. In the event of their deciding not to “buy back” then the second option was to compensate 217 owners for losses of income from the reductions in lease fees that then became applicable with the government setting lease fees at just $5K PA. That figure of just $4.34M one would have thought possible for government to meet.

Against those options presented one should consider the appropriateness of their response given the ACT government, since the arrival of UBER and their becoming a major player in the taxi industry, they: –

1. Received annually from the Federal Government over $1 billion in the form allocated GST revenue raised for the benefit of taxpayers in the ACT. It would seem that Messrs Barr and Rattenbury became very heady and clouded for better judgement given the thought of establishing and spending all their new found monies on trams to nowhere.
2. Also given if they had agreed to Buy Back plates as proposed at the time then they would not be so concentrated in undercutting the privately owned plates as they then did to render them valueless but they could then set more appropriate lease fees in the amounts previously set instead of the ridiculous $5000 pa that would have then generated continual regular income from taxi operators’ lessees they then leased directly to. Where once lease fees would amount to some around 2K pm, or 26k pa. the initial fees set by the government, when they began leasing directly, was half of those amounts.  Given ownership of 400 – 500 taxis under their control one has to consider how much the ACT was /is prepared to sacrifice as legal income revenue raising from lease fees they would have then gleaned – something in the order of $2-5 million pa.

You see in the world outside the ACT Government i.e. in the world of private enterprise – there are provisions in the ACCC Act for court action to be taken, when a player in an industry becomes a major player in the market place, and then, sets rates that then determine what the market rates will be, and those new imposed rates result in forced undercutting of the rates of all others in the market place, for them to seek compensation, penalise and rectify unjust situations that arise in the industries market place at large.

But alas the ACT government as such is beyond the scope of the ACCC Act and cannot be prosecuted under it being a government body. 

What the government did was to announce to the world that they were the first territory or state in the world to legalise the running of UBER.  They may have been thinking about the tram that may be thought as being the way of the future and that they were being progressive in providing new novel types of public transport much of which is now unregulated and operates with less safety assurances as drivers, new and untrained, take up residence in the territory.

The ACT government, as taxi operators themselves, who had opened the door for UBER to operate, then had a clear and more responsible option to simply buy back the taxi plates that they had sold to people and the take full ownership of taxis operations.  That option they ignored.  An alternative would also have been to compensate owners for their losses, particularly those left to pay back loans with less income to do so.  That option, they also decided not to do.

Turning their back on those who had bought from them, and been regulated by them, the way they did was /is unpardonable, unacceptable and totally lacking any remorse or integrity. It is the reason why I left the territory after 50 years to take up residence away from them.

What has happened with the now global arrival of UBER to the taxi industry has also been a globally tragedy.  In 2015 when Barr and Rattenbury beat their chest announcing UBERS legal arrival into the territory plans to cut the taxi services once commonly praised and accepted as being the best in Australia were set in place.  Their control and entry into the market place grew and undercut the taxi plate services of those plate owners who had bought their plates from them.

The saddest aspect of the ACT government’s conduct is found when one understands that all other Federal Labor Government administered states DID compensate taxi plate owners and the numbers involved were considerably more in their thousands that the 170 or more private owners of perpetual plates granted in Canberra.

Philip M. Button

Former Founder and Chairman

ACTTPOA

(ACT Taxi Plate Owners’ Association)

Ph Mo. 0451 683 683

(Please feel free to contact me if you need to query or need more information.)

 

 

(One should understand the unethical method adopted by UBER executives and their connivence to burst through small naïve governments (such as the Barr and Rattenbury government) was doubly distressing as the impact resulted in the undermining of what was considered nationally as being one of the best taxi services in the country.  The plates owned and operated proudly by their owners were immediately devalued as the government turned away from their previous regulated standards and showed less concern about the public travelling in safety and service.

 

The financial management abilities of both Barr and Rattenbury leave me chilled.  Their holier than thou attitude to flit away taxpayer monies as they have over their extended terms together in government have thrived without integrity or moral fibre.)