Users ‘betrayed’ by taxi bill

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 7

Users ‘betrayed’ by taxi bill

PA Wellington The president of the Taxi Proprietors Federation, Mr Bob Turnbull, yesterday told a Parliamentary select committee taxi users had been betrayed by the Transport Law Reform Bill. “In the review of the industry, taxi users unanimously demanded that any new system provide levels of safety and service that were as good as, if not better, than those of the current taxi service. This bill fails these people miserably," Mr Turnbull said. He said the bill did not do what it claimed to do, that was provide for safety and service; but did what it claimed not to do by estabishing a greater level of bureaucratic interference in the industry. “The safety provisions of the bill depend entirely on the offending operators being caught, and the service provisions are completely non-existent. “If it proceeds in its current form the extent to which users have been betrayed to satisfy the dictates of economic theory — deregulation — will quickly become ap-' parent.”

Mr Turnbull said that the new taxi system had been designed by acaHpmip

took no acount of real-life taxi users.

“The provisions of this bill were formulated by the Ministry of Transport officials playing taxi drivers and customers.” Mr Turnbull said taxicab organisations which had played such a prominent part in the day-to-day control and discipline of the industry were severely weakened by the bill. “It makes taxi operation more attractive and rewarding for the gypsy. There are incentives to operate as an independent.”

Mr Turnbull said another negative aspect of the bill was that entry screening took account only of criminal activities.

“There is much behaviour, short of criminal, which would be totally, unsuitable for a taxi driver. Taxis are not like shops or banks, where you can walk out if you are upset. The bill does not recognise that this could place the customers at unnecessary risk.”

Mr Turnbull said that for a bill which expressly aimed at reducing the regulatory role of the bureaucracy, its clauses contained a mass of bureaucratic requirements which would need enormous enforcement