New South Wales,
Australia — Taxi companies might have made a $29
million profit by trading taxi numberplates intended to
help disabled passengers on the open market, an inquiry
into the taxi industry has found.
The head of the inquiry, Allan
Cook, blamed shoddy record-keeping at the former
department of transport. Ninety-four taxi plates, now
worth about $240,000 each, were given out to the industry
for restricted uses.
In addition, no licence fees have
ever been collected for the plates, which earn about $1
million a year for the taxi networks, he
found.
The plates were given to networks
between 1982 and 1990 as a temporary measure to increase
the number of taxis operating at night after random
breath-testing was introduced in NSW, Mr Cook said. They
were later made permanent, he said.
They were dubbed nexus licences,
because each was linked to a wheelchair-accessible taxi
licence - seen as less profitable - in the hope of
encouraging the networks to build up their fleet of
vehicles for disabled passengers.
But Mr Cook found the nexus between
the special plates and wheelchair-accessible vehicles had
broken down long ago. The nexus plates were not supposed
to be transferable but had been traded independently of
the wheelchair plates to which they had been
connected.
They would be worth at least $29
million on the open market today, with each metropolitan
taxi plate worth about $238,500.
"Although the licences were due to
expire in 1993, it appears that at least 94 of the
licences are still in use by all of the networks, and
that the income from these plates is no longer linked to
supporting a [wheelchair taxi]," Mr Cook said in
his interim report.
The departmental records, now held
by the Ministry of Transport, were "very poor" and there
was no clear chain of approval when licence conditions
were changed or extended.
"It is clear that all these things
have happened, and that the networks appear to have
received a collective asset windfall gain of around $29
million," Mr Cook said. He wants to see an independent
body conduct an inquiry, looking back to 1982.
He said ministry estimates
suggested the 94 licences generated $1 million a year in
revenue for the networks, but "no annual licence fees or
transfer taxes appear to have ever been paid for these
licences".
The executive
officer of the Physical Disability Council of NSW, Dougie
Herd - who sits on a separate taskforce expected to
produce a report by the end of the year on why the spread
of wheelchair taxis is so limited - said the council had
been asking about nexus licences for 18
months.
"We've said that's
something that needs to be rigorously examined," Mr Herd
said.
A spokeswoman for the NSW Taxi
Council, Tracey Cain, said the industry body would be
putting a submission about the Cook report into the
ministry.
"Overall, parts of the report are
positive, but we need to be careful about some of the
detail," Ms Cain said.
