Yes that’s right – Uber, or more importantly all ride sharing services, are to be regulated and legalised to operate in Queensland from 5th September 2016.
Now with all the political posturing and silly laws being passed, the current Queensland Government has finally made a decision after a long and drawn out ‘review’ that was undertaken. Whilst I’m not totally against Government’s seeking input from interested groups or parties, the way this Labor Government procrastinated and delayed calling for a review said more about their approach than any result that came out of it.
Whilst we all got excited with the headline about ride sharing being legalised in Queensland, its more about the finer details that are yet to be disclosed by the Government that worries me. Initially they said that Taxi’s would retain the rights to hail and ride as well as rank work, however they also mentioned that there would be far greater background checks on ride sharing drivers, regular vehicle checks and a more level playing field.
Now I have covered off, in a previous post, the process you need to follow to become a Driver Partner and the fact its the Queensland Dept. of Transport that processes and approves the issuing of the Drivers Authority card that you need to be able to drive for Uber. This application already did a full back ground check on each applicant, so I am at a loss to understand what these extra backgrounds checks would entail.
The small amount of information released to date by the Premier does not cover off all the questions that people have; although there is that target date of 5th September 2016 so no doubt the travelling public will get more information before then. I will update the post as more information is released.
As a side issue, the Taxi Companies and their license plate holders, and how they would be treated or compensated is simply a copy of the NSW model. I think the whole idea around compensation, a levy on each Uber or ride sharing trip, goes against everything a free market stands for. The whole Taxi industry was built around a Government centralised model that was in effect a duopoly overseen by the Taxi Council under the direction of bureaucrats from the Dept. of Transport.
Even if a Taxi company(s) or individual owners/drivers wanted to show some initiative and develop better systems or processes they were unable to. All the Government had to do was liaise with the Taxi Council and set the rules that everybody had to abide by – a very real example of a centralist/nationalist control of an industry to the detriment of the owners and the end users of the service.
There was no accountability and the service levels fell, all the while the cost to the users increased.
Ride Sharing is long overdue and hopefully will empower the Taxi Industry and owners to smarten up their act and offer a much better product that benefits all concerned.
Stay tuned here for updates as they occur. Here is Part 2 of the Governments review of Ride Sharing in Qld.