Email To Troy Buswell

The following is an email I sent to Troy Buswell on 2nd Feb, 2011 -

Dear Minister Buswell,

Again I ask how much do you think is a reasonable income for Taxi Drivers?

Mine is currently below minimum.   How do I fix this with so many taxis on the Road in Perth.

Fact – There are more Taxis per capita in Perth than any other capital City.

Fact – Our Fare structure is lower than any other capital city.

Fact – We have a lower usage of Taxis due to our limited working hours, lower density living style, restricted liquor licensing hours and greater car ownership and usage.

Fact – Your department has created a third world industry which now exploits third world workers and challenges established drivers to live on third world incomes if we are to compete.

Fact – Drivers are constantly overcrowding the inadequate ranks in the city.    There are over 1000 extra plates (since 2005) but no extra rank spaces.   

Fact – Most shifts taxis are vacant 60 – 70 % of the time.    This is extremely inefficient.   No regular industry would cope with their employees sitting around doing nothing for that much of the working period (they of course have to pay for it, in our situation you profit from it by putting extra plates out).

Fact – Many of the Taxi catching public have reduced their usage because of poor driver behaviour.   I am  constantly bombarded with complaints about rip offs and bad driving skills.

Do I as a driver of long standing have to approach the TWU to recruit drivers into a collective bargaining situation to gain better earning conditions?

Do I as a driver of long standing have to approach the Fair Work Ombudsman to mount a legal case to gain better earning conditions?

Do I as a driver of long standing have to target marginal seats in a political effort to disrupt your precarious balance of power (I live in Riverton, I wouldn’t have to knock on too many doors).

You are about to indulge in a more sophisticated surveillance system to ensure the safety of passengers.   Why don’t you get your department to do a better job of checking the bona fides of recently recruited drivers.    It is a condition that drivers have had at least three years experience in regular driving.    How can the remittance ‘student’ drivers have that experience if they come from a society so poverty struck that they have to send their young (and older) men here under false pretences to earn money to prop up their economy?    How could they have been driving for three years?    Your department must be either corrupt or incompetent if they are not making correct checks (merely asking third world bureaucracies to check is not good enough).   

If you really want a good Taxi system you need to create an earnings potential that encourages competent people into the industry.    You need to relinquish your desire to make a profit for the government by releasing more and more plates and then improve the mass transport systems so the Taxi system can complement it rather than replace it.

The public and the good drivers deserve better.    What are you going to do to ensure our continued contribution to the public’s transport needs or do you just care about government income no matter what the consequence?

Sincerely

Hal

Dot 3338.