2016-06-22
DUNN (Eastern Metropolitan) — I rise to speak on the Ridesharing Bill 2016. I want to start with the context of this bill, and that is to look towards the government's poor record on ridesharing so far. Ridesharing services have been in Melbourne for several years and were well established by the time the Labor Party came to power in 2014. Since that time all we have seen on the part of the members of this government have been a few public utterances on how they want to consult stakeholders in the industry, a quarterly stakeholder meeting and no progress to show for these feeble efforts.
I refer to the media release by the Minister for Public Transport dated 19 March 2015 where the minister said:
The Andrews Labor government will bring together regulators, drivers and operators, as well as consumer and advocacy groups, to create a stronger, safer taxi and hire car industry.
The release quotes the Minister for Public Transport Minister as having said:
The forum will bring together consumer, advocacy and industry representatives to discuss the big issues affecting the taxi and hire car industry and consumers.
That was over the 12 months ago. In fact it was more than 15 months ago, and we are still waiting.
There has been absolutely no indication of a time line for introducing ridesharing legislation and regulation. Words like 'imminent' and 'soon' have been bandied around, but we are still waiting. There have been no regulations established to provide guidance to ridesharing platforms, leaving consumers and drivers in a legal grey zone in relation to appropriate and important protections. In place of legislative progress we have seen the Taxi Services Commission chase Uber drivers through the courts. When the basis of this policy-by-court-case fell apart two weeks ago, the Labor government rushed through legislation to repeal section 159 of the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1983 to make ridesharing illegal again. The Greens was the only party to vote against that bill. It did so because Victorians deserve better than being criminalised for engaging in ridesharing services. In the absence of action on the part of government in this important area of policy, here we have a minor party taking the mantle on this policy.
I will now turn to the substance of the bill. For ridesharing legislation to be credible it must do two things: legitimise ridesharing and protect rideshare passengers and drivers and address the disruption to the taxi industry. This bill attempts to address the first issue only. It is understood that the omission of the second part is due to the limitations on powers afforded to the Legislative Council. That considered, this bill allows for debate as to how to address the disruption of the taxi industry.
On the issue of legitimising ridesharing, this bill makes a genuine attempt at conceptualising the rideshare business model. Part 1 provides clear distinctions as to the definitions of the parties and their roles and responsibilities in ridesharing activities. Part 2 applies minimum standards of functionality in ridesharing platforms and the ridesharing facilitators who own, operate or control such platforms. However, there are shortcomings, and it is the view of the Greens that the bill lacks somethings. Firstly, it lacks sufficiently strict requirements on driver accreditation. One of the reasons ridesharing platforms such as Uber have been popular is that they are considered to provide a superior passenger experience, particularly with respect to the safety and security of female passengers. The bill goes some way to providing strict requirements by leveraging existing legislation on sex offenders to ensure high-threat individuals cannot be accepted as rideshare drivers. However, the legislation falls short when it comes to ensuring that drivers actually have a clean driving record. While it lists category 1 and category 2 offences as defined by the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1983, it omits category 3 offences defined in the same act. Category 3 is defined in section 89A of the Road Safety Act 1986 as traffic infringement notices that are:
… issued in respect of a drink-driving infringement, drug-driving infringement or excessive speed infringement …
Why leniency is applied to this type of infringement is not clear, considering the purpose of driver accreditation should be to keep dangerous drivers out of the ridesharing business.
I move now to the definition of vehicle requirements that is evidence based. It is worth noting that the Taxi Services Commission of Victoria has regulations in place that disallow a vehicle to enter service as a taxi in a metropolitan area 21⁄2 years past the date of manufacture. Furthermore, vehicles must cease operation as taxis once they reach 61⁄2 years beyond the date of manufacture. This bill allows vehicles to enter and continue service as rideshare vehicles up to 10 years beyond the date of manufacture. While this might be rationalised on the basis that ridesharing vehicles are likely to be relatively lightly used prior vehicles compared to the workhorses that make up the taxi fleet, it would be sensible to design ridesharing legislation taking into account the latest research on vehicle safety.
The Taxi Services Commission has commissioned research from the Monash University Accident Research Centre into the correlation between vehicle age and vehicle safety in the taxi and hire car fleet. The research found that there is no clear relationship between the age of a vehicle and its crash risk, but indicated that age limits should still apply as one part of a more sophisticated regulatory framework. The final report from the research, released in April 2015, recommended, among other measures, mandating a 5-star Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) rating for all vehicles, reflecting the established relationship between higher ANCAP scores and reduced injury risk and requiring features and technologies that improve safety outcomes, such as autonomous emergency braking, lane change warning, lane departure warning, fatigue warning systems and electronic stability control.
While ridesharing and taxi services may have product differentiation in the way they are marketed and transacted, in the end the service comprises a driver transporting a passenger in a car from A to B, and there is no reason that vehicle safety standards should not apply to both equally. It would make sense for ridesharing legislation to refer to regulations for vehicle safety ratings and safety features specified for taxi service vehicles.
I want to touch briefly on insurance. The bill is completely silent on ensuring that rideshare drivers, rideshare motor vehicles and rideshare passengers are adequately insured. This is critical to protecting both passengers and drivers. Other jurisdictions such as the successful Greens-Labor government in the Australian Capital Territory have introduced minimum insurance requirements for ridesharing.
I now move to the part of the bill in relation to ensuring protections and non-discrimination against passengers with a disability. There are no provisions in this bill to protect against discrimination against passengers with a disability. While Uber has experimented with providing wheelchair-accessible vehicles in other countries, this is out of commercial self-interest in the form of market expression. There have been cases in Australia of Uber drivers rejecting prospective riders with guide dogs. Disability groups have also expressed concern that if the rapid growth of ridesharing causes the regulated taxi sector to go into decline, wheelchair-accessible taxis will cease to operate. This concern is informed by evidence from other jurisdictions. The number of wheelchair-accessible cabs in San Francisco, California, dropped from 100 in 2013 when the widespread rollout of UberX commenced to only 63 in 2015. It is not at all guaranteed that rideshare platforms would ensure provision of services to mobility-impaired passengers if this aspect of the rideshare market is not regulated.
I draw to the attention of the house a submission made by a range of disability advocacy groups, being the Disabled Motorists Australia, the Youth Disability Advocacy Service, the Australian Quadriplegic Association through its service division Spire, Australian Disability and Indigenous Peoples' Education Fund, Disabled Peoples' International and Ms Estelle Parker, a primary carer and the author of this submission. The submission was to the Victorian government in relation to ride sourcing and transportation for users of wheelchairs and scooters. It contains a number of key recommendations:
1. That the Victorian government, in deciding the appropriate regulatory framework for the operation of ride-sourcing and ridesharing apps, addresses the need for flexible point-to-point transportation for people using wheelchairs and scooters.
2. That the Victorian government implements a regulatory and policy framework that maintains and enhances flexible access to point-to-point transportation for wheelchair and scooter users through the multipurpose taxi program and ride-sourcing/ridesharing policy and regulation.
3. That the Victorian government mandates that ride-sourcing apps, as a condition of legally operating in Victoria, collect and make available information about wheelchair and scooter trips (if any) and response times.
They summarise their submission as such:
As 'ridesharing' and 'ride sourcing' operations increase their market share of driver-vehicle point-to-point passenger transportation, people who use wheelchairs and other mobility assistance devices will be increasingly disadvantaged if appropriate regulation and incentives to ensure that such businesses service people with a disability are not implemented.
As ride sourcing continues to erode the taxi market we will likely see a decrease in the number of taxis, including wheelchair-accessible taxis (WATs) on our road …
As talked about earlier, this has been the experience in other jurisdictions. The submission goes on to say:
WATs are an essential service and should be treated as such by governments: around 20 000 Victorians rely on WATs as their only means of point-to-point transportation. Each year, 750 000 WAT trips are taken by people in wheelchairs or scooters.
…
The reduction in the number of WATs and the increase in WAT response times undermines the Australian and Victorian governments' commitment — under the national disability standards for accessible public transport within the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) — to the target of making WAT response times equal to that of other taxis. It also undermines the Victorian government's commitments under the Transport Integration Act.
Simply allowing privately owned wheelchair-accessible vehicles to operate in a ride-sourcing service will not work to replace WATs. The number of private wheelchair vehicles is very small. Those vehicles driven by wheelchair users usually do not have a driver's seat and do not necessarily have the space to accommodate a wheelchair other than the driver's. Vehicles funded under the government's schemes such as TAC are not allowed to be used for commercial purposes. Most other vehicles do not meet the standards — particularly with regard to space — that allow wheelchair-accessible taxis to transport users of larger wheelchairs and scooters.
Formulating appropriate regulation of ride sourcing provides an opportunity for governments to consider ways to utilise this technology to improve access to transportation by people with a disability, and to ensure that recent improvements in this regard do not continue to be eroded.
A policy response to ensure wheelchair and scooter users are not disadvantaged by the increased market share of ride sourcing over taxis will need to include a package of reforms.
…
As we as a community embrace new technologies, we need to ensure that these technologies are used to benefit people with a disability, not leave them behind.
We absolutely concur with the sentiment of that submission made by those organisations.
Going back to the bill, we are concerned about consumer protection and price gouging. During periods of high demand Uber applies surge pricing whereby a multiplier is applied to the regular tariff.
This can dramatically increase the price of taking an Uber ride — for example, on New Year's Eve in 2015 in Perth the multiplier was up to 8.9. Uber rationalises this on the basis of increasing reward to encourage more drivers onto the streets. However, it may lead to consumer rights issues if it becomes widespread and frequent, particularly if Uber gains a dominating market share or if it is applied during periods of an emergency. This bill does nothing to address price gouging.
The second theme of what the Greens believe should be part of addressing any ridesharing legislation is the disruption to the taxi industry and how transitional arrangements might work. This is a broad area that incorporates many issues, including but not limited to removing defunct red tape on the taxi industry such that the level of regulation is comparable to that applied to ridesharing, such that taxis can be more competitive with ridesharing; reducing taxi plate prices and taxidriver registration fees to be proportional to any applied to rideshare drivers and motor vehicles; preserving exclusive rights for taxis, including rank, hail and transit lanes, to prevent swamping highways and existing kerbside infrastructure; a compensatory package for the loss of regulated monopoly access for the taxi industry and a funding mechanism to pay for the compensation; ensuring disabled passengers are sufficiently provided for, including the provision of wheelchair accessible transportation options; and ensuring that people who are incapable of using, or choose not to use, a smart phone still have access to transport options. The above require altering regulatory structures, imposing levies and establishing compensation funds, and as such are beyond the legislative powers of this chamber, yet they are necessary and fundamental items that must be addressed in concert with any ridesharing legislation.
I note that the Victorian Taxi Association has provided members with some information in relation to this and has provided the following commentary:
The Victorian Taxi Association (VTA), on behalf of our members and the Victorian taxi industry, are urging regulatory reform as soon as is practical to embolden all CPV —
commercial passenger vehicles —
operators to more actively compete on equal terms. Our industry is ready to embrace competition which required unnecessary regulation to be removed from taxis.
Rideshare or ride-hail service providers have long argued that they provide a service which is new and different to traditional taxi services. Despite the evidence to the contrary — the establishment of dedicated ranks, officially servicing airports such as Sydney Airport, and the recent announcement regarding trials of pre-booking functionality … they assert the need for dedicated ride-hail legislation/regulation. We have called this the 'myth of two markets', a myth perpetuated to justify maintaining two-tiered regulation preventing taxis from actively competing with ridesharing providers (not the other way around). As the model matures, it is clear that ride-hail services and taxi services are fundamentally one and the same.
This is not to say the taxi industry does not support change, but that change must be holistic and comprehensive. As such, any reform option must include the creation of a single licence for all CPV drivers. This is central to ensuring parity between ridesharing services and taxis in the future and competition to benefit passengers.
It is our concern that the bill in its current form, despite best attempts, does not achieve this. It does not adequately acknowledge the thoroughly legislated and highly regulated context within which CPVs currently operate and as such is insufficient to deal with the various policy issues at hand
This is from a letter dated 16 June and signed by the chief executive officer of the Victorian Taxi Association.
This is the first attempt at addressing the issue of ridesharing in this place. There has been a lack of activity on this issue by the government, leaving many thousands of people who use ridesharing services in limbo, and as time ticks on and the government continues to dither on this, it creates even more uncertainty for all of those operators, whether they are taxidrivers, ridesharing service drivers or consumers of those services. The contents of the bill are a valuable contribution to the discussion on how best to regulate ridesharing and address the disruption to the taxi industry.
The Greens encourage the bill's sponsor, Ms Patten, to submit it to the economy and infrastructure committee's inquiry into ride-sourcing services. Members will be aware that the Standing Committee on Economy and Infrastructure is conducting an inquiry currently into ride-sourcing services. The terms of reference for that inquiry show that the committee is looking at:
1. barriers to entry;
2. consumer protection;
3. customer safety;
4. competition;
5. access for people with disabilities;
6. remuneration and workplace rights for drivers;
7. how impacts of such regulation on the taxi industry can be minimised;
8. industry transition; and
9. any other issues the committee regards as relevant.
I would encourage Ms Patten to forward her bill to that committee, so she can provide evidence and advice to the committee as to this being an appropriate mechanism and how it fits with those matters listed in the terms of reference. Considering the deficiencies I have noted as part of my contribution today, the Greens cannot support this bill in its current form.