Media release
4 May, 2018
The Taxi Council of Queensland (TCQ) is challenging last month’s decision by Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads to grant Taxify Australia Pty Ltd (Taxify) a Booking Entity Authorisation (BEA), arguing there is a clear breach of the regulations and the decision opens the door for other booked-hired businesses to disregard any rules that they may not like .
The Government’s legislation makes it illegal for non-taxi operators to use the word ‘taxi’ or ‘cab’ in promotional materials or advertising unless a taxi is the vehicle providing the service. Taxify is a booked hire service and it does not dispatch trips to taxis.
TCQ CEO Blair Davies believes Taxify, which also trades as TAXIFY OU, is deliberately mocking the Government as well as the taxi industry.
“To dispatch taxis or booked hire vehicles in Queensland, the regulations require companies to be authorised BEAs. Taxify applied for BEA status using the name “TAXIFY OU’ which looks a lot like ‘Taxi F… You’,” said Mr Davies.
“The Transport Department should be making Taxify do what UberCab had to do back in 2010 when it wanted to start operating in San Francisco. It wasn’t allowed to use the word ‘cab’ in its name because it wasn’t dispatching trips to bona fide taxis and so it rebranded its operations as just Uber. Taxify needs to do the same.
“TCQ is not objecting to a new competitor entering the personalised transport market, we are simply asking the Government to hold everybody in the sector accountable to the rules that it created. If the Transport Department is going to allow one competitor to blatantly mock a regulation and disregard it, it opens the door for others to do the same.”
TCQ’s concerns about Taxify being given BEA status are not restricted to it illegally using the word ‘taxi’ in its name. In September last year, Taxify’s operations in London were shut down with reports suggesting the company had tried to operate without securing the necessary licenses.
“Taxify is yet another global behemoth that wants to make money in Queensland,” says Mr Davies. “The Government opened the door for them with its regulatory changes and so it now needs to step up to the challenge of keeping these companies from running amuck.
“TCQ is calling on the Government to say to Taxify and others like them that Queensland is a great place, but if you want to come here, you must play by our rules and if they don’t the Government needs to slam the brakes on them right from the get go.
“Granting BEA status to a foreign controlled company is like a license for them to make money out of Queenslanders. It’s a privilege and not a right.
“The Government can’t have the Transport Department handing out BEA status to companies that show they want to misrepresent the types of services they provide or that don’t take safety and other regulatory requirements seriously,” concludes Mr Davies.