Taxi Council of Queensland Inc.
Media Statement
April 20, 2016
Statement from Taxi Council Queensland – Re: Katter Australia Party bill
Queensland is currently undertaking the ‘Opportunities for Personalised Transport Review’ (OPT), chaired by Jim Varghese AM, and Taxi Council Queensland (TCQ) is contributing to the review.
Separate to this, the Katter Australia Party (KAP) introduced a bill to parliament which was referred to the parliament’s Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources Committee (IPNRC). The KAP bill is focused on increasing enforcement and compliance against illegal taxi services, and the IPNRC provided a list of recommendations which included the Minister for Transport taking “immediate action to ensure that compliance with the regulatory system is enforced”. Furthermore, the committee requested that the minister provide information on these increased compliance measures to the House (the subject of tonight’s debate).
TCQ looks forward to the outcome of the OPT review (expected in August), but has also consistently called for enforcement of the existing laws in the meantime. No one should be able to flout the law by operating an illegal taxi service, and no one is above the law. TCQ believes that if one set of regulations is allowed to be ignored simply because the culprit has the money to ignore the law, it jeopardises the rule of law generally. The issue of complying with regulations is far larger than the taxi industry.
ENDS