looks like sensible reform. I hope other states follow suit.

This is quite interesting, makes me wonder if the Victorian taxi industry didn't make a big enough contribution to the right political parasites. Whatever, following close on the heels of the Cabcharge business, it will undoubtedly result in more than a little lost sleep on the part of certain 'interesting' individuals who hitherto believed they had a gubmunt blessed licence to print money. Dunno what opportunities exist for a legal challenge but I bet there are a few very expensive legal brains running right now. If / when this flows onto other states (probably inevitable), there simply has to be a massive upheaval in one of the most corrupt industries in Australia. Even if fares don't decrease, hitherto criminally woeful driver renumeration should increase significantly, maybe even to the point where persons who speak some vague approximation of english see the game as halfway viable.

Are you people kidding me!
I bought taxi licenses much the same as everyone purchases real estate or anything else to build a portfolio, and a nest egg for retirement....you make me sick, I paid for my license and no government has the right to put their hand in my pocket, and take what they want...who is really the winner here, hmmmmmm let me see could it be revenue raising given the vic govt morons actually leased licenses for 10 years at 180k each paid up front. Allow me to also ask who will drive these taxis will it be more foreign students, so much for customer first, and how are these drivers going to make a living if they double the taxis on the road. How many of you need taxis on a week night? Yes there will be a class action because I have paid my taxes like every other normal person and I invested in an industry that should see my investment grow and allow me to retire but alas I wasn't aware I went to bed with the vic govt each night along with my husband. Which industry is next could it real estate, as there are many homeless unfortunately therefore the property that is currently being rented at $450 should in fact only be rented for $50 so everyone has a roof over their heads....same principle!

Crapola

Actually, your license was a way of you putting your hand in passengers’ pockets and taking what you want. Why should people have to pay more for taxi fares to support your retirement?

You ask how drivers are going to make a living. The answer is, by providing services people want at fares they are prepared to pay, same as any other business, and same as most taxi services around the world.

Is there anything in your contract that suggests the government undertook to preserve the value of your investment? If so, you might have a case against the government for acting in bad faith.

Crapola

I concede the decision is disastrous for licence 'owners', however the companies who have hitherto profiteered by buying licences & flogging them off at exorbitant profits which will be the hardest hit. Nobody will shed a tear for those parasites, indeed there will be more than a bit of dancing on their graves. Ultimately drivers who have long endured the lowest renumeration & easily the worst working conditions in the country will benefit, and not before time. I'm not up to speed with the Victorian situation, but Brisbane drivers are lucky to take home $10 per hour after a 12 hour day. Furthermore they pay GST from the first dollar earned, often pay half the fuel, contribution to car insurance, and after that they don't get as much as red cent for holiday pay, sick leave, long service leave, superannuation, or any of the other benefits expected by every other worker. The utterly ridiculous $500,000 licence value simply had to go, if only because more than 50% of fares has traditionally been devoted to funding it.

Honestly Rhian you have no idea what you're are talking about. My husband owns one license which he works, and putting our hand in others' pockets is pathetic to say the least. Why is it your investment property rented at $450 per week and not $50 per week, are you also a parasite, or is it in business.
Fares are governed by the VTD not the individual and regulated, and in Melb a taxi that works peak times makes a great living with very few skills. Just to further clarify the majority of taxi licenses are in fact owned by mum and dad investors like ourselves...we are not parasites but hard working individuals, who have paid taxes our entire life and should have the option of investing without fear or foe, however your narrow mindedness is concerning. It's very easy to pass judgement when you are not in the industry, again allow me to elaborate. There are approximately 10,000 people that converge on the city each Friday and Saturday night, yet there are only 3,000 odd taxis, it is physically impossible to move all these people in a 3 hour timeframe, why doesn't the government allow public transport to run later? These same taxis however struggle to make a living the rest of the week. And yes we chose to invest in this industry as it is the industry my husband worked within and had an understanding of. Before you pass comment I am a professional and have worked only in the corporate sector, therefore my knowledge was limited in the industry until my husband became involved. It is high time you all see the bigger picture here, many more people having to go on the age pension, I personally know of one person who will lose his home and he has a family. People have threatened to commit suicide on the steps of parliament, therefore there is much more involved than you know, families will suffer, hard working honest tax paying families, so before you make blasé comments think of the ramifications to mum and dad investors like ourselves.

I wonder who is going to profit from this one.

It looks remarkably like a repeat of the dairy industry to me.

You know the one, dairy farmers bought a quota, for quite high prices, to supply a certain amount of 'drinking" milk for a known reasonable price. Any milk above the quota was supplied at a heavily discounted price, as manufacturing milk.

Price was controlled through to the retail outlet, & all involved made a reasonable living.

This system was torn down. Farmers lost a great chunk of their investment, & the value of their farms crashed. Their farm gate price dropped to about cost of production, but retail price actually went up. Coles & Woolworths made a killing, & dairy farmers killed themselves.

This looks the same. Unintended consequences will be the result. The cost of running a taxi will skyrocket, fares will increase standards, will fall & numbers of taxis will fall. I have not looked who, but someone is about to make a killing. I wonder who.

Hasbeen

As I'm in Queensland I'm not completely up to speed with the situation
in Victoria however I understand its quite similar to here. We currently have two taxi companies, one of which can only be described as extremely interesting & the other only slightly less so. Both have systematically acquired every cab licence & put a few back on the market at crazy prices, albeit not quite as much so as in Victoria. Mind you the local companies have few other tricks too, which ensure that company owned cars get the majority of halfway profitable work, leaving the dregs to the privateers. Given the utterly ridiculous cost of licences, at least 50% of fares is devoted to the cost of the licence. After the company takes its slice & the car owner gets their bit, there isn't a lot left for drivers who are lucky if they take home $10 per hour for a normal 12 hour day. Out of that they pay GST from the first dollar (none of this $75,000 stuff that applies to everyone else in the country), they pay their own income tax, superannuation, holiday pay, sick leave & everything else normally included in a pay packet. Many also pay 50% of the fuel used & a contribution to vehicle insurance.

Whilst the Victorian move will undoubtedly hurt individual licence owners, I suspect it will be much more onerous on cab companies which have profiteered off licences for so long. Those grubs definitely needed to be squashed. Only recently there was another related decision to cut the fees raked off by Cabcharge, another bottom-feeding organization with tentacles spread across all cab companies in Australia & into other industries as well. There isn't anything remotely nice one could say about the 'ethics' of that company.

to be continued

continued

This won't be the last we've heard of cab companies, no doubt there has been a lot of midnight oil burned in high-priced legal offices with talks about legal challenges. As far as I'm aware however, there isn't any binding contractual arrangement whereby the 'value' of licences is guaranteed ... whether or ot the smartest legal minds in the country can somehow construe some form of obligation to licence 'owners' on the part of the gubmunt will be the crux of the issue.

It is sad that some quite innocent people will lose money that they imagined was safe. But they were wrong. And anyone who thinks that any investment is risk-free needs to think again. The market is brutal, the world of business is brutal, competition is brutal, and that’s how it must be if we want to continue to increase prosperity, because that’s how we got to where we are now. Protection sends all of that into reverse. But invoking the competitive performance of the Kennett era raises a mystery. How come Jeff, reputedly the driving force behind past economic reform (and I mean the rational rather than the regressive kind) is currently railing against supposedly imported Irish ready-mixed bread dough? He ought to be supporting customer choice and business enterprise.

Hasbeen
A levy of 11c a litre was applied to milk to fund structural adjustment in the industry, so the price didn’t fall much immediately after deregulation in 2000. Farmers were helped to exit the industry. Since the levy was removed in 2009, the price of milk has fallen by 16.4%, while the general consumer price index rose by 10.8%.

Crapola
The cost of your taxi license has to be covered by the fares you charge. The regulator will set the price accordingly. What benefit does the passenger get from paying this additional cost?

"The cost of your taxi license has to be covered by the fares you charge. The regulator will set the price accordingly. What benefit does the passenger get from paying this additional cost?"
Another ill informed consumer I suspect. A taxi works 24/7 therefore your comment is negated, yes it is covered, but, and there is a large but here, drivers constantly take fares by spruiking and not turning on the meter...this is standard practise and approximately 30% of their takings are not noted on the meter. The passenger DOES NOT pay extra for anything it is a fare structure that is set by the Victorian Taxi Directorate a government body, therefore your argument is mute and negated. It astounds me that nobody can see the bigger picture here, and if you think there must be casualties in business, more the fool you. Place your money in the bank and do what they did in Europe and lose 25% of it's value directly to the government, but then again people like yourself live from pay check to pay check and you grandstand everyone who has worked to increase wealth. Shame on you.

Crapola

I had cabs several lifetimes back & also developed industry specific software, consequently I have a good working knowledge of the financial issues. Whilst drivers do indeed get the occasional cash / off the meter job, these barely cover the runners. Nobody can dispute the criminally inadequate working conditions afforded to drivers or the urgent necessity to restore some semblance of value to the poor mugs who work in the business. Its is indeed unfortunate that small investors are hurt, but by the same token, there isn't a penalty sufficiently onerous for the slimeball cab companies which have systematically fleeced anyone & everyone since the dawn of time. If you have any awareness of the Queensland cab business, you'll be fully aware of one operation that should rightfully have been closed down before it started. Nobody will shed a tear when that happens, even people who stand to lose hundreds of thousands they invested in licences will be dancing on a certain grave. Victoria may be a different scene however I doubt there is much difference.

Sorry Crapola, my argument is not “mute and negated” at all. The Directorate takes into account the cost of providing a taxi service when setting fares, and this includes the cost of a licence. The fact that this is incorporated into the fare structure not applied as some type of surcharge does not mean that the passenger does not pay

Don't know what happened in Qld but in Victoria it is a whole different ball game. As you state you were involved many lifetimes ago, we have been involved for 20 years in Victoria and yes, 30% of their fares are not placed on the meter, evidenced by the kms on each cab, I am savvy enough to know you can't do 300km and bring home X amount of dollars. If you feel that people losing hundreds of thousands of dollars from their investment, I would ask how much you profited from your license plates, and would you have been happy to lose your life's savings and income. I am more aware than you think my friend as I work in State Govt and deal with Ministers on a daily basis, and I run a business, but this apparently doesn't make me an authority on where to place my money as you have a better understanding of why I should LOSE my investment. I sincerely hope none of you are placed in a position where 30 years of work is lost at the whim of an ill informed tool like Fels.

Crapola

I couldn't imagine any driver in Queensland getting away with 300k off the system on a shift even with the previous radio / computer system because the companies had spies out everywhere to ensure 'good' jobs go to their own cars. For example, the Brisbane International Airport yielded plenty of $200 Gold Coast jobs & the companies were fully aware of that so they stationed a spy there to catch anyone off the system. Once online, privateers allocated a $5 fare to Toombul or Nundah leaving the $200 jobs to company cars. Apparently there has been a new radio / computer system in the past few years that can't be inactivated, consequently privateers can't bypass the system at all and can only get the dregs.

The issue with ridiculously high licence prices appears to be endemic to all states however & its the main reason driver income is totally unacceptable. Without the ability to do cash jobs, we get back to the issue of $10 per hour gross at best. I notice submissions to the Victorian inquiry claiming drivers there are getting as little as $5 per hour gross. Nobody is saying the drop in licence values was going to benefit everyone, but surely something needed to be done when the drivers have been enduring conditions typical of slaves ?? For what its worth, I didn't make any profit from licences. Few privateers do, thats something the two companies have had a stranglehold on since forever.

Could this be sour grapes at all.
Why is it inconceivable for me to make money off my investment, is this not why I invested in the first place.
Qld is a whole different ball game and before you make statements I strongly suggest you check the facts, as this DOES NOT happen in Victoria, even for me who has a 30 year friendship with a couple of companies dating back to our school days, we do not get preferential treatment in any shape or form. I am actually wasting my nails and energy on people who think they are an authority on something they know nothing about. I am very concerned that we now live in a society where govt can step in and not allow me to increase my wealth based on my own hard work....pathetic pathetic we have become a communist country where everyone should be equal in terms of wealth, but some of us work hard and others live off welfare. Too bad for the young in our society as there is no incentive to work and build wealth and when we are all on welfare who will pay taxes to keep these layabouts in welfare. Rant over and I'm out.

Crapola
No one begrudges you money from making a productive investment, or working hard. But a taxi licence is not a productive investment. It’s a dead weight loss that ultimately has to be carried by passengers. It can only hold its value by government restricting the number of taxis on the road, thereby ensuring that passengers get poorer service than they otherwise would. Any extra profit the industry might generate gets soaked up in higher licence costs, so the drivers struggle to make a crust. Unless there is an efficient system of peak hour licenses, passengers are left waiting for cabs or simply unable to get them. It’s a dumb system that should never have been introduced. I’m sorry that you will lose money under the proposed changes, but the reforms are in the community interest

Crapola

Submissions from drivers to the Victorian inquiry stated driver income can be as low as $5 per hour. How do you suggest those poor mugs survive on $60 per 12 hour day, less GST, less whatever ?? That $5 might be exceptionally bad, but there would be precious few drivers getting $10 per hour, out of which they must pay GST, possibly a contribution to fuel & insurance, their own income tax, holiday pay, sick leave etc etc. Could **YOU ** struggle by on $120 gross for a 12 hour day ?? I notice you've refrained from commenting when I've mentioned that issue several times previously so one can only assume you concur with the numbers. Things might not look real flash for your finances now, but do you ever think about the poor mugs driving your cabs ??