Taxi Industry

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (14:51): My question is to the Premier. What support will the government provide to the access taxi industry, which is on the brink of collapse because of the COVID-19 pandemic?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:51): I thank the member for Hurtle Vale for her question and do note that the taxi industry more generally has experienced huge difficulty at this time. We are seeing reports now of some 60 to 70 per cent reduction in the number of trips that are being undertaken by our point-to-point transport industry. Off the top of my head, I think about 102 out of the 1,137 registered taxis in South Australia are access cabs. They have a very specific role to do. Given that access cab work is centred around the elderly, people with severe disabilities and people who are potentially part of a more at-risk cohort from serious ramifications from contracting the coronavirus, we have seen a reduction in the number of people choosing to use that service.

We are and have been working with various players within the taxi industry, the Taxi Council as well as the central booking services and Suburban Taxis, the ones that have the CBS contract at the moment for access cabs. We have been working with them to look at what package would be appropriate. Again, as the Premier has outlined in numerous answers to the house, what we are seeking to do is work with and complement the measures that the federal government has put in place, as opposed to compete with them.

The taxi industry, for everybody listening at home, is quite a complicated industry in the sense that there are central booking services, there are operators, there are plate owners and there are drivers, and all those people are not actually the same person. So we have been looking at what measures we can put in place to help the sector more generally. What I would say is that, again, given the distinction between the operators and the drivers themselves, there will be different answers for different people within that industry. Drivers themselves who are out of work will be able to get access to those various JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments from the federal government provided they meet the criteria, but we in the state government are looking at what we can do from an operator level.

The other thing I would say, though, is that we are very keen to make sure that in this period of hibernation we actually see market forces work as they should. At the moment, we have 1,100 taxis. At last count, I saw that we had around 300-odd of those taxis deregister. Essentially, what that means is, for the remaining taxis, there is more work to go around. That needs to happen and it needs to happen naturally. I don't think it is something that the government can dictate, who can and can't operate a taxi. Again, given that there is this very strong safety net that after today will be in place from the federal government, there will be an opportunity to make sure that those arrangements are in place for those people.

I would sound a word of caution, though, in relation to access cabs in that we know that we are dealing with a global pandemic. It has hit people hard, but the reports that I have had from yesterday and today are that there were as few as 17 access cabs out there—and as I understand from this morning, potentially as few as two—actually providing services to the community, and that may actually be as a result of some quasi-industrial action being undertaken by the various parts of the access cab industry itself.

I know that this time is difficult. The government is very close to finalising a package to help people, but I would caution anybody who tries to use this global pandemic as a way to undertake industrial action because it will put at risk vulnerable members of our community and those people who need access cabs to be able to get to and from medical appointments to make sure that they can look after their own circumstances.