The NSW TDA resources must be dedicated for working taxi drivers and owners and NOT for Cabcharge or other investors. The NSW TDA is an open and transparent organiusation and it must reject secret meetings, character assassination and politics of divide and rule.
Some committee members are spending too much time for taxi plate issue and they have ignored The Sunday Telegraph’s consistent attack against taxi drivers based on false and fictitious issues as well as many other vital issues.
If Les Wielinga tempers with my Authority, I have options including taking this matter to the United Nations for breaching my fundamental rights. So, no one should be patronising me in this regard.
Faruque Ahmed
Secretary
NSW TDA
Email: union_faruque@yahoo.com.au
Mobile: 041 091 4118
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
All Members of Parliament
My proposed submission NSW Taxi Royal Commission and submission of the New South Wales Taxi Drivers Association Inc below are for your consideration.
My ICAC Submission provides a good picture of the industry. My initial submission and final submission to the AIRC contain lots of useful evidence to understand the industry. The NSW TWU's Crime against Taxi Drivers presents a picture of 1984 sell out by the NSW TWU. The Ghost and Gas – No Conspiracies adds some light on how did they pass the burden of gas and wash to bailee drivers' shoulder illegally! The AIRC transcript is like a "scary canary" trying to expose many crimes and corruption in front of seven judges under pressure.
Before you vote please remember it is your state and you must protect the interest of the state and public.
Faruque Ahmed
Moderator, Sydney Taxi Corruption
Email: union_faruque@yahoo.com.au
Mobile: 041 091 41189 November 2009
New South Wales Taxi Drivers Association Inc
FOR: BAILEE DRIVERS, OWNER DRIVERS, AND LESSEE DRIVERS, Inclusive
Inc. no.9882558 ABN 98 653 928 763 PO Box 322, Alexandria NSW 2015
A Fair Share of a Fair Fare
President:: Anne Turner Secretary: Faruque Ahmed
Mob: 0431 585 944 Mob: 0432 665 822
Mr (L) Les Wielinga
Director-General
Ministry for Transport
Level 19, 227 Elizabeth Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000
Phone: (02) 9268 2909Fax: (02) 9268 2213
GPO Box 1620 SYDNEY NSW 2001
email: les.wielinga@transport.nsw.gov.au
Dear Sir,
We write to thank you for your kindness and consideration in welcoming our delegation of six members of the NSW Taxi Drivers Association Inc. for the briefing on the proposed issuance of additional taxi plates held Monday 12/10/09. We hold a large pool of taxi drivers’ phone numbers in our SMS database and circulate our newsletter, The Squeaky Wheel, to most NSW taxi drivers all of whom are very concerned about the current proposals.
The reason that these members:
President
Ms Anne Turner
princessannie@unwired.com.au
0431 585 944
Vice President
Eddy Diab
eddy7529@hotmail.com
0450 956 072
Secretary
Faruque Ahmed
union_faruque@yahoo.com.au
0410 914 118
Media Manager
Vanio Conterno
cabbieofoz@gmail.com
0417 455 606
Delegate
Ernie Mollenhauer
erniethecabbie@hotmail.com
0416 335 576
Member
Tony Denton
all attended was that the prospect of the Sydney taxi market being flooded by a rush of new taxi licences has sent waves of fear if not terror throughout the taxi ranks of Sydney. Many taxi drivers and taxi operators are looking to us for advice on how they should react to the Minister’s press release which said in part that his initiatives “would allow more people to get into the taxi market”.
We were certainly encouraged by your statement “that you are fundamentally driven to get more taxis out there” to the extent that it would mean increased earnings for taxi drivers. However, our members are resolute that achieving the goal of increasing the gross number of taxi journeys does not translate into a requirement to issue more taxi licences. Given the many indicators that already show that most taxis are vacant most of the time, many with no driver even willing to venture onto the street in one, there is a logical void in the assertion that more taxi licences will lead to more taxi journeys. The reason that we furnished you with that long list of taxi operators (from just one network) currently looking for drivers was to make the point that issuing more taxi licences will NOT necessarily lead to any more drivers wanting to drive the proposed new cabs. Quite the opposite, the rumours that abound, about a flood of new plates, have already sent a number of taxi drivers looking for alternate employment. For most of every day there is already a huge oversupply of taxis that has served to dilute the earnings of drivers to such a low level that drivers see their future as almost hopeless. Already drivers who were planning to put their own cab on the road have fallen back to a wait-and-see position as they get more fearful that swimming in a flood of new taxis will see them drown.
The issue raised by our secretary, Faruque Ahmed was absolutely poignant. He pointed out that there are currently no measures of unmet demand for taxi services and without those measurements being in place there is no way that T & I can confirm ever reaching its stated goals. Indeed we, in the industry, have a host of indicators that show that the demand for taxi services has fallen markedly as a direct result of the global financial crisis. We can advance many more valid reasons for reducing the size of the current taxi fleet rather than increasing it.
There are so many things that T & I could do that would lead to increased taxi patronage and access without increasing the overall fleet size. The service delivery concerns, that the media have raised time and again, fall into two narrow groups. The first, as you mentioned in our meeting, is the queuing by intending passengers between midnight and 3 a.m. at nightspot venues on Fridays and Saturdays. At one of these venues, Kings Cross, the media highlighted instances of drivers refusing fares at changeover time. We view that as taxi drivers rendering their best efforts at furnishing customer service as they have no better way of finding passengers that they CAN service given that they must return their taxis to enable the next driver to commence his shift. The drivers’ options’ were simple. Either drive home empty or drive home with anyone that they could find going their way.The second service delivery area concerns taxis not responding to radio bookings. Without doubt the current radio booking system could stand some improvement.
Across many fields of endeavour the uses of technology have reached an all time high. However the limitations of the current taxi booking systems (systems which all would expect to serve the purpose of matching intending passengers with willing drivers) is supplanted by the stone age process of individual taxi drivers having to meander from person to person in crowded areas in search of the one, homebound, fare that they CAN accommodate when it comes time for them to finish their shift!
The government stresses the need to manage fatigue for heavy vehicle drivers but somehow it demands that taxi drivers continue working indefinitely just so long as no passengers' demands are ever refused. This is at odds with all other transport systems that the government oversees that all see peak time queuing. It seems to matter little to officialdom that the lives of long suffering drivers, as well as their passengers are being put at risk by crackdowns on drivers refusing fares at changeover time. Forcing drivers to accept an endless string of hirings is NOT in anyone's best interests. We recognise that the release of the (9000 series) night plates has been a relative failure. Night plates are not performing the rush hour duties for which they were released. Plates that only permit one shift to be worked each day are usually off the road in the small hours. Night plate drivers cannot work all the 18 hours per day they are allowed but 18 hours is not enough time to sustain two drivers per car per day. Typically night plates are not on the road during the 3.00 a.m. crush. To force drivers to drive away empty from busy locales just to comply with the impractical regulatory system and the severely limited booking system just wastes all those homebound journeys of drivers already committed to leaving the city.
The solution is simple. It just entails matching drivers with passengers heading their way. A ranking and booking system that works is all that is needed! Drivers have pleaded in vain with networks to be given the intending passengers’ phone numbers. However the networks resist even collecting the phone numbers of intending passengers and routinely refuse to pass on numbers that they do have to drivers.
Time and time again drivers striving to meet intending passengers are forced to give up, unable to ascertain whether the passenger is still there or not. All too often, at the same time as a passenger hangs on the line to one network telephonist another telephonist, trying to ring the same passenger, gets diverted to voicemail and assumes the passenger is no longer there. Alternately networks send a bland text message to an intending passenger but the drivers get no feedback as to whether the passenger is still in their original position. With no certainty of getting in touch with their passenger the drivers simply can not rely on network booking messages. The whole system is wracked by contempt and mistrust between drivers and passengers simply because the two who look to a network as a conduit of information quickly discover that the networks are limiting communication between drivers and passengers!
Drivers quickly learn not to run for a booking from a main road or popular venue because of the high likelihood of that fare being snatched by a competing driver who may well have been sitting outside the venue at the time the phone booking was first placed.
The Ministry has not met its obligations in convening meetings of the Taxi Advisory Council and the Taxi Safety Task Force at which ALL stake holders, including the most noticeably ignored group, taxi drivers, might have a say on matters such as this.
Regular riders garner the telephone numbers of regular taxi drivers and enjoy a totally different experience. Regular riders commit directly to their trusted drivers to be at a set place and time and receive in return a matching commitment from their driver to be there as arranged. That arrangement, founded on mutual trust works extremely reliably. Yet the Ministry’s current regulations strive to confound this practice as well! Under the absurd regulation 147 drivers are prohibited from passing a booking from a trusted passenger along to a fellow, trusted, taxi driver. The purpose of that regulation, inserted no doubt at the networks’ demands serves to shore up the networks’ dominance at the cost of customer service.
The Ministry seeks to improve the supply of taxis available in the small hours of the morning yet the regulations it presides over serve to thwart many such moves by willing taxi drivers. We cite particularly regulation 108 (f) which some well meaning bureaucrat no doubt thought would be helpful but in fact imposes huge penalties upon willing drivers. That regulation has served to make night shifts in wheelchair accessible (WAT) taxis unviable. Willing night drivers are deprived of two gross hour’s revenue by not being allowed to start in a WAT before 5pm. In practice this means that even if they got the WAT shift for nothing, when all else is considered, they are still better off driving a regular cab and paying the applicable bailment fee. The nexus fiasco has not seen any funds made available to bailee drivers to compensate them for their delayed starts in WATS. As a result of that inane regulation most WATS are driven one out, i.e. with only one shift per day so naturally those cabs are off the road in the wee hours. (Maxis are an exception as they vie for the more lucrative group rates at Tariff 3 & 4). Further, the inability to bail the cab for two shifts per day makes the whole enterprise unviable and so the WAT operators literally drive themselves to death trying to cover the huge overheads without a night driver. Their efforts at meeting the Department’s requirements that their cabs be on the road 70 hours per week is literally killing them. Allan Cook explored the notion of forcing networks to restrict their charges to only apply during the times that the cabs were actually on the road. That strategy, of suspending the huge overheads of cabs during the quiet times would also be a smart move to explore in order to increase the numbers of cabs that could be drawn upon to meet the infrequent peak demands.
We acknowledge that there is a glut of passengers at peak times but the balance is already vastly slanted against the taxi drivers. We accept that for about 4 hours per week, 2 hours on some Friday nights and 2 hours on some Saturday nights the demand for taxis exceeds supply. However for all the rest of the week the oversupply of cabs is making the industry unviable. Increasing the numbers of taxis will punish all current drivers all week long. The networks may delight in increasing their earnings from radio fees but for most of the week those new plates are just not required. We already suffer at the hands of officious parking rangers as we queue, often illegally, just to get onto a taxi rank. At the very least the government should match each additional taxi plate that it releases with a corresponding increase in taxi ranking space. If you can’t identify suitable places for new taxi ranks then we would say that you haven’t confirmed the need for more taxis.
We have no doubt that the release of additional plates has been encouraged by the media (and possibly by the networks whose earnings rise directly with fleet size). We maintain that to issue more plates will only serve to starve more able bodied drivers out of the industry. Drivers need to be able to earn a living all week through not just for 2 hours on Friday and Saturday nights. Taxi operators face crushingly high overheads. The current system makes it impossible to only work the busy times. The rest of the time drivers and operators make such poor earnings competing with each other that they are already arguably better off doing something else. If you are serious about increasing service levels by taxis to passengers you would give more consideration to the lot of the beleaguered drivers and operators. The industry is already dogged by huge staff turnover as ambitious and aspiring entrepreneurs soon discover that their dreams have turned to mud. Unless an increase in numbers of taxi plates on the road is matched by an increase in earnings by drivers and operators their plight can only be made worse by a flood of new plates. Whilst the taxi fares are oppressively restrained by IPART there is no corresponding pressure on any of the suppliers to the taxi industry. There is a litany of money grabs whereby taxi fare increases have been snatched away from drivers and operators by the many suppliers to the taxi industry. If IPART were to widen its horizons and apply the blowtorch to the belly of some taxi resource suppliers there would be much better opportunities for drivers and operators to remain viable in the industry.
Taxi ranking regulations and facilities just do not meet the demands of peak periods or the special needs at driver changeover times. Importantly, for night drivers, we would advocate the same or expanded provisions in the use of destination signs as are currently already authorised for day drivers. Under regulation 142(2) and (4) only day drivers are allowed to join taxi ranks whilst displaying a destination sign. This limitation forces too many night drivers to give up any attempts at finding a homebound fare and so they just drive off from the city with their cabs empty. Only by authorising cabs to pull onto more ranks while their destination signs are on display will those wasted homebound journeys be utilised. While many have speculated on means to implement staggered taxi changeover times, one strategy that would encourage staggered changeovers would be the permitting of destination signs across the board instead of only at specified periods and allowing their use at all taxi ranks.
We calculate the start up costs of establishing a new taxi business as being around $90,000.00. To permit gullible, naive and ill informed victims to be lured into an unviable business proposition will see the authorities condemned for their irresponsible actions.
At our meeting you committed to meet with us again after receiving a list of “dot points” for review. That list follows. We remain committed to serving the public’s need for taxis and accept that you are similarly committed as well. What remains to be seen is how we may work together to achieve our joint objectives. We await your invitation to our next meeting.
NSW TDA Recommendations
1) Appointment of representation from the NSW Taxi Drivers Association Inc to the Taxi Advisory Council and Taxi Driver Safety Task Force and participation in their regular meetings.
2) Stipulation of the design requirements for a destination sign as omitted from regulation 142 which simply says in part: “
(3) A destination sign:
(a) must be of a type, size and material, and
(b) must contain only the wording, and
(c) must be located in a position,
approved by the Director-General.”
3) Removal of the restrictions of times and places where taxis with destination signs may ply for hire. 142(2) and 142(4) and 142(5)c.
4) Removal of the prohibition on taxi drivers passing a booking which they can not service on to another authorised taxi driver by changing regulation 147 to say (in part) instead of :
“to a person or body other than an authorised taxi-cab network.” replace those words with: “to a person or body other than an authorised taxi-cab driver or network”.
5) Removal of the prohibition that prevents night drivers from being able to earn a comparable living in WATs by deleting regulation 108 (f) which says:
“(f) is not subject to any change of drivers between the hours of 12 noon and 5 pm on any day,”
6) Compelling networks to request the passengers’ telephone number for every booking that they accept.
7) Furnishing those passengers’ telephone numbers to taxi drivers routinely along with the booking details.
8) Exempting taxi drivers, in the same manner as Police already are, from being penalised for using their mobile phones to communicate with patrons.
9) Authorising taxis to travel, pick-up and set down passengers wherever buses can.
10) Postpone the release of any further plates into the market until such time as these measures have been allowed to work and their impact measured.
11) Encourage those drivers who currently shun double demerit periods by absolving drivers from those additional threats.
Anne Turner
President
NSW Taxi Royal Commission
Definitions:
Desperate Taxi Drivers: These types of drivers will park outside brothels and other buildings including no stopping and no standing zones loitering for a fare! They are desperate. They want money to pay for the harsh, unjust and unlawful rental charge of the taxis they drive. Many brothel operators and workers do not like them outside their premises as their presence drives away some customers!
Shameless Taxi Drivers: Like the “Desperate Taxi Drivers” they also park in streets or street corners when they see someone is just walking or kissing each others for reasons well known to them! They expect, these people will catch a taxi when they finish their business. These shameless taxi drivers even do not know that they may not have a chance of getting a fare!
Misguided and Rude Taxi Drivers: They are worse than “Desperate Taxi Drivers” and “Shameless Taxi Drivers”! They will slow down taxis, beep people walking on the road and then they will ask, “do you want taxis”? Generally speaking they are taxi mafia’s “Apartheid School Graduate” as well as misguided and overcharged “Silver Drivers”!
Drug Courier Taxi Drivers: Over the last few years two taxi drivers used taxis to drop drugs! All of these groups mentioned above would like to work and have a decent days pay! However due to endemic corruption, taxi mafia manipulation, false advertising and false representations with the assistance of many state and political entities all of those workers never experienced a safe work practice, safe work place or minimum wage!
Many taxi drivers have been fighting for a safe work practice, safe work place or minimum wage for a long time and they are facing brick walls harder than “Apartheid Wall of Israel”. Surprisingly, many state instrumentalities have been handing over money and power to taxi mafia to subdue and subjugate taxi drivers and owners. On many occasions, the state government departments have been wasting public funds and power and authority vested on them to prosecute innocent and helpless taxi drivers!
Public Servants: They are servants of the people and paid by the people. They are supposed to be serving the state and the people. However, many documents including many links and documents including links of Target Beyond Taxi Mafia Game and Beyond suggest that they are NOT protecting the interest of the state and public. Sadly, one can find their actions and inactions are contrary to the wish and interest of the state and public as well blatantly pro taxi mafia!
Elected Officials: Like “public servants” they are elected and paid by the public with an expectation to protect the wishes and interests of the state and the public. Alas! They too, are working for the taxi mafia and against the wishes and interests of the state, public, taxi drivers, taxi owners and passengers! Isn’t it sad, bad and shameful?
Can someone answer me:1. Are these “Public Servants” and “Elected Officials” better or worse than any category of taxi drivers mentioned above?2. Should they be allowed to flog the dead horse i.e. taxi drivers for their own misdemeanors, mistakes and crimes?
Issues of Concern
A. Taxi plates are the property of the State and public. Taxi plates must be used for the benefit of the State and the public. No public servants and politicians should be protecting the interest of the counterproductive investors. Such a pro-investor policy is contrary to the wish and interest of the state, public, taxi drivers and taxi owners.
B. The Safety and comfort of the public and drivers ought to be the top priority of the taxi industry. No one should be kowtowing to the taxi mafia because the taxi industry is a service industry and totally different from a casino or the stock exchange. The regulatory priority must be targeted for a safe and comfortable journey for the public. It is the responsibility for the state government to provide safer work practices and work place. They also should remove any and all ambiguity as well as ensure proper compliance of the duty of care provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
C. The practice of handing over many types of taxi plates to s selective few appears to be a very corrupt process and contrary to public and state interest. Too many politically expedient “quick-fixes” have created a maze of convoluted structures, largely devoid of stakeholder participation. Silencing and sabotaging many reports and inquiries regarding this issue is blatant proof of the deception and fraud. Furthermore, suffocating and hoodwinking the public in its genuine efforts to win some accountability and transparency within the NSW Department of Transport, Ministry of Transport and other bodies were in the past and still are at the present very devious and intimidatory. Like the old days, taxi plates should be issued to only working taxi drivers with a provision of temporary relief in case of death and disablement. In the recent past, the authorities started to hand over taxi plates to the taxi mafia and many people who should not have been allowed into the taxi industry in the first place! They also made it very difficult, if not impossible, to ensure accountability and transparency by keeping the taxi owners register secret.
D. The Taxi Networks/Call centre must be accountable to public and drivers. The long overdue regulatory reform was requested back in 1993 to the relevant authorities! Surprisingly they did nothing! In other words the government departments are rewarding greedy and lazy taxi networks for short changing public and drivers. By the same time, the same public servants are bad mouthing taxi drivers to hoodwink the public. This is unconscionable and unacceptable. No honest and decent public servants and elected officials would follow this shameless path.
Time is right to come clean. The NSW Government must:
1. Recall all Nexus Taxi Plates and other types of taxi plates given to taxi networks and companies. They are state property and must be utilised for the benefit of the state and public. It is being said, that 95% of the assets one taxi network are derived from these “generous” state handouts! A few other ”lucky” private individuals also may have received such “gigantic gifts” from the state government and as a result they have gained huge financial power and the ability to muzzle taxi drivers and misguide traveling public.
2. Demand that taxi networks and companies holding "free" plates must hand back the plates and the income generated by all Nexus Taxi Plates and other plates given to them by the government. Simply because they are state and public assets and they must be utilised for the public and the state. No fair minded person would be expecting to spend income generated by these state assets to trawl the wall or at Kings X.
3. Open up the Taxi Register like Company Registers. Why should the taxi industry be lacking in accountability and transparency? Who is getting the benefit out of such secrecy? Certainly not the public and the state!
4. Issue taxi plates to working taxi drivers only. (Instead of empowering taxi networks to intimidate taxi drivers, the Government must empower taxi drivers & operators to pressure networks into providing the booking services that the traveling public wants and is entitled to). In England they have a healthy taxi industry based on this model. No one apart from the taxi mafia have benefited from removing the seniority list register.
5. Gradually remove speculative investors from owning taxi plates. Remember, they brought corruption rather than creativity. Therefore, an honest government, not bonded by the taxi mafia should immediately enact legislation to remove any and all speculative investors.
6. Stop issuing false and misleading Media Releases like the one below. Stop past and future unnecessary harassment of taxi drivers in order to divert attention from the corruption and incompetence within the government and bureaucracy. During the “expensive” meeting with the Director General and his entourage they failed to present any solution or way forward based on any yardstick or management tools! No one told us what is the demand of taxis and therefore how many taxis will be required to match any and all demand in the first place! Furthermore, much anecdotal evidence exists which indicates that there is a lower demand for taxis in Sydney now. Most of the taxi ranks are overflowing at any time and day of the week. Even the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) of the T&I is saying that 35% of the time taxis are not on the road or utlised.
7. Re-establish the Taxi Advisory Council and Taxi Drivers' Safety Task Force as per the principles laid down by Justice Edwards and Beattie as well as Sir Asher Joel’s recommendations. Please ensure proper representation in those bodies. Last time, Peers Ackerman, Miranda Devine and many other people pressured to re-establish the Taxi Advisory Committee. Alas! The taxi mafia and the NSW TWU leadership sabotaged the good work and as a result now we are back to square one.
8. Allow and nurture the Taxi Advisory Council and Taxi Drivers' Safety Task Force without them being infiltrated by taxi mafia, stooges and Labor Party thugs.
9. Have a Taxi Royal Commission with widest possible Terms of Reference.
Target Beyond Taxi Mafia Game and Beyond
Further to Members of Parliament and media outlets, Beyond the NSW Taxi Royal Commission, An Open Letter to NSW Premier Nathan Rees, Taxi Washer to Taxi Mafia and Mafia Game and Beyond; taxi plates are the property of the State and public. Taxi plates must be used for the benefit of the State and the public.
The Safety and comfort of the public and drivers ought to be the top priority of the taxi industry. No one should be kowtowing to the taxi mafia because the taxi industry is a service industry and totally different from a casino or the stock exchange.
Therefore we must ignore all rumors and direct our good work based on facts and logic.
No one has to serve the taxi mafia! However successive Ministers of Transports,
Premiers and public servants of the state of NSW are doing so for a long time! Information contained in Power of the Taxi Mafia is sufficient enough to make such a supposition.
We also must not allow any taxi driver bashing to divert attention from the real issue i.e. mafia corruption and public officials’ crime spree. A few ill motivated and deliberate articles of the daily telegraph, recent taxi driver basing by Channel Seven and Transport and Infrastructure officials misadventures against taxi drivers must be noted with extreme care.
Mafia Game and Beyond
Further to Members of Parliament and media outlets, Beyond the NSW Taxi Royal Commission, An Open Letter to NSW Premier Nathan Rees, The Power of the Taxi Mafia and Taxi Washer to Taxi Mafia the director General of Transport and Infrastructure invited people at meetings without agenda!
It appears they are not frank and honest enough in their intent. Nonetheless they also do not want to improve the industry. Furthermore they want to reward the taxi mafia by releasing many more taxi plates which is detrimental to public, taxi drivers and taxi owners’ interest. It is also clear that they do not have any yardstick to measure the demand and therefore an attempt to match the demand with proper supply. All in all it is fairly clear that the taxi mafia remains in charge.
The attitude, intention and overall direction of the Ministry and the Department of Transport and Infrastructure are very uncertain if not anti-public.
The democratic and long overdue Taxi Advisory Committee and Taxi Drivers’ Safety Committee is also outside the consideration of the Ministry of Transport.
Beyond Taxi Corruption provides a further look on how they have been committing crimes since 1984 with the assistance of the corrupt leaders of the NSW Transport Workers Union and many other public officials within the NSW Government.
The Power of the Taxi Mafia is beyond anyone’s imagination! A little taxi washer became taxi mafia and now he is the bus mafia!! It is beggar’s belief no one virtually can drive a private bus in this state without his (actually his mate’s) permission!!! He never had any interest in the bus industry. However, a few years ago the government of NSW gave one of his companies a very lucrative deal to construct buses. Most of these buses are not in a very good condition and full of problems. Yet, the mafia and his Cabcharge are making lots of money contrary to the state and public interest.
Taxi Washer to Taxi Mafia
Taxi mafia used to wash taxis at Bayswater Road, Kings Cross. Taxi drivers wanted to sack him because he was not washing taxis properly. But, the mafia survived due to racism and sectarianism. However, he became owner of two taxis and a few more earthly possessions by shagging a widow. Eventually, he became the taxi mafia by adding misery and misfortune on taxi drivers, owners and passengers. Ironically, successive NSW Premiers and Ministers of Transport started to lick his balls and they threw bag full of money at him. As a result, he gained the power to sue any one, silence anyone and even destroy someone!
What a mighty man the taxi mafia is?! One must wonder what happened to other man and woman of the state of NSW?!!? Are they mouse and mice?
An Open Letter to NSW Premier Nathan Rees
Taxi plates are the property of the State and public. Taxi plates must be used for the benefit of the State and the public.
The Safety and comfort of the public and drivers ought to be the top priority of the taxi industry. No one should be kowtowing to the taxi mafia because the taxi industry is a service industry and totally different from a casino or the stock exchange.
Like the old days, taxi plates should be issued to only working taxi drivers with a provision of temporary relief in case of death and disablement. In the recent past, the authorities started to hand over taxi plates to the taxi mafia and many people who should not have been allowed into the taxi industry in the first place! They also made it very difficult, if not impossible, to ensure accountability and transparency by keeping the taxi owners register secret.
The practice of handing over many types of taxi plates to a selective few appears to be a very corrupt process and contrary to public and state interest. Too many politically expedient “quick-fixes” have created a maze of convoluted structures, largely devoid of stakeholder participation. Silencing and sabotaging many reports and inquiries regarding this issue is blatant proof of the deception and fraud. Furthermore, suffocating and hoodwinking the public in its genuine efforts to win some accountability and transparency within the NSW Department of Transport, Ministry of Transport and other bodies were in the past and still are at the present very devious and intimidatory.
Time is right to come clean.
The NSW Government must:
1. Recall all Nexus Taxi Plates and other types of taxi plates given to taxi networks and companies.
2. Demand that taxi networks and companies holding "free" plates hand back the plates and the income generated by all Nexus Taxi Plates and other plates given to them by the government.
3. Open up the Taxi Register like Company Registers.
4. Issue taxi plates to working taxi drivers only. (Instead of empowering networks to intimidate taxi drivers the Government must empower taxi drivers & operators to pressure networks into providing the booking services that the traveling public wants and is entitled to).
5. Gradually remove speculative investors from owning taxi plates. Remember, they brought corruption rather than creativity.
6. Stop issuing false and misleading Media Releases like the one below. Stop past and future unnecessary harassment of taxi drivers in order to divert attention from the corruption and incompetence within the government and bureaucracy.
7. Re-establish the Taxi Advisory Council and Taxi Drivers' Safety Task Force as per the principles laid down by Justice Edwards and Beattie as well as Sir Asher Joel’s recommendation.
8. Allow and nurture the Taxi Advisory Council and Taxi Drivers' Safety Task Force without them being infiltrated by taxi mafia, stooges and Labor Party thugs.
9. Have a Taxi Royal Commission with widest possible Terms of Reference.
Faruque Ahmed
Moderator, Sydney Taxi Corruption
Mobile: 041 091 4118
Monday, October 12, 2009
