The Gunner Government ignored a parliamentary committee’s recommendation to lift the cap on taxi licences in Darwin and Alice Springs and instead paid a consultant to tell them the same thing, Independent MLA Robyn Lambley says.

In 2017, Ms Lambley moved a motion to have the industry reviewed by the Public Accounts Committee which held inquiries for months, ultimately concluding in November 2017 that the cap on taxi licences should be removed through a staged process.

But that never occurred and this week Infrastructure Minister Eva Lalwer released a report with the same recommendation and others to make the taxi industry more “competitive and efficient”.

“Pressure on taxi wait times will also be eased with the removal of the cap on taxi licence numbers in Darwin and Alice Springs in a staged approach over five years,” Ms Lawler said in a statement.

“This will be managed by releasing a set number of taxi licences in Darwin and Alice Springs each year over the next five years via a ballot.”

The Gunner Government has approved Fivenines Consulting’s other 2021 recommendations that would also see more wheelchair accessible taxis on the road “through a progressive expansion of the number of licenses for wheelchair accessible vehicles”.

The annual fees (in the Darwin region) for Commercial Passenger Vehicle categories distinguish between taxis and minibuses (at $5,000 and $3,000 respectively) and other categories at or below $300 per annum.

Taxi operators would be able to access $15,000 under the new plan to “upgrade their vehicles to be wheelchair accessible”, Ms Lawler said.

“Work is underway to implement most of the recommendations of the Commercial Vehicle Passenger review,” she said. “The review examined the quality of services being delivered to the public, including the disability sector, and made recommendations aimed at ensuring the Northern Territory has a modern, customer focused commercial passenger vehicle industry, with high quality services being delivered to the disability sector.

Ms Lambley said this all could have been done five years ago.

“The irony is that the major recommendation of this report is exactly the same as Recommendation 1 from the 2017 Taxi Inquiry Report,” she said.

“The Gunner Government was told to lift the cap on taxi licenses in Darwin and Alice Springs many years ago and did nothing.”

Ms Lambley said the government’s reason for postponing the implementation of reforms in taxi licenses was due to the rollout of ridesharing – at that stage exclusively in Darwin – which coincided with the release of the 2017 parliamentary report.

“The then NT Minister for Transport, Nicole Manison, decided to wait until 2020 to do another ‘review’ into the taxi industry, in lieu of the possible impact of ridesharing,” she added.

“This gave the Government a convenient excuse to delay making controversial and possibly politically unfavourable changes to the taxi industries in Alice Springs and Darwin.

“The need for a highly regulated taxi industry expired many years ago. The current system is unfair and discriminates against people wanting to become owner / operators. The “fair go” for all in the taxi industry has not existed for many years.”