[victorhooi]

This is awesome news!

As a NSW taxpayer, I'm not too sure I agree with the government doling out our taxpayers to compensate a dying/legacy industry, or tacking on $1 per Uber ride to pay them out but I suppose the taxi lobby is strong, and the government needs to pander to them.

I'm curious what licensing is required, will be good to hear more details.

[thisrod]

> I'm not too sure I agree with the government doling out our taxpayers to compensate a dying/legacy industry

This is a tradition in Australia. When our law creates property rights that shouldn't exist, and people spend money in good faith to buy those rights, we compensate them when we fix the law and their property stops existing. We did the same thing with water licences: it wasn't the farmers' fault that the legislatures stuffed up and sold them water that didn't exist.

Of course, a lot of the money paid for taxi licences was speculation. When people speculate on bad laws staying in force, then lobby the government to ensure that they do, those people deserve to lose their money. Twenty thousand dollars per licence sounds like a good balance to me.

[Scoundreller]

Buy a government license for $100 and your business fails: tough luck.

Buy a government license for $100k and your business fails: here's your money back.

[will_hughes]

Well, it's closer to 'Bought a taxi plate for $400k, it's now worth ~$280k, here's $20k for your troubles'

I'm not sure that the $280k pricetag is going to work given the changes (in Sydney, anyway).

The only advantage now that a taxi plate has is that they can stand at ranks, be hailed and operate at the Airport.

[victorhooi]

Taxi medallion fell in price around 2011, because the government increased the supply (consumers started screaming about high taxi prices - and trust me, as a Sydney-sider, they are ridiculous, and the service is on the whole, pretty shoddy. I challenge you to find anybody who will defend Sydney taxi pricing, or their service).

You don't see the government compensating the taxi drivers for that - taxpayers would be up in arms.

It's only now, that they have somebody external to demonise, that they can get away with giving our money to them.

At the end of the day, nothing was taken away from the taxi drivers - they still have exclusive rights to pick up from ranks, and of course, can still operate as taxis. It's just, the digital age caught up with them, and they now have some real competition. A lot of the Uber drivers I spoke to, do this as a part-time gig (at least in Sydney) - they have a car, spare time, why not make use of it. Everybody wins.

[will_hughes]

Taxi prices have nothing to do with the availability of plates - taxi rates are fixed, not demand based.

Lower availability of plates would be linked somewhat to higher profits for taxis though (since it should increase their utilisation if the taxi is deployed in high demand areas).

Taxi plate owners did complain at the time the supply was increased (iirc saying mainly that there were already too many taxis), but there was little they could do other than make some noise.

I'm a Sydneysider and semi-regular taxi user, and given how far out I live from work - well aware of how expensive Sydney taxis are.

[crdb]

Tip for travellers to Sydney: after I complained about a trip costing $35 from the airport to Botany (could have been more, but I realised he was going the long ways early enough), one of my UberX drivers pointed out that the trick is to order the UberX right outside the airport (the bridge works), then phone the driver and arrange for pickup inside.

[cletus]

The government has sold taxi licensed/medallions for the right to provide this service. If this were real estate eminent domain would apply and the owners would be compensated. It seems consistent to compensate existing license holders.

[victorhooi]

Well, not really.

It's not like the government took away the rights of taxi drivers to drive people around. It's just that there's a new entrant now, and they actually need to compete.

In fact, taxi medallion prices went down post-2011 (before Uber) because the government released more, because consumers (i.e. everyday people) complained about crazy prices. You don't see the government compensating people there.

It would be like if the government handed out licenses to build 1000 apartments.

Then, they realised, jeez, house prices are crazy, we better issue more licenses. Or we better re-zone to allow super-high density apartments, or allow people to sub-let apartment (cause in this make-believe world, that wasn't possibly before).

Would the original 1000 apartment owners be clamoring for government handouts?

[notatoad]

But the whole selling point of a taxi medallion is that the government will limit supply. If a developer was sold the rights to build 1000 apartments under an agreement that the government would limit future development in the region and they later opened the market, the developer they made that promise to would be right to expect some compensation.

The problem isn't the compensation. The problem is that the government promised artificial scarcity to the taxi companies in the first place.

[wycx]

Does the legislation specifically state artificial scarcity will be enforced, or just that supply will be regulated by the govt?

[nsxwolf]

Yeah, but the new entrant decided to not play by the same rules as everyone else. They just started breaking the law, and they just get to win for some reason. If you're just going to let that happen, you should compensate the people that played by the rules but got screwed over by your failure to enforce those rules.

[sanswork]

The government sold taxis the right to pick up people from the side of the road without previous contact. They still have that and uber doesn't. They haven't lost anything but business to a better service that doesn't need that right.

If this were real estate it would be the government paying a slumlord money to make up for the fact that they approved a new apartment building next door which is nicer with lower rent.

[tacostakohashi]

The article doesn't go into great detail on funding, but it does say "Both taxi and Uber drivers will also have to pay the government a $1 levy per trip for a maximum of five years to fund the compensation package.".

Presumably, the $1 per trip levy is intended to fund the compensation, rather than it coming from general revenue / other tax sources. If that's the case, I think it's great that taxi / uber users will be funding this (incorporated into fares by their drivers), since they are the beneficiaries of the increased supply and competition in the market space.

[sanswork]

The problem is the compensation package shouldn't exist at all. We shouldn't be paying for failing investments.

[timv]

The justification for it (which I agree with, but YMMV) is that the government has regulated the Taxi industry for a long time and artificially constrained supply by limiting the number of Taxi licenses.

Since it was a player in the market, and its actions had an affect on the price of those "investments" it has decided that it has a part to play in helping the market adjust to the new regulatory framework.

If this was simply a case of foreseeable market changes coming along and disrupting the established players, then the government should just stay out of it. But this is regulatory change and the government has to at least accept that it is involved in, and a facilitator of, the disruption that's occurring.

[lukevdp]

The problem is that taxi plates were so expensive and the fees went to the government as a requirement to be able to drive a taxi. A taxi driver that spent 100k to the government for an exclusive right to drive passengers should be compensated by the government when they break their end of the deal.

[sanswork]

They weren't paying for the exclusive right to drive passengers though. Hire car drivers could already do that. They were paying for the exclusive right to pick up people off the street without prior arrangement which they already have.

[wycx]

Was that 100k to the NSW govt, or 100k on the secondary market?

I am not sure the govt should compensate beyond the initial sale price. Everything else is speculative inflation.

[seanmcdirmid]

It is not that really that we shouldn't be paying for failing investments, but that some sort of moral hazard should exist for businesses who don't proactively keep up with the times.