An influential taxi company boss has invoked the fate of the former federal MP Wyatt Roy as a measure of the political risk of backing Uber, after the Queensland government moved to legalise it.
Neill Ford, the managing director of Queensland’s largest taxi company, Yellow Cabs, claimed an industry campaign against Roy over his public support of Uber was the key factor in his upset loss in the seat of Longman in the July election.
Ford, who had no inkling of the government’s decision to legalise Uber before media reports on Thursday, said there would be initial “outrage from about 4,000 licence holders who are not going to be forgiving the government very easily for stealing the business they sold them”.
The value of taxi licences in Queensland had plunged in the past two years from more than $500,000 to as little as $180,000, he said.
“Angry families, angry drivers, there’s probably 20,000 people you’re going to affect and if you’re a politician that’s not good,” Ford said. “I think there’s a politician called Wyatt Roy who just lost his seat because of the taxi industry.
“He came out supporting Uber and they rallied, started handing out pamphlets and he lost his seat.
“So I don’t know, if you’re a politician, do you create that much hatred?”
The state transport minister, Stirling Hinchliffe, said changes to legalise competitors to taxis from September would “drive competition, deliver cheaper fares and pave the way for more transport options for Queenslanders”.
“These new reforms unveiled today are about fairness and will ensure the future sustainability of the personalised transport industry while encouraging more innovation which will benefit our economy,” he said.
Hinchcliffe announced a $100m transition package for the taxi industry, which includes “one-off” payments of $40,000 for taxi licence holders.
They would have access to a $26m “hardship fund” and the taxi industry would have up to $4.3m in fees waived.
Sam Bool, the general manager of Uber Queensland, said the government was “supporting the choice of more than half a million Uber riders and 5,500 driver partners already benefiting from ridesharing in Queensland”.
“We will continue working closely with the Queensland government on this important reform package and trust we’ll see a sensible bipartisan approach as it progresses through the parliament,” Bool said.
Ford said, despite the initial wave of taxi licence holder outrage, it would “take more than Uber to disrupt the taxi industry”, which he said would adapt to make best use of “the new laws that government hands out”.
The difference would be that operators of marked taxis “would not pay the licence holder any money to operate, it would simply operate on a ride share licence”, he said.
“If you said tomorrow you could do ride share legally for $100 a year, why would a person lease a $300,000 licence?” he said.
“Once the government brings out laws on ride share, it won’t be just Uber around, it’ll be every company you can ever think of.”
The government was “throwing away money for consolidated revenue” it had created by licensing the original growth of the tax industry.
