More than 100 Victorian taxi licence holders and their supporters gathered on the steps of the Victorian Parliament on Tuesday in continuing defiance of the Napthine government’s plans for the taxi industry.
For plate holders like Haris Stergiopoulos who has worked as a Melbourne cabbie for 45 years, the government’s plans have derailed any chance of a financially secure retirement.
While maverick state MP Geoff Shaw wisely chose an alternate entrance to parliament on this occasion, Labor MPs were more forthcoming, with his potential nemesis Helen Constas – Labor’s candidate for Frankston at the November state elections – addressing the crowd in a show of solidarity.
On the first sitting day of parliament this year, the protest – organised by the Victorian Taxi Families (VTF) campaign group – was another indication that licence holders incensed by the state government’s reforms are in no mood to lie down meekly any time soon.
The government’s drive to increase the number of taxi licences (or ‘plates’ as they’re known in the industry) – and its decimating effect on existing plate values – continues to be the main injustice felt.
Central to the recommendations proposed by the Allan Fels Taxi Inquiry and accepted by the government was to open what was a tightly controlled taxi licence market to new players, allowing approved applicants to lease a licence for a yearly fee of $22,000.
For existing licence holders, some of whom paid up to $500,000 for their plate, the new system has ripped the value out of their most prized asset – decimating their self-financed retirement nest egg.
From July, plate holders leasing their licences to drivers will also only be able to charge a maximum of $22,000 a year – well short of the $30,000-plus going rate.
For plate holders like Haris Stergiopoulos, who has worked as a Melbourne cabbie for 45 years, the government’s plans have derailed any chance of a financially secure retirement.
“It is unjust,” Mr Stergiopoulos told Neos Kosmos. “Why do they pick on us. We have worked hard.”
Like many of the owner-drivers demonstrating at parliament on Tuesday, Haris is elderly.
As a first generation Greek migrant Haris has witnessed successive state governments’ dealings with the taxi industry for nearly half a century. He is despondent at the Napthine administration’s intransigence over the plates issue, and its unwillingness to soften the blow of plummeting plate values by offering compensation.
VTF spokeswoman Sandy Spanos says that owner-drivers like Stergiopoulos are the most obvious victims of a heartless, ill-considered policy that must be recast: if the Napthine government fails to do so, Labor must send an unequivocal message that they will, if returned in November.
“We’ll continue to demonstrate until we are heard,” Ms Spanos told Neos Kosmos.
“We need to be conscious that many [licence holders] are elderly, and many have health issues. Why are they being targeted? They’ve paid their dues to society,” said the VTF organiser.
“Napthine is a non-elected premier. If he doesn’t want to listen to the people he can go back to being a vet. Nobody has the right to take away your hard earned assets, not in a democracy.”
While it is clear that – through the efforts of Victorian Taxi Families – plate holders like Haris Stergiopoulos will continue to be heard, the question is, to what extent is the Victorian Coalition government – or its Labor substitute – prepared to listen and act?
