With the NSW government considering compensation for taxi plate owners if Uber is allowed into the NSW market, the ACT government has stood by its refusal to compensate, insisting it will look again at the issue in two years.
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Under questioning in ACT parliamentary hearings on Wednesday, deputy director-general of the Chief Minister's directorate Karl Alderson said the government would track the price at which perpetual plates were traded.
The Liberals' deputy leader, Alistair Coe, responded that perpetual plates were unlikely to trade at all, given their loss in value, to which Dr Alderson said the government would also monitor "the income flowing to the various players in the on-demand transport industry".
"Part of the reason for the 24 months is there's obviously a certain amount of wait and see happening in the industry as the changes take effect. The people will take stock and things may adjust a bit further or normalise or what have you," he said.
The city's 170 owners of perpetual plates are crying foul over the arrival of Uber and the decision to cut the cost of leasing taxi plates directly from the government from $20,000 to $10,000 a year, and to $5000 in a year's time.
Owners of perpetual plates paid as much as $250,000 for their plates at auction from the government and in private sales, and before this month's deregulation of the industry were leasing them to taxi operators at about $20,000 a year. Now operators can lease them much more cheaply from the government, plate owners say their investments have been rendered worthless and their incomes slashed.
Dr Alderson said the ACT valuation office would assess the impact on the value of plates in two years.
But he pointed out that plate owners had benefited for many years from regulation.
"Existing perpetual plate holders, for while ever they've held those plates, have had the advantage of an income from a highly regulated market so there's a range of considerations that'll go into any future position of the government," he said.
"Anybody who's purchased a perpetual plate within the last 10 years, say, has been aware of the prospect of change to the industry and anybody who purchased a perpetual plate prior to that has had the benefit than of more than 10 years' benefit operating in a highly regulated protected industry."
Dr Alderson said while the plates had historically been described as "perpetual", there was "general public awareness that at some point there was likely to be significant change to the industry".
"So one of the other considerations is that participants in the industry have known that and have been able to take that potential for change into account in their investments," he said.
Dr Alderson also pointed to "a lot in the government's [deregulation] package that's designed to actually enhance the … prospect of a strong future for the traditional taxi industry", a point reiterated by Territories Minister Shane Rattenbury.
Mr Rattenbury said the government had built in "a level of support for the traditional taxi industry".
"We have put in place a range of both consumer protections for consumers, which brings level of regulatory requirement on to new entrants, and cutting costs for the taxi industry and seeking to find that balance," he said.
Last week, Mr Rattenbury told the Assembly that complex reforms meant it was "almost inevitable there will be disappointed parties, who feel the reforms should have favoured them more, or that they have been disadvantaged".
"I understand that there is disappointment from perpetual plate owners that their investment will be devalued by the change in regulation. But I do not think the government is obliged to try to create a special protected market for perpetual plate owners," he said.
