What is the NSW Government doing to address taxi disability discrimination?

Today in Budget Estimates, Abigail questioned the Minister for Transport on how they are tackling the brazen discrimination many people with disability experience when engaging with taxi services.

Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: One of the other issues I've raised before is in relation to taxi disability discrimination. We are hearing more and more stories of people, particularly with guide dogs, being refused service. It is really shocking and getting to the point where they are feeling very discriminated against. What's being done to rectify that?

Ms JO HAYLEN (Minister for Transport): This is a significant problem and one that we are confronting head-on. The commissioner and his team have been out with plain-clothed patrols and have issued significant numbers of fines. I also was pleased to join Guide Dogs NSW with some promotion and public information about the fact that guide dogs are permitted and should be included in all point-to-point transport, and including on public transport. We've had really good engagement with them.

ANTHONY WING (Commissioner, NSW Point to Point Commission): We've been attacking this from a number of angles and we're working quite closely with Guide Dogs Australia on the issue. Firstly, I have had my own staff out doing both overt and plain-clothes or covert operations, catching rideshares and taxis. We do see this behaviour, for example, with rideshare drivers who cancel on approach once they see someone has a guide dog, or taxi drivers at ranks. We have been doing that with volunteers from Guide Dogs NSW as well, which is very helpful. We have also been working with them on education and with the taxi and rideshare industry on education for drivers, and particularly we find a lot of drivers, when they have actually had exposure to a guide dog and the guide dog's handler, they are far more amenable to carrying people. The other thing that we are doing is I called in both Uber and DiDi in recent times and said to
them that I want to see much better handling of reports. One of the things we hear from Guide Dogs NSW is that people don't like to make reports because they don't think anything will happen with them.

Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: Last time you told me—maybe you didn't tell me this; maybe I've just found it—that of the 21 complaints received by you in relation to this issue, just one driver was prosecuted, as of October last year. Has the number of complaints increased? Has the number of people who have been taken to task increased?

ANTHONY WING: Yes. We did a whole lot of covert operations a few weeks ago and, over the course of that period, we issued $1,000 fines to four rideshare and taxi drivers. We are going to continue doing those operations.

Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: Thank you. That's positive.

3 September 2024

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What is the NSW Government doing to address taxi disability discrimination?

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