Update on the Campaign to Save Total Mobility
Earlier this week I Spoke to Stuff’s Amelia Wade about the Cuts facing the Total Mobility Scheme
And over the past few days I’ve been in Auckland at the Small Passenger Service Association, which represents the small passenger service vehicle sector.
Several things struck me as I finish up this Conference.
I came to the Conference knowing that the proposed changes that the Review is talking about like Removing the Crown Contribution and leaving the passenger subsidy at 50% and placing fare caps and trip caps onto card holders will be bad for card holders, no doubt about that.
But I had no idea about how hard things were for the small passenger service industry, and the struggles they are facing to deliver the Total Mobility service to customers.
I also heard about what is happening in Australia and we have some catching up to do.
There are two aspects to the delivery of the service that I was not aware of before, one is the Lift fee, that is what drivers & operators get paid when they transfer a customer from a wheelchair into the vehicle, this can be very hard work, in New Zealand that fee is $12 in Australia that fee varies from $13.63 to $31.50 and that’s in AUD!
So we have some work to do there, to lift the Lift fee,
Another big area where things just are not making sense are in the area of the cost of Hoist conversions.
I remember when I broke my ankle and regularly used a non taxi company that’s familar to many,
I spoke to the franchise owner about what was stopping them from getting more lift enabled vehicles and the owners explanation was that they would love to but couldn’t afford it without some sort of income guarantee or a contract.
At the moment these small business operators are expected to take on up to 100k per vehicle to complete these conversions with no expectation that they will have any customers or any income coming to service these loans, and that’s not reasonable.
One of the delegates at the conference put it to me like this, they love doing the job, they love their customers, some have been with them for decades, but they have a business to run at the same time, and the economics of the service doesn’t add up
We need to do better in terms of the business support that is offered to these small business,
And, what I heard from Australia is that there are much better support packages available for hoist conversions. Queensland has the best and one we should look at.
In Queensland the State government will provide 50/50 funding up to $55k which is much more realistic for a full Hoist conversion.
My overriding conclusions coming away from this Conference are that our Total Mobility service is a vitally important service and we must fight to preserve it, but that we don’t have to do that alone.
We have allies and supporters, and what I learned is that the Small Passenger Service Association can be an Ally to the disability community when it comes to protecting and enhancing Total Mobility.
This review of Total Mobility must address the concerns of disabled people so that our access to the service continues and that we are not restricted in our ability to use the service but it also must address the concerns of the Taxi and passenger service industry.
When we fail to meet the needs of the operators like those that I met over the past few days we are actually failing the thousands of Total Mobility card holders,
When in reality both disabled people and the small passenger service industry have a shared interest in improving the Total Mobility system to meet the needs of both.