The NSW Taxi Council has accepted the state government’s $905 million assistance package last night, ABC News has reported.
This comes as the taxi industry initially rejected the offer on the grounds that the offer was “still short” and the NSW Government needed to do more.
The NSW Minister for Transport, Veterans and Western Sydney David Elliott gave the NSW Taxi Council a 24 hour deadline on Monday to accept the government’s “final offer.”
Mr Elliott said if the council did not accept the offer, it would be sent for independent assessment, which could have seen taxi drivers given far less.
But according to The Daily Telegraph, the NSW Taxi Council agreed to accept the offer late on Monday night, subject to the compensation payments not being subject to income tax.
The deal aims to compensate taxi licence holders following the introduction of ride-sharing services, like Uber, into NSW in 2015.
The new package provides $150,000 for every Sydney metropolitan taxi licence holder with a cap of 6 plates. Each regional taxi plate will be paid between $40,000 and $195,000, with no cap on the number of plates.
NSW Labor Leader, Chris Minns, backed the package on Monday and said it was “fair and reasonable.”
“I think we need to show the industry and those who are stakeholders here that there’s bipartisan support for this package,” Minns said.
Taxi licence owner, Kyriakos Koliadis, also shared his thoughts with The Greek Herald.
“We are not very happy about the final result but taking into consideration that the country is going through financial problems and we are realistic people, we accept the latest offer from the government provided it’ll be tax free,” Mr Koliadis concluded.
