What Department of Transport has NOT said about the $3.5m Cleaning & Sanitisation grants

Department of Transport (DoT) conducted a presentation on Wednesday 23 September for industry stakeholders, and we have questions. So many questions, that we have emailed them to DoT for answers, answers which we are yet to receive. 

$3.5m Cleaning and Sanitisation grants for regional and metro BSPs --

1. What constitutes a Major BSP?
2. Do we presume correctly that the Major BSPs are 13cabs, Silver Top Taxis, Black & White Cabs, Crown Cabs, Ballarat Taxis, Bendigo Taxis, Geelong Taxis and Uber?

3. You have stated that “Payments will be scaled according to size”.  Please advise the formula for this model.
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4. How will the spending of the grant be monitored?  Will small BSPs have to forward receipts to substantiate their expense claim in their submitted survey? 

5. We were of the understanding that this financial assistance package was a COVID-19 CPV INDUSTRY SUPPORT PACKAGE.

1. Therefore, shouldn’t the Cleaning and Sanitisation Grant go to those who are actually working on the road and providing an essential service during the COVID-19 crisis, lockdown and beyond?
2. These people are the ones who are taking the most risk – being the most exposed to this dreadful disease.  Shouldn’t they be the ones to benefit from this grant – not the BSPs?  

6. Representatives of the Department of Transport have stated that all CPVs are providing an essential service – that’s simply not true. Most Hire cars (upmarket luxury vehicles, limos etc.) are not operational.  Wedding cars and stretch limos are not operational, as we cannot have weddings or large funerals, therefore there is no work. Yet by stating that all BSPs will receive some money from the Cleaning Grant implies that even these sectors of the CPV Industry will also receive at least $250, just for being a BSP, regardless of whether they worked/had vehicles transporting passengers during the past 6 months.

1. Is this the intention of the Department of Transport?
2. Similarly, for example, does Southern Cross Hire Cars (who have had no work for nearly 3 months) and André Baruch (who has 1 job per 2 months) receive the same amount per vehicle as does medium-sized BSPs eg Oiii and Shebah?
   
   

7. In most instances during the COVID-19 crisis it has not been the Large BSPs (neither Taxi, Hire Car or Ride Share) who have provided the drivers with cleaning materials – it has been the Operators.

The very small operator is an independent operator, whereby they only operate one or two cars and don’t offload jobs, and are not required to be registered as a BSP.  Department of Transport has stated that independent operators with 1 or 2 vehicles, will be eligible for this funding.

But, many small (3-10) and medium (10+) operators belong to a BSP for their booked work – therefore they also are not required to be registered as a BSP.

According to your implementation plan, these small and medium operators will not be receiving any portion of this funding to assist in what they have paid out over the past 6 months to help protect their drivers and passengers from COVID-19.

1. Why are these operators being left out?