Mafia will be appearing at 1.00 pm Wednesday 31st March 2010. You are co-cordially invited with your questions. However, it will be nice if you put your questions to Mrs. Lee Rhiannon or other members of the committee in advance.
Last Wednesday, a TV producer called me to interview regarding the taxi industry and mafia. I did my best but at the end of the day they call the shot. Anyway, the media is interested about taxis. It is up to the taxi industry activists to turn around carefully cancelled attacks on taxi drivers to defend taxi drivers. That includes talkback arena to all other media outlets.
Cabcharge chief to appear at taxi inquiry
LINTON BESSER
March 26, 2010
LINTON BESSER
March 26, 2010
REG KERMODE, the head of Cabcharge, the nation's dominant taxi company, will appear next week before a NSW parliamentary inquiry into Sydney's dysfunctional taxi industry.
After declining an initial invitation to give evidence, Mr Kermode received a second invitation last month from its chairman, the Liberal upper house MP John Ajaka.
The letter also foreshadowed that the committee would issue an enforceable summons should Mr Kermode decline to appear for a second time. Now, after several weeks of legal wrangling and heated exchanges between Mr Kermode's lawyers, Cabcharge's company secretary, Sharon Doyle, and Mr Ajaka, he has agreed to give evidence.
None of the three other people given second invitations - Jim Glasson, the Transport Department's former director-general and now head of ComfortDelgro Cabcharge, Neville Wran, the former NSW premier, and Bruce Baird, the former transport minister in the Greiner government - has agreed to appear.
The inquiry was set up after revelations in the Herald that Cabcharge was the chief beneficiary of a scheme that provided Sydney's taxi networks with millions of dollars worth of free taxi licences. Cabcharge is also under pressure from a lawsuit brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which is alleging Cabcharge abused its market power to force others out of the industry.
Cabcharge denies wrongdoing and is defending the allegations. Mr Kermode has also begun defamation proceedings against Fairfax Media over the Herald's investigation last year.
Mr Kermode will give evidence next Wednesday.
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