Total Mobility is meaningless without rural taxi services

The Government has completed its review of the Total Mobility scheme – and there’s both good and bad news.

The good news is that proposed restrictions on the number of subsidised trips have been abandoned. The bad news is that the subsidy has dropped from 75% to 65%, meaning disabled passengers now have to pay considerably more.

For a $40 taxi fare, the passenger’s contribution has jumped from $10 to $14. That’s a 40% increase, assuming the fare falls within the applicable cap. Not exactly a bargain for people who often have little choice about how they travel.

As the old song goes, “I got a cab home, it cost too much, I got whiplash when he dropped the clutch”.

These days, the whiplash might come from looking at the fare rather than the driver’s gear changes.

But here in Te Tai Tokerau, there’s an even more fundamental problem.

You can’t subsidise a taxi that doesn’t exist.

While Whangārei has taxi services, if you venture into our rural communities, the situation changes dramatically. In many parts of the Far North District and elsewhere across Te Tai Tokerau, conventional taxi services are non-existent.

A Total Mobility card becomes about as useful as trying to enrol two days before the election (well, this time round anyway!).

For disabled people living in these communities, getting to a medical appointment, attending work, visiting friends or simply participating in community life can become a major logistical exercise.

And let’s remember, transport isn’t a luxury. It’s fundamental to independence.

New Zealand has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Article 20 specifically addresses personal mobility, requiring governments to take effective measures to ensure disabled people can move about with the greatest possible independence and at an affordable cost.

Article 9 also addresses accessibility, including access to transport.

These aren’t merely nice sentiments to be dusted off whenever a government needs something inspirational for a disability strategy.

They are international commitments.

Which brings me to a possible solution.

Throughout Te Tai Tokerau, community organisations, charitable trusts and volunteer networks already help people get from A to B. Some operate community vehicles, while others rely on volunteer drivers generously giving their time.

If the Government is prepared to consider allowing multinational companies like Uber into the Total Mobility scheme, surely it can also consider community trusts using trained volunteer drivers – particularly in rural Te Tai Tokerau, where an Uber is about as unlikely to turn up.

Why couldn’t approved community transport providers access Total Mobility funding?

Imagine a rural community trust operating a vehicle with trained volunteer drivers, providing transport to eligible disabled people and receiving the equivalent funding of a fare subsidy to support community transport providers with volunteer expenses, fuel and vehicle maintenance.

Appropriate safety standards, insurance, accessibility requirements and accountability would naturally be essential. But surely these are challenges to solve rather than excuses to do nothing.

Such an approach could strengthen existing community initiatives, support volunteer drivers with operating costs and extend transport opportunities into communities currently excluded from the scheme’s practical benefits.

The Government is reviewing incentives for wheelchair-accessible taxis and considering whether a wider range of transport providers could participate. That’s encouraging.

But it needs to look beyond conventional commercial operators.

Not every community has enough customers to sustain a taxi business. That doesn’t mean disabled people living there have less need to travel, or fewer rights to participate.

Indeed, rural isolation makes accessible transport even more important.

The Government deserves credit for rejecting arbitrary trip limits. However, affordability and availability must be addressed together.

After all, a subsidy is meaningless when there’s no service to subsidise.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink what Total Mobility actually means.

Because currently, for some disabled people in the rural north, the scheme means a total absence of transport.

That’s a rather unfortunate interpretation of Total Mobility.

This article has been previously posted by the Northern Advocate