This letter from Mr Carlo Carli MP, does not address the FACT that Mrs Nichol's commercial passenger vehicle license using the 1st 7 seater mini-bus was issued without proper legislative protection under the 1958 Transport Act.
Thereforethis letter is not factually correct in the context of the TO 24 licence using a minibus. It was Mrs Nichol who brought to the attention of the Victorian Transport Minister Rafferty (1976), the issue of unlicensed tour operators, using hire/drive vehicles for hire and reward and without the use of a commercial passenger vehicle license.
Mrs Nichol lobbied the Government for four long years to do something to stop the proliferation of tour operators, using hire/drive minibuses and from illegally copying her licensed cultural tour itinerary.
It was the Parliamentary Road Safety Committee 1980 with Mrs Nichol as a key witness, who recommended that regulations in safety standards for all of the touring omnibus industry be addressed and to include the Hire and Drive vehicles. The 1995 letter from The Road Safety Committee, acknowledges Mrs Nichol as the person who rectified safety deficiencies in the touring omnibus industry.
Unlike the 1958 Transport Act, the 1983 Transport Act, finally included a new category of transport - Hire/Drive (ironically not mini-buses).
So when Mr Carli writes "that the licence did not provide the licence holder with the exclusivity of operation or protection from other licences from similiar operations would not be issued" , he has completely missed the point.
What about the unregulated competition (read unlicenced) from the operators using hire/drive minibuses?
The rest of the letter, like the beginning is just nonsense and is blah blah at best, as it does not address the real issues in Mrs Nichol's case, in a proper and legitimate context. At times the letter is incomprehensible to read.
As you can see, this letter is a classic as it typifies 30 years of the usual mis-information (for the record the heading of this letter "Road Safety Authority etc..." is completely misleading), and the never-ending stonewalling of Mrs Nichol's repeated requests to be compensated. Instead Government has twice abused its powers
1. By issuing a mickey mouse license that did not safeguard a precedent category of transport and a precedent tour itinerary. 2. To discredit the licensee, Mrs Nichol for this fault. For over 30 years Ms Nichol has been ridiculed and marginalised.
This letter is a typical example (see Hansard 1983 and 1986 on this website) how the Victorian Government have justified in getting away with daylight robbery - stealing intellectual property which was the original licensed cultural tour itinerary simply by not renewing the TO 24 license in 1981.
Is it legal to issue a commercial passenger vehicle license without the proper legislative protection?
What is a license worth in dollars when it is not protected against unregulated operators? Why didn't Carlo Carli address this instead?
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