Australian Capital Territory
Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission (Reference for Investigation) 2003 (No 3)*
Disallowable Instrument DI2003 - 271
made under the
Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission Act 1997, s 15 Nature of industry references & s 16 Terms of industry references

Pursuant to sub-section 15(1) of the Act, I direct the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission (the “Commission”) to conduct an investigation into the determination of prices for Taxi services within the Territory from 1 July 2004 addressing the following:

1.	To recommend maximum fares for regulated taxi services for a period of three years from 1 July 2004 having regard to the Weighted Cost Index model developed by the Commission as set out at Attachment 5, Final Report 2002  “Review of the future direction of the ACT taxi and hire car industry, and price direction for taxi services”.

Without restricting the Commission in reaching a determination on those matters listed in item 1 above or its used of the Weighted Cost Index model, the Commission is to take into account:

a)	the effectiveness of the Weighted Cost Index model and the need for any adjustment or change to the index;
b)	the assembly of the value of Fixed Costs, Variable Costs, Return on Investment and Labour Costs;
c)	the setting of labour Cost weighting;
d)	the adjustment of the previous year’s base cost components to take account of any change in the number of kilometres travelled on average by taxis; 
e)	the summation of the individual components for the base year and the current year to determine the percentage change in these aggregates between the two years;  and 
f)	the matters referred to in Section 20 of the Act.
Pursuant to sub-section 16(1) of the Act, I specify the following requirement in relation to the conduct of the investigation:
•	The final report in relation to determined taxi fares for the period 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005 is to be provided to the Minister of Urban Services by 30 May 2004.

BILL WOOD
Minister for Urban Services
26 September 2003