All Victorian CPVs (ie taxis, hire cars, limousines, special vehicles, ride share (including Uber, Didi, Shebah, GoCatch, Ola) must be cleaned after each trip (including after personal usage).

​You must correctly clean high-touch services in a CPV at the right times. You must also keep a record of every time you clean. If you work with a booking service provider (BSP) or CPV owner, they must take reasonable steps to support you.

When to clean

You must clean all surfaces passengers are likely to touch before every trip.

Amazon.com Inc.’s Zoox unit has pulled back the curtains on a homegrown self-driving taxi that can cover up to 75m/h (10 km/h) and drive more than half a day on a single battery charge.

The self-driving taxi (pictured) debuted by Zoox this morning is about 12 feet (3.65 metres) long, has no steering wheel and can seat four passengers. A specially developed airbag system is attached to each seat. Under the hood, an artificial intelligence driving system pilots the taxi with the help of road data collected by lidar sensors, radars and cameras placed on the vehicle’s exterior.

​Anyone driving or travelling in a Victorian commercial passenger vehicle must wear a fitted face mask. That's everyone, drivers and passengers, travelling in a taxi, hire car, limousine or ride share vehicle (including Uber, DiDi, Shebah, GoCatch, Ola).

Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria (CPVV) has created A5 posters. It is recommend that drivers and Booking Service Providers (BSPs) visit https://cpv. vic.gov.au/drivers/coronavirus- covid-19 and print the posters.

Transport Alliance Australia (TAA)'s latest Operators' Forum held on Friday 4 December via Zoom was a great success.

Thank you to those who attended or expressed interest. TAA have been receiving excellent feedback from everyone who participated.

For those who missed it, TAA ran through a comparison of cleaning requirements for all the states/territories, cleaning etiquette, legal news, product presentations from guest speakers, and a few marketing tips, then ended with an open discussion.

Get To Know: Leonie Kyriacou, Equity partner at Pigott Stinson lawyers

Leonie Kyriacou leads both the commercial law and workplace relations practice groups. Leonie has worked for the taxi industry for over 17 years. She has worked on the full range of legal matters impacting the industry and works for taxi networks throughout NSW, as well as in other States.

​Leonie does a lot of volunteer work. She is a member of the Public Gift Giving Board for WIRES and a board member of national charity, Endometriosis Australia. Leonie has two boys aged 8 and 10, and manages their sporting teams. She also volunteers as an ethics teacher for the local primary school.

The South Australian Government will seize the dubious honour of becoming the only jurisdiction in the world to actively disincentivise the purchase of electric vehicles through tax if it goes through with measures announced early November by SA Treasurer Rob Lucas.

"While governments around the world are using every means possible to incentivise the uptake of electric vehicles, South Australia reckons they have it all wrong," said Electric Vehicle Council chief executive Behyad Jafari.

"If the revenue from fuel excise is falling because South Australians are burning less foreign oil, that should be considered a blessing."

The Maurice Blackburn class action against Uber Technologies (Uber) was instigated by Rod Barton MP and Transport Alliance Director, André Baruch on behalf of Melbourne, Sydney and Perth taxi and hire car licence owners.

There is also a lawsuit filed against Uber by the Sydney based company behind ride-booking platform GoCatch, Taxi Apps.

Both the class action and lawsuit have accused Uber of conspiring to illegally operate UberX in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia since April 2014, and in Victoria since it was regulated in 2017.

The U.S. Department of Labor last month said it would soon propose a rule that could make it easier to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees, a major issue for the “gig economy” and other industries that use contractors to contain costs.

The potential misclassification of workers as independent contractors has been the subject of renewed scrutiny with the growth of the gig economy. The Obama administration issued informal guidance attempting to limit the scope of independent contractor status, but the current administration withdrew that guidance on June 7, 2017.