The Sex Party Is Uber’s Unlikely Saviour

Uber operates in a legislative grey area in Victoria: If you called it illegal, you wouldn't really be wrong but you wouldn't be right either. Right now it's totally unregulated, but given how easy it was to catch an Uber after getting too maggot on a weeknight, you'd be forgiven for not noticing.

Last December, an Uber driver was taken to the Melbourne Magistrates Court by the Taxi Services Commission for driving commercially without proper accreditation. He ended up having to fork out an $800 fine.

The case prompted calls from the Victorian Opposition, asking the government to get a move on regulating the service, as elsewhere in Australia—the ACT, Queensland and NSW all have legislation around ridesharing. In that same month, Victorian Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan issued a statement guaranteeing she wasn't going to be rushed on Uber, and that's where the conversation ended.

Now, five months later, Sex Party Leader Fiona Patten has decided Minister Allan has taken too long. "The issue of ridesharing seems to be permanently stalled on Transport Minister Jacinta Allan's desk," Fiona said in a press release. "Roundtables and endless discussions don't seem to have provided a solution to how we move forward with services like Uber."

Patten wants to see the app legalised before the year is out, so she's introducing a private member's bill to do just that, or at least to get the conversation moving. The legislation, Regulation of Ridesharing Bill 2016, was introduced to parliament earlier this week, so VICE rang up Fiona to find out why the Sex Party has become Uber's unlikely champion.

The answer, according to Patten, is quite simple: "Because our members are really cool." She's only kind of joking, because her expanded rhetoric isn't that different. "As a young and slightly newer political party, our membership is probably slightly younger than a lot of the major parties," Patten explained, "so we were hearing this directly from our supporters as an issue that we should be discussing."

In way, Uber and the Sex Party have similar roots, and Patten knows it. "We were a party borne out of small business and the Civil Libertarian Party," she said. "While I'm supporting regulation, I'm also supporting a free market that enables Uber to compete."

The regulations Patten is talking about are fairly similar to those already in place in Canberra and NSW, where drivers have to complete background checks and vehicle inspections by law. While it's not finalised yet, the Sex Party's legislation would aim to give legal status to Uber, and extra security to riders. Patten wants to guarantee drivers are "licensed and that they do not have a criminal record, don't have a medical condition that would affect their ability to drive, and that the car is registered and roadworthy."

Obviously, legalising Uber is bound to upset cabbies. While a lot of us don't give a shit about this because cabs don't give out free mints, it's something the Sex Party's legislation has taken into account.

Right now, taxis generate income for the state through taxes and GST, while Uber doesn't. That's the major tenet of Patten's new legislation: making sure Uber is paying the same fees, and levelling out the playing field in the process.

Most importantly though, Patten reckons her bill won't change for you when you're drunk on a Saturday night and want to order Uber. Given she doesn't see any major reason why the government wouldn't get on board, it looks like those free mints will be yours—legally—by 2017.

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