Uber vigilante fighting a losing battle

The taxi industry has been able to restrict the number of licences for drivers. Photo / AAP

The taxi industry has been able to restrict the number of licences for drivers.

Russell Howarth is a former English riot policeman, a migrant to Sydney and a limo driver.

He is also a self-appointed transport regulator who has taken to performing citizens arrests on Uber drivers.

Howarth's modus operandi is to arrange a ride on Uber driver via the internet, like any other passenger. The vigilante then hops in the car, quizzes the driver about his licences and permits, and on discovering he doesn't have the required paperwork informs the driver he's under arrest.

When the police arrive they're usually as bemused as the driver and decline to take any further action.

Howarth is fighting a losing battle. He may as well try to hold back the tide as to hold back the power of the internet.

Uber uses the internet to connect passengers with private drivers and is making life very uncomfortable for Australia's taxi and limo drivers.

Unlike New Zealand, which Uber has praised for embracing the change, most Australian states don't seem to know what to do about the service. Some are half-heartedly fighting it, others are ignoring it. The NSW government said late last year it would pursue Uber drivers through the courts with threats of $110,000 fines, but there is little sign the tough talk has been acted on.

While it's never good to see anyone lose their livelihood, it's hard to have much sympathy for the taxi industry. For years Governments have done the bidding of the taxi lobby by severely restricting the number of taxis on the road.

Anyone who has hailed a taxi will have seen the results.

There are good taxis and good drivers but you're just as likely to get a grubby run-down taxi, with a surly driver who doesn't know where he's going.

As for trying to get a taxi at peak times in Sydney, forget it. Taxi licences are so tightly restricted you're better off riding a bike.

So all power to Uber for breaking apart the taxi industry's cosy arrangements.

It's just one way the digital economy has been great for Australian (and New Zealand) consumers, helping us overcome the tyranny of distance that for the past two centuries has allowed businesses to gouge profits from us.

Any Australian over 40 will remember looking at the price list on the back of a Penguin paperback they'd just bought and realising with dismay that they'd paid a lot more than English and Canadian readers, even after taking into account the currency variations.

There was nothing we could do about that. Arranging for a foreign bookseller to post you the book you wanted and getting the payment to them was too time-consuming and too expensive to make it worth the bother.

Sites like Amazon and Book Depository have changed that by making these sorts of transactions cheap and easy.

The internet has also changed the business models of broadcasters.

Australians are some of the most enthusiastic internet pirates in the world.

Putting the morality of this aside, the theft on such a grand scale has forced the TV networks to start screening hit US TV shows as soon as they've screened in the US, instead of hanging on to them for months. The deals they used to make with US TV studios to lock up the content just don't hold water any more.

The pirating craze has also hastened the arrival of Netflix and other streaming services, so Australians are able to watch what the rest of the world watches, whenever we want to.

Fighting the trend looks like the same sort of losing battle Russell Howarth is fighting.

The sooner those industries that were protected by government regulation or Australia's distance from other markets stop fighting inevitable change the better off Australian consumers will be.

Reality TV Measuring the housing bubble is an inexact science that regulators have been grappling with last week, as they puzzle over the larger problem of what to actually do about Australia's rampant house prices.

Calculating the ratio of house prices to household incomes is one possibility. Around the world, the average price of a house is about four times the average income. In Australia it's 4.8 times and in Sydney 5.3 times.

Rental yields are another possible measurement. In Sydney gross rental yields are 3.4 per cent, which after rates, commission, insurance and maintenance leaves only a tiny return for the investor.

Another potential indicator is what's in the TV guide, Australia's top economic bureaucrat says. "You've just got to see the plethora of these renovation shows to realise something's amiss," Treasury secretary John Fraser said last week, adding Sydney is "unequivocally" in a housing bubble.

Sometimes it seems there is nothing but home renovation shows on TV. If we have to endure tumbling house prices to get them off air, it's probably a price worth paying.