The Taxi Industry: Has the internet traded dignified work for a data-driven race to the bottom? – Rod Barton

Gareth King (00:35)

Rod, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show.

Rod Barton (00:38)

Thank you, Gareth.

Gareth King (00:39)

Before we get into it today, can you tell us a little bit about what you do and the journey that's led you to this point?

Rod Barton (00:45)

I was a former taxi driver, former hire car driver, small business owner for the last 30 years. And around 2012, 2013, Uber entered the Australian market. And at the time the industry was very divided. We couldn't believe how the governments were abandoning working people. We've never seen anything like this before, abandoning us to a foreign national company. We actually formed a, or reformed, I should say, the Taxi and Hire Car Association.

For some silly reason, I ended up being president of that. And then we started talking to the government about the ramification that's happening with rideshare entering the industry. We soon realised that, you know, we're outside the parliament building throwing rocks at the building and they just shut the doors. They couldn't care less.

I guess it was about eight or nine months prior to the 2018 state election. I'd been around lobbying a little bit. So I knew a little bit about the dark heart of preference whispering. So, we formed a political party. And we pinched the seat. So I ended up becoming a sitting member in the upper house for the Transport Matters Party representing the taxi industry effectively. We served a term there. We were unsuccessful in 22.

While all that was going on, we took on Uber in the courts. They were a very formidable opponent. Had the resources, obviously, but we filed in 2018. And last year, we 12 hours to go before going into the court for the final time for the actual case to start, Uber put $272 million on the table, not accepting that they did anything wrong. But we say we got $272 million sitting in the bank for saying they have done something wrong.

That was the fifth largest class action settlement this country's ever seen. And we're really proud that we've been able to hold a company that size to account where governments had failed us.

Gareth King (02:32)

Yeah, look, that's a huge, a huge story that I'd love to expand on a little bit as we go through today as well. But as you mentioned there, your time in parliament with the Transport Matters Party, that's when I first became aware of yourself. So, I knew when I was looking into this topic that I had to try and speak to you, which is fantastic that you're here.

As we know today, we're going to be looking at how the internet has disrupted the taxi industry and potentially beyond, the wider gig economy. To give us a little bit of context before that point, what were things like before all this tech arrived?

Rod Barton (03:04)

The misnomer is that the taxi industry was, we were living in the past, but I can tell you, most of the larger taxi companies had apps, but what we were really bad at was marketing those apps and showing, yeah, you could pre book and all that sort of stuff.

I have to stand here with my hand on my heart and acknowledge that the taxi industry had become complacent. We needed to modernise. We needed to improve our service to the community, but I don't think, and I think I've got the majority of the taxi industry don't think, that people in the industry shouldn't have been thrown under the bus to accommodate a foreign company.

Gareth King (03:39)

Yeah, look, I mean, when you say it like that, it makes complete sense why there should have been more defence for the local industry rather than just, you know, siding with this behemoth that basically everybody is familiar with now. What was the reason why the local industry was just abandoned, as you say?

Rod Barton (03:56)

Well, politically we weren't big enough to really cause any damage to the governments. It was always deemed to be that the taxi industry had a monopoly. But you know, I'll just take the example of Victorian things. There wasn't a monopoly. There was 5,000, 5,500 taxis competing against each other. And the government was involved in it up to their back teeth on how the industry was run.

What most people are aware of, the biggest owner and operator of taxi permits in Victoria at the time of deregulation was actually the Victorian government. So out of the five and a half, or think it was 5,600 to be exact, the state government owned around 2,000 licenses and they were leasing those licenses out at up to $20,000 a year. So, you just work out those numbers and look how much has been you know what up against the wall, what the government's walked away from to allow a foreign, privately owned company to come into this country, into the state.

And sure, we've got issues within the industry, but we will always argue we're an essential service. The taxi industry is the only one who can supply wheelchairs at scale for those with disabilities. And the government sets the fares for rank and hail work. Why did they throw us under the bus? Staggering.

Gareth King (05:12)

It's a great question. And you mentioned something there around the leasing of the licenses. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, I had a friend whose dad was a taxi driver. And I don't know whether I'd just been an urban myth in my mind that I've always heard that a license was like half a million dollars or something like that. Really, really expensive.

But as I guess we know now, the barrier to entry of signing up as a driver for a ride share app feels like it's almost non-existent. You've got a car that's fairly clean and capable of driving and that's about it. How can I guess the traditional taxi industry, which I'm sure is much more regulated, even compete with something like that?

Rod Barton (05:52)

Nah they're absolutely heavily regulated. You know, like we've got to have cameras in the cars, we've got branding on the cars. We have a whole heap of things that we do to keep the consumer safe, which Uber doesn't have to comply with. And let's not kid ourselves, Uber is a taxi company from San Francisco. That's all they are. They're nothing special, they only do pre-booking and they do it via their app.

Now all the major networks do exactly the same thing here these days. The taxi industry has, for many of them, thousands of them, are carrying legacy debts from when they bought licenses. And I just want to clarify something about why licenses have got up to $500,000. The government was leasing licenses out at say $20,000 a year. So, the government was effectively underwriting the value of those licenses.

How the government could have got that barrier to entry to come down was over a period of time, start reducing the cost of the licenses that were leasing. That would have got the volume in without the enormous harm that's been done to taxi families.

Gareth King (06:53)

Right. Why did the cost of the licenses get so high?

Rod Barton (06:56)

Well, it was mainly because the government kept the lease of their licenses so high. If they were leasing licenses out at say $10,000 a year or $5,000 a year, that would have been a far more manageable thing to do. And they could have done it in such a way over a period of time that license value had come down, and that would have dragged license values down with it.

So the return on the investment is what we talk about, is that wouldn't have been there. So, the government's got a lot to be accounted for here. Years ago, they actually started trading taxi license on the, on the stock exchange, on the Bendigo stock exchange. So the government was in it up to their back teeth and created a lot of the problems.

Gareth King (07:35)

Look, that, that doesn't surprise me. A lot of hurdles in the way that somehow these disruptors could come in and not have to deal with to begin with. So already got a huge advantage there. One thing you did mention as well around the taxi industry having to have cameras in the vehicles. I know multiple people who've had horrific experiences in rideshare cars, whether it's a driver basically kidnapping them or, you know, like just scary, scary stuff.

There's part of me that thinks with these ride share apps that are, hey, here's your supposedly verified driver. It's logged into a network where you can see what trip you're doing, who you've picked up, et cetera, et cetera, that the risk of people doing things like that should theoretically be a lot lower. Is that the case or is it that people can kind of subcontract these Uber or DiDi or whatever it is accounts out to other people and then who knows what goes on?

Rod Barton (08:31)

Absolutely right. People will always do whatever they can get away with. And what we've seen and what's been reported previously is that there are drivers in the rideshare space sharing their licenses, sharing the vehicle. So, you don't really know who you're getting into the car with and a sheer volume, right? So there's going to be more incidents.

One of the problems is that we can't identify an Uber vehicle. Someone puts a sticker on their front windscreen, which you can knock up on your printer that says Uber. That doesn't make you a genuine driver. So there's an enormous amount of people doing the wrong thing, doing that sort of stuff.

We do have issues in the rideshare industry. And I'll just give you another example that I'm working on with, which we're taking it to the feds is around insurance. Here in Victoria, it is not a requirement to have third party insurance on rideshare vehicles, right? And I have raised it with directly with the transport minister here previously. They say, well, it's a barrier to entry, you know, which is the most ridiculous thing I know.

Gareth King (09:29)

That is... That is insane.

Rod Barton (09:32)

Well in New South Wales for instance, it is a requirement. Well, it's a difference between a bunch of, don't know if they're left over from Alan Fells and Graham Samuel within the bureaucracy. We've got a bunch of free marketeers in there in the transport department,  and they just want the industry to run its course and they'll say, well, it'll find its own momentum. I ask you to ask your people listening to this podcast is that do we honestly think that the taxi industry is better now than it was in 2018?

Gareth King (10:06)

Look, I'm, I'm kind of shocked hearing that even now they don't even have to have third party insurance, simply because myself, yourself, everybody else as private citizen drivers, this is like the bare minimum expectation. But yeah, I would have thought that something charged with, you know, transporting people around as a kind of service would surely need to have something like that.

And that, that is... it's very, very interesting. It's a bit hard for me to believe that they can be so blasé about that on one side of things, but then it feels like so much other stuff is just regulated to death. Why is the playing field uneven like that?

Rod Barton (10:47)

We've been asking various transport ministers. I’m on my, I think I'm probably on my fourth transport witness today. We lowered the bar, and Victoria moved first when Uber was coming in. We had this shiny new product and they say it's so cheap, but they were actually subsidising and losing millions to buy market share. And you know, we all knew it. It wasn't going to be able to be maintained forever. Right. And they were only buying market share to break the taxi industry.

We do something here in Victoria that New South Wales doesn't do, and that is make it a requirement that all drivers either have to become a booking service provider and there's a heap of regulation around that, or belong to an organisation which is a booking service provider.

So, we have, and it's really hard to get the figures because our regulator is less than efficient, we would have just in the taxi space we guesstimate somewhere between 20 and 30 % of the taxi industry are independents. So, there's no line of sight. We don't know if their cameras are working. We don't know if their cars are roadworthy. We don't know this. We don't know that, they're just out there.

And when we hear all these complaints, what's coming through and what's been fed back to me through the back door is that they may only represent 20 to 30 % of the entire taxi fleet, but they probably represent 80 to 90 % of all the complaints we get. So, what are we doing about that?

And obviously what we should be doing is exactly the same as what the other states do, bring them in line and let's start weeding out the ones we don't want in the industry.

Gareth King (12:20)

When, when you put it like that, again, it's something that I don't think anybody could argue with. And if the, I guess, if the means aren't there to weed it all out, then what can you really do?

But you mentioned something as well, which, you know, some people are familiar with, but I'm sure that some people aren't, was the fact that on arrival Uber was subsidising trips to establish this baseline. And then once everybody's there, it's like, cool, now we do what we want.

And I think one of the examples that we can see with that is this notion of surge pricing. And look, I, totally get the whole supply and demand thing and I get why they do it, but sometimes it just seems like such a piss take that, you know, they could try and be charging 3.8 times more, et cetera. And I think one thing that a lot of people don't consider when faced with surge pricing is that you can just get that flat pre-determined rate through the regular taxi apps.

Now, obviously I'm sure there's regulations which says that the traditional cab industry can't do surge pricing. So, they're already potentially, whether that's an advantage or a disadvantage depends on who you are and how you look at it. But again, like what other kind of inconsistencies or unlevel playing fields does say the original versus the new, like how do they not compare in other ways?

Rod Barton (13:41)

I think the surge pricing is a really interesting one to do, And I think within the next few years, we're going to see the end of rank and hail work. We're going to see the end of people's hailing a car on the road. Because Uber's proved that the punters will actually work via an app and they're outnumbering the taxi trips by eightfold.

But the problem we have here is that I take the view that the taxi industry is an essential service. We've got to protect Nonna from Northcote when she's coming down to the Peter Mac clinic to have her cancer treated on a Friday afternoon. She gets a car down and it might cost 25 bucks. But when she comes out at six o'clock at night, it's Friday, Collingwood's playing Essendon, it's raining, the wind's blowing in the wrong direction. And all of sudden it costs her 80 bucks to go home.

Now I say that's unacceptable. I say that's unacceptable. If you want to get an Uber and go out for dinner and get on the piss with all your mates and everything, oh well, good on you. You can pay the surge. I don't care. But for taxis, they have to be protected. And if we're going to do that sort of work looking after Nonna, those drivers need to be protected.

Before I went into parliament, and I'm very proud to have achieved it while I was in parliament, taxi prices had only gone up once in eight years. Once. What industry where is that acceptable? Right? Like fuel never went up, the repayments on the cars never went up, your rent never went up, your food never went up.

But you know, they kept the taxi drivers and I have to say, with the backing of the then Transport Minister at the time, Jacinta Allen and Tim Pallas that we put in place that the Essential Service Commission has to consider the operational cost of running a taxi cab, which they never did previously. How bizarre is that? They're setting the fares without setting what the costs are for running it.

Gareth King (15:28)

Look, I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not actually. And I think that it's an interesting point that you raised there being an essential service. You touched on Uber subsidising the prices to establish this kind of low fare expectation. Where does that leave us in the sense of wages for the drivers?

Now, this is, this is quite a contentious issue and not just in rideshare, just in gig economy stuff in general. How does this model of get people in when the prices are low and then jack the prices up? Like what happens to the driver's pay from rideshare stuff? Do they get more pay or is it kind of a race to the bottom? And then how does that affect this notion of customer service as well?

Rod Barton (16:15)

The issue over pay, and more importantly, the transparency of pay. And I'll include our brothers and sisters in the ride share industry, driving for Uber. They have no transparency over what's being charged. There's plenty of comments made about what they get paid and what the consumer pays. Just remember that the taxi and ride share industry, they're not protected by an award. There's no holiday pay, there's no sick pay, there's no superannuation. They don't have any of the basic protections of awards that the vast majority of people in this country get and expect.

But for some reason, this vulnerable sector of workers, we think they're less worthy. It is disgraceful and we should be well and truly passed it by now. I have been a member of the Transport Workers Union. I'm a massive supporter of the Transport Workers Union and the work they do. But we're just going down a track at the moment is that they're trying to do this for the delivery drivers, trying to get some base pay for gig workers for food delivery.

And rightly so. mean, it's just appalling. Like to think people earn eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 bucks an hour and we say it's acceptable. It's not acceptable. But what my concern is though, is that we're now talking about another class of worker, employee-like. Well, I just think it's in a terrible situation. It undermines all the work that unions have done for the last hundred years to make sure you've got sick pay, make sure you've got superannuation, to make sure you get holiday pay, right? And we're going to have this new class of worker employee-like. Well, you're an employee or you're not.

Gareth King (17:50)

Totally. And I think that the way you summed it up there, this kind of new class of worker and whether it's, it's kind of a symptom and also a byproduct of this on-demand culture that we're in where everyone's like, I want this straight to me when I want it. I don't want to do anything. So, someone's got to bring it to you.

I think a really extreme example of when this became really obvious was in the peak years of COVID. You know, lot of people staying at home, working at home, whatever, getting all their meals and things brought to them by people out in what was apparently the dangerous environments, cycling around, scootering around, bringing you some food when you wanted it.

And that was when it first really became obvious that it was, as you said, a different class of worker that was there to almost just facilitate the other class of workers’ lifestyle. And I think that for me, concern on this other class of worker, as we're, as we're referring to it is more people turning to gig economy work.

And so whether that's rideshare driving, whether it's food delivery, whether it's, you know, anything else, you're well versed in the gig economy and what the effects and everything are. Where is this heading? Is it heading into a bad place and like, how is it possible that this can turn around?

Rod Barton (19:06)

My fear, and I fear the gig economy and the impact it's going to have on vulnerable workers. But if anybody thinks it's going to be stuck just to Uber drivers or Amazon workers or cleaning companies, this has the potential to move into areas like in healthcare, nursing, aged care. Oh no, they're really a contractor. We're just doing it via an app. So therefore we're not really the employer and we're pushing everybody's wages down.

We've got a cost of living crisis. Things have gone up, more expensive, and at the same time, we're pushing people's wages down. That's not sustainable.

Gareth King (19:43)

I guess the side effect of all of that is just this constant race to the bottom with everything. So beyond just lower wages for more work, like what would you say is the strongest argument against using gig economy or especially ride share services? And I guess do these negatives apply across the board or are some special cases?

Rod Barton (20:05)

I just thought about the rideshare industry, And we think about what are the benefits, what has it given us? I struggle. I struggle what the benefits are. One benefit is you can get a car within two minutes. That's a good thing. But no one thinks beyond themselves that those people doing that job are more often than not earning below a living wage. Many are earning below the minimum wage, but we don't care. As a society, we don't care. Well, I care and I think government should care.

And I will keep pissing off the government until they, and like many others, until they listen, because we're going backwards. We're going backwards in terms of cost of living. Do you have a look at what's going on in the, around the streets and everything like that? Society's angry. There's a lot of angry people and what's driving it. And a lot of it comes back from poverty, you know, struggling to make a living, renter through the roof.

The dream of a buying a home for many people now, I think we've passed that point where we're going to have a whole generation now of young people who will not be able to buy a house. Even if you're working full time, it's this internet life work thing we're doing now. We have created the working poor and that's what we've done in Australia. I never thought I'd see it here.

Gareth King (21:23)

No, and I think you just touched on something there, which is incredibly obvious to anyone that pays attention, but a lot of people refuse to acknowledge it. And that divide, as you've alluded to there too, it's just getting wider and wider. Like it or hate it, the essentials cost the same for everybody. If you're established, you've got a great wage or you're much more well off. You don't notice this. And then you've got these poor...

People just trying to get a start forced into this precarious employment wherever it is. And it's just, as you said, they're getting further and further and further behind. And I personally don't see much of a will to actually solve this problem. Side note here, like the house price thing. We can see from all levels of government in Australia that their solution to everything is to bring people up to the insane price rather than perhaps try and find a bit of equilibrium. And then I think that.

The side effect of that is people are so stretched to pay a mortgage, they can't move around from their job if they've got like a nice full-time job and then potentially have to take on gig economy work to top up their income to be able to afford all this stuff. That said, we are talking about how the pay is not great in the gig economy, but can you explain to us like what the real realities of partaking in the gig economy as a rideshare driver?

are like in terms of pay and also conditions.

Rod Barton (22:47)

We're seeing just recently that Uber had done a deal with one of the electric vehicle manufacturers and they're leasing those cars to people at $660 a week. They take around 30 % of all the fares. Now I'm telling you, if we can't make any money in the taxi space and they're working at a rate lower than us, they've got nowhere to go except down.

Gareth King (23:11)

660

a ⁓ week.

Rod Barton (23:13)

So then they're locked in, right? There's no contract saying you have to, but the reality of life, because you your payments and everything, you end up working seven days a week and you're working 12 hours a day. Is that safe? Is that good for anybody? And they say the vast majority of people work for Uber part-timers. I believe that. However, the impact of what's happening there is impacting industries right across the board. So it's...

Whether in the blue collar work area, the logistics, whether it's in transport, we have all sorts of issues everywhere. And the gig economy is hovering over the lot of it, looking for their opportunities where they can take advantage. I fear the gig economy.

Gareth King (23:55)

I think again, it's hard to argue with that point that you raised there. When I play it out, the counter argument will be nobody's forcing them to do this. And it's like, yes, that is correct to an extent. Everybody does have choices, but as we're seeing with redundancies, layoffs and end of contracts everywhere, every day, that that kind of is forcing people. One thing we touch on, I'd love to expand out on a little bit more now was the concept of customer service. Ironically before all this tech.

ever arrived, you could get in a cab, say, Hey, I want to go to this place. And they just kind of know where it is, know how to get there, et cetera. Now everything's so driven by data and pre-planned routes and things. can choose to tell the driver not to speak to you and things like that. And it's just like, I don't know. It's just, it's so transactional and data driven. And it's like, I feel like that part of customer service.

is getting lost as well, but like what else in the customer service is getting lost? And is there any incentives to provide anything beyond take me from A to B?

Rod Barton (24:59)

But can I just go back to what you were talking about, about people working in the industry, the gig economy, because they choose to. Let me tell you something. No one chooses to work at three o'clock in the morning, picking up drunks who throw up in your car, racially abuse you for 12 bucks an hour. No one chooses that. These people have been dealt a set of cards and you get to play what cards you've ever been dealt with. No one's choosing to be exploited. No one's choosing.

to earn below the minimum wage. ⁓ So that argument that some people put up that they have a choice, for many of these people they have no choice. And just in terms of customer service, look, I drove taxis, my dad drove taxis, and my uncle was a London black cab driver. It's in our DNA. And part of the ⁓ customer service experience is the argy bargy and the chat, whether you've got an international visitor or out of town person or something like that.

Can we jump into a car these days and feel safe? Do we feel comfortable? What we've got now, industry absolutely dominated by part-timers who don't care because this isn't their full-time job. They might only work, you know, 10 hours a week. So they don't have the knowledge. They don't have the experience. Like, you know, how I go from one side of town to the other side of town is very different between, you know, peak hour and in the middle of the day. So, your customer service, your customer experience is very different when you jump into someone who drives a car 10 hours a week.

Gareth King (26:29)

That's exactly right. You don't need to be so invested in it it's just kind of a thing you pick up every now and again, but what should people consider next time they're trying to find a ride somewhere and they're weighing up their options.

Rod Barton (26:42)

Look, I think one of the big unfortunate issues that's happened, is that Uber is the largest taxi company in this country. 13 Cabs, they were the second traditional type taxi service. Now I don't know if circumstances would be different, but 13 Cabs is now in foreign ownership. And most people don't know that.

So, what we have as a situation now is taken to the fact that the government is losing hundreds of millions of dollars and not releasing licenses. We are sending hundreds of millions of dollars offshore, which should be staying in our village. We should be spending into our local supermarkets. It should be going into our local shops, supporting our aunts and uncles and family. But that money's ending up into the billionaire pockets in Silicon Valley.

Gareth King (27:26)

That's a really great point and it does lead me on to my next question, but I'm interested to hear as well that you say that 13 Cabs is now foreign owned too. So, is there any options that people can take if they were concerned about keeping that money onshore?

Rod Barton (27:40)

I'll just say with 13 Cabs, right? They were the biggest player when Uber came into the market. And I can tell you, they put millions of dollars into the counter punch. And if it wasn't for 13 Cabs, I think the taxi industry could have seriously collapsed. But they put in an enormous amount of fight, but they are now owned by a Singaporean company, which is a transport company.

They are actually the third largest bus operator in Australia. I think they're the biggest taxi operator in Singapore and other areas in Asia. So, they're a legitimate transport company. I'm disappointed that an iconic brand like 13 Cabs ended up offshore, but these are the unintended consequences when we allowed Uber free rein in Australia.

Gareth King (28:23)

Look I'd believe that. And on that point, we talk about regulations around things like Uber. What responsibility do our local governments have? Or even what opportunity do they have to regulate an industry that operates on a global scale? Like are they just too big to take on, or is it a lack of will?

Rod Barton (28:41)

It was a lack of will. There was this issue over competition, and it goes right back to the early 80s when Peter Batchelor was Transport Minister and they were looking at trying to deregulate the taxi industry here in Victoria. And it was just too big, too hard.

When Uber come along, it made it easy. I can tell you this and I won't say who it was, but it was a very senior member of the Victorian government. And he said to me that we have many things to be proud of as a government, the handling of the taxi industry is not one of them. They know they stuffed up, but as another one of them said, we're not going to open that can of worms again. We lost a lot of skin over that and that's not something they want to do.

Gareth King (29:19)

Yeah, look again, I'd like to say I'm surprised, but no one wants to admit their mistakes. And whether it's too hard basket to try and solve it now would put the spotlight on them for the mistakes at the time. Anyway, look, that's a, a whole separate issue, which I'm sure we probably won't find a resolution if at all for a long time.

But I mean, just to finish us up then, how do you think things will play out from here? Do you think we reach a point where the exploitation within the gig economy side can be minimised, whether it's through regulation or choice, and both the traditional and new platforms can coexist? And if that can all happen, what would it take for it to happen?

Rod Barton (30:00)

I’m hopeful. I'm more optimistic than negative. What we're seeing at a federal level about putting some minimum wages around gig workers. I don't think that's the answer, but it's that stepping stone because whatever we do in, well, whatever they do, I'm not in parliament anymore, but whenever they do in parliament, it's not written in stone. We can always go back and address it and move and see how things have progressed.

I don't want to dilute what an employee is. An employee is an employee and if they're an employee they're entitled to be paid fairly, and have the same entitlements that you and I receive in our lives.

Here in Victoria, it's now been seven years since we deregulated the industry. I think it would be sensible, Minister Williams, Transport Minister, that we have another look at where we're at, do an inquiry, but not with the bureaucrats. It has to be at arm's length. We need to have a look at what's worked, what hasn't worked. And we have to think about how we're treating the workers, these essential workers.

These essential workers need to be looked after. I'm hopeful that some of these things can get done. I'm hopeful that we're going to protect people's wages. So, we need to have a look at all of those things and is it fixable? Yeah, it's fixable.

Gareth King (31:11)

Nice positive note to end up there. Thanks Rod. Look, obviously you're involved in so much work trying to make all that happen. So, in that context, what is on the horizon for you in terms of pushing to achieve these goals and where can people follow what you're up to?

Rod Barton (31:26)

You can follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn. I'm all over the shop on terms of things. I also work for the Manpower Group, which is one of the world's top three recruitment companies. And I can tell you, I'm very strong views about making sure everybody's being looked after correctly. No one's going to say anything other than that to me.

I'm still involved a bit of the class action, keeping an eye on that as we come to the stage where we're going to divide all the money up. Look, I'm really, I'm very proud of the work we did previously. I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing at Manpower. I've met with some of the most senior people with the government about, you know, jobs, jobs of the future and where things can go. But life's not all doom and gloom. There's opportunities to come.

Gareth King (32:14)

Now that sounds good, very optimistic. Rod, thanks again for your time.

Rod Barton (32:17)

I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.