Why Are Taxi Drivers Refusing Aboriginal People

Australian musician Emma Donovan has claimed she was refused service by two taxi drivers at Perth Airport recently. In her words, a taxi driver stated, “They don’t take my kind”, presumably referring to her being Aboriginal. Apparently, the taxis that refused her, immediately took other passengers. First of all, if this is indeed true, obviously, this is terrible. I’m not condoning this sort of behaviour at all. But what I want to do in this video is explain this behaviour.

It’s obviously not the first time this sort of thing has made the news. It happens often enough where this is not just an isolated incident. But the question is, why does this happen? Is it because Australia is a racist country? Of course not. Let me tell you a little story.

One of my classmates from uni, an Indian guy, used to do all sorts of odd jobs to make ends meet. This was before the pandemic, mind you. He wasn’t a rich immigrant, quite the opposite. His family gave him about one year’s worth of tuition fees, and then he was on his own. He worked on a chicken farm, he worked as a labourer, and he worked as a taxi driver. As I said, he had to work all these jobs to pay for his tuition. As a taxi driver, he only worked late-night shifts, perhaps they were the only ones available, or perhaps he got more money, I don’t know.

But one day he came home and was so angry. He told me he picked up a couple of young Aboriginal guys who had just been to the pub. When he got them home, or wherever they were going, he asked for the fare, but then they just said they didn’t have any money. He told them they must have had some money, as they were just at the pub drinking. Anyway, they refused to pay, the first time it had ever happened to my friend. So he got out of the car and demanded his money. They got aggressive and called out a couple of their mates who started threatening my friend, not with a knife or anything, but just by yelling at him or whatever. He then tried to plead with them telling that that he’s just a poor student who needs the money for his tuition, but they basically just told him to f off. So he got in his car and told them that he’s going to call the police, but they just basically abused him and told him to go back to India.

So he went to the police station, losing other fares because he had to spend time with the police. The police got him to fill out a report and so on. What do you think happened? Do you think the police sent out their best detectives to catch the fare evaders? Of course not! Nothing ever came of it. I’m not even blaming the police here. They’ve probably got so many other things to do on a Friday night. Anyway, the police just offered him a bit of advice, if ever you see those guys again, just refuse them service unless they pay their previous fare. Obviously, that never happened.

So a couple of weeks later, my friend came in again, and told me again that another group of Aboriginal people refused to pay him. I think this happened a total of half-a-dozen times or so before my friend vehemently said, “I’m not picking up Aboriginal people ever again!” Now this is not a guy who was raised in Australia. This is not somebody who came here prejudiced against Aboriginal people. He was just sick of getting ripped off. He didn’t have the time or the money to report all these crimes that were being committed against him. He honestly wanted to do the right thing, but society was not supporting him. So he did the only thing he could think of – Ignore Aboriginal people who wanted a lift. I know this is a terrible thing to hear for those honest, hard-working Aboriginal people out there, but this wasn’t about racism in his mind, this was just about him trying to avoid being a victim.

I know, this sucks. This is a horrible situation. Now we have Aboriginal musicians being refused service. And no, it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of their Aboriginal brothers and sisters who give them a bad name, at least in regards to fare evasion. I’m not commenting on anything else here.

So what can be done about this? I don’t know. And I don’t claim to know the answer. But calling everyone racist is not helpful. We need to have honest conversations about this and work out how we can teach young Aboriginal people, or anybody for that matter, that you can’t just hop in a taxi and get a free ride. If you don’t have the money, walk. If you can’t walk, well perhaps you need to put aside some money before you spend it all at the pub.

I really don’t want this in society. I really want everyone to get on. But that’s not living in the real world. We have a situation where at least some percentage of the Aboriginal community are cheating hard-working taxi drivers, often foreign students who need the money, out of their fares. So of course, some of those taxi drivers are going to take matters into their own hands and refuse service to people they suspect won’t pay them. It sucks, but that’s what’s happening.

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn