Australian Competition Tribunal

Submission Re: Matter No - 3 of 2005 Australian Competition Tribunal

I have made the submission below earlier and recognised by his honour. I would like to make a few more points due to some structural and circumstantial changes in the taxi industry. For the sake of accountability and transparency, I also would like to declare that Iam an elected member of the NSW Taxi Drivers Association's executive committee.


The Submission:
Taxi co-operatives (not taxi companies or networks) obtained "the authorisation in contention" by not telling the truth, twisting the truth and using racism as well as some other false claims they made to misguide the then Trade Practices Commission. Ultimately, the original applicants, specifically the Red and Yellow Deluxe have used many false claims "for their own narrow benefit" and got away with them. Fortunately most of their typical false claims and lies were detected and eventually correctly rejected by the TPC in matterA30152.


The Australian Competition Commission should have continued their stand and withdraw the authorisation! Yet, reason not known to us; they have not done so. As a result we are in front of this Tribunal right now.


Some privately owned entities of the taxi industry argued, "taxi drivers' do not have any right to represent themselves in this tribunal or any where else". A claim of such a nature ought to be surprising, harsh and unjust as some "mysterious identities" can't and must not be representing taxi drivers! To his wisdom, Justice Goldberg accepted Mr. Michael Jools, President of the NSW Taxi Drivers Association as a party and asked me to contribute in the matter. After a long and costly journey, the private entities of taxi industry have decided not to contest us in this matter.

I thought this is a signal of accepting the defeat because they do not have any valid response to our long and valued submissions.


However, The Australian Competition Commission has now decided to spend tax-payers' fund to defend the indefensible, e.g. defending the privately owned Cabcharge Limited's interest in this tribunal is beyond my comprehension.


Part of my earlier submission:
I the undersigned, Faruque Ahmed, have been advocating bailee taxi drivers' rights and interests in the state and federal instrumentalities, Parliaments, media, before the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and formerly the Trade Practices Commission as:
1. Secretary/Treasurer and President of Taxi Drivers' Section of the NSW Transport Workers Union, respectively,
2. Vice-President and President of Taxi Industry Services Association, respectively and
3. President, NSW Cabbie Welfare Association.I am also a working bailee taxi driver.
Any decision made by the ACCC and this Court regarding the Cabcharge Taxi Authorisation directly affects me as:
1. I am currently compelled to work for Cabcharge Limited for 30 minutes per shift free of charge,
2. I am compelled to bear the burden of any dockets voided by Cabcharge for reasons beyond my control or ability, thus eroding my industrial rights,
3. I am compelled to bear the burden of traffic fines that incurred whilst processing Cabcharge dockets and credit cards,
4. I am compelled to provide my private details to a company withwhom I have no contractual relations, and
5. Because of my free labour and miseries mentioned in "1" to "4" above the Cabcharge is making huge amount of money and buying upvarious taxi industry instrumentalities and thereby reducing and eventually destroying competition in the taxi industry,
6. The State and Federal Government provided unfair advantage to Cabcharge are effectively restricting any new comers to open up any new ventures in the taxi industry,
7. I have made Submissions on this particular matter to the ACCC.
8. I have had several conferences with officers of the ACCC, at their request, on this particular matter.



Faruque Ahmed
Mobile: 041 091 4118

Source: Sydney Taxi Corruption

Tanveer Ahmed,

Tanveer Ahmed,


Please leave “prejudice and bigotry” aside and ask the following questions. How the hell the elite of the elites of USA, UK and Australia ignored their:
1. Intelligence communities and falsified almost every information,
2. Experts advice and adopted a murderous path,
3. Democracy, fairness and decency in support of an invasion which is in every sense and purpose, nothing but an act of TERRORISM,
4. The duty of care to their respective nations and forced them in an act of terrorism in support of the Nazi Zionist Israel,
5. Conscience (if they have any in the first place) and deliberately murdering Iraqi women and children.

I say this because 94% Iraqis say, “the insurgents are FREEDOM FIGHTERS” and 90%Iraqis say, “the invaders (USA, UK etc.) should leave Iraq”. The whole situation is compounded because of the INBUILT RACISM and SECTARIANISM in the USA military establishment, government, bureaucracy, media and society in general. They are blatantly evidenced by many reported and unreported tragic massacres as well as training manuals and music used to hype up the soldiers, the usage of depleted uranium, phosphorus and many more prohibited weapons and tactics used and adopted by the US military. Many credible sources have proven, “97% of the victims of Iraqi theatre are CIVILIANS”. This civilian casualty has worsened due to deliberate targeting of water, sewerage, electricity and utilities by the invaders.


The overall situation in Afghanistan and Palestine are worse than Iraq! A campaign against Iran is simply frightening!


Iraq used to be a secular, peaceful and orderly society. Despite the western propaganda and grandeur campaign against it, Iraq used to be one of the best countries in the region in terms of education, healthcare, food, housing etc. etc. Today, Iraq is a mega graveyard. Every Iraqis are victims of multiple and avoidable tragedies. In many ways, Iraqi lives worth less than dogs!


The Green Zone is another recipe for disaster. It is a state within a state! It is a mini USA equipped with Kentucky, McDonald, regular Bible classes as well as Cha Cha, Rumba, Salsa discos. No Iraqis, even the Christian Iraqis are not allowed to be in side the ‘real Green Zone’. The boot polishers and cooks are from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines and other countries. Beside the invading armies - a large number of privately hired killers have been murdering and terrorising Iraqis inside their homes!


Generally speaking, Islam and Arab bashings are the most spectacular sports in town today.


The illustrious Prime Minister of Australia misused and abused anti-Terror legislations and conspired a strip search of New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clerk to make Israel happy.


Philip Ruddock, the filthy Attorney General of Australia `virtually' asked his daughter to open her legs for Israeli child molester for power as demonstrated in credible links of Legs are Open for Business.


Whereas the Muslims and Arabs are guilty of every thinkable and unthinkable crimes before even being charged! The Zionised and Zionist media will crucify them without any evidence whatsoever.


In the middle of the deliberately explosive situation, if one or two medial practitioners as reported in the media recently, act incorrectly and foolishly – no one should try to crucify all ARABS and MUSLIMS as it is happening today.




The rough road from career to killer
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Tanveer AhmedJuly 5, 2007

Although raised in Australia, as a hospital registrar of Bangladeshi and Muslim background I am often approached by overseas-trained doctors with tales of woe and misery. They feel I can offer a sympathetic ear. From colleagues berating their clinical skills to patients abusing them for poor English, many feel hard done by. I remember a Pakistani doctor taking me aside on a ward round to bemoan how the nurses had complained about the smell of his curry lunches. This was surely an example of racism, or so he felt.


While technology gurus, management consultants and investment bankers rule the modern economies, doctors remain the quintessential high-status professional, especially in the developing world. While the best and brightest here go on to a variety of occupations, in the Third World a greater proportion go on to study medicine.

It is also reflected locally when you consider children of Asian migrants form a high proportion of students in Australian medical schools. In their lust to make a difference, many are later attracted to positions in the clergy or politics. Intervening in human life becomes inseparable from dabbling in human meaning.


Part of the attraction of studying medicine for foreigners is the possibility of migrating to the West, a trend magnified in the past decade when Western governments have produced fewer doctors per capita. The shortfall has been filled by a steady supply of overseas-trained doctors, primarily from Asia and the Middle East. The Australian Medical Association estimates about 25 per cent of the medical workforce is overseas-trained. This figure rises to almost 50 per cent in areas of greater shortage such as rural communities and in states such as Queensland and South Australia.


As a result, a visit to the public hospital these days will have similarities to catching a taxi or going to a convenience store. While the skill sets for the jobs are very different, the interaction is likely to involve a recent immigrant from the developing world, and very often a Muslim. These are the spaces where the south meets the north, right in our own backyards.


While all immigrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds suffer a loss in status, overseas doctors suffer a loss greater than most. Extended periods of examinations, racism and discrimination from health staff and an obligation to do the least desirable jobs often produce a sense of humiliation, a trait central to would-be terrorists.

Doctors are said to be at the centre of the latest attacks in Britain. This would appear inexplicable, especially to those who believe terrorism is attractive only to those who are poor or alienated.


But doctors from the developing world have long been at the centre of terrorist operations or affiliated with radical groups. It is in line with professional, highly educated operators undertaking leadership roles in many Islamic extremist groups.


The most notable is Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born pediatrician who rose to be Osama bin Laden's closest aide. He is widely credited to be the major thinker behind al-Qaeda and credited with its shift from targeting apostates in the Middle East to attacking the West in its own backyard.


Many of the senior figures in Hamas are doctors, from the founder Mahmoud Zahar, who was a surgeon, to the notorious Abdel Rantisi, a pediatrician killed three years ago in a precision Israeli assassination.

An Australian parallel can be seen in the forthcoming trial of the medical student Izhar ul-Haque. He stands accused of joining a banned terrorist group dedicated to Kashmiri liberation. He said he was "fed up with Westerners" before he left on a trip to Pakistan.


Like al-Haque, the Jordanian doctor at the centre of the current British investigations was also very suspicious of Westerners when he moved to Britain. Mohammed Asha was worried about racism. In the Midlands where he lived, The New York Times has reported, he was forthright in asking neighbours about racist attacks in the area. Asha was described as a brilliant man by his peers in Jordan.


For those with a sense of victimhood and alienation, Islamism offers a potent identity to express alienation and connect their personal story to a larger, global struggle, fuelled by television images of conflicts such as those in Palestine, Chechnya or Iraq. In this way Islam has become a symbol of protest - political or social - attracting many who feel disenfranchised or wronged by the society in which they live.


This gains greater weight when you consider that not only are a great proportion of the world's poor Muslim, the places of social exclusion in the West also have a strong ethno-religious flavour, from North Africans in Paris to South Asians in Britain and to a lesser extent, Lebanese in south-western Sydney. These groups often perceive themselves as marginalised or undervalued in their society and thereby feel a connection with the "real" poor and dispossessed Muslims in other parts of the world.


These imagined feelings of connection with the poor and dispossessed are the reasons why the middle classes of the developing world have so often been the leaders in radical groups, including terrorist operations. This is heightened when they feel a sudden drop in status on migrating to the West or are excluded from its liberal social mores.


Overseas doctors as a group are not a terrorist threat. Most make a wonderful contribution to our society. It is a quirk of immigration patterns and Western skill shortages that they have formed the bulk of the latest terrorism detainees. But the event illustrates the kind of groups that may be vulnerable to the lure of terrorism. In this case, sadly, those who were dedicated to preserving human life were transformed into the exact opposite.


Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatry registrar and writer