Cooktown’s Eli Munday now has his red P-plates, but he and his mother, Tiffany Brennan, say more needs to be done in town and across Cape York to ensure new drivers don’t have to wait months or travel hundreds of kilometres to secure their licence. Photo: Lyndon Keane.
Frustrated young drivers and parents in Cooktown are pleading with the State Government to ditch the bureaucratic “buck passing” and come up with a consistent solution for delivering local licencing services.
Newly-licenced driver Eli Munday was lucky enough to be able to get his licence in Cooktown last week, but said the experience had been clouded in confusion.
“Once I finished my 100 hours, it took us two weeks to hear back from TMR that my hours got approved, they had messed up or something,” he said.
“So, I rang them up and found out that my hours did get approved, but while we were waiting for my hours to get approved, I heard from some of my other friends that their driver’s tests got cancelled, and they were told that they’re not doing the Ps (provisional licence) testing in Cooktown anymore.”
The Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) is responsible for the provision of licencing services in Queensland, however, a State Government source familiar with the situation told Cape York Weekly “an appetite to slash local services and resourcing, and lump police with tasks TMR are funded for” had left many drivers in limbo in places like Cooktown.
“The department (TMR) honestly doesn’t care if there’s a regular service or not, as long as a budget in Brisbane balances,” the source said.
“TMR think police should be doing licencing in rural and remote towns, but police don’t have the resources or suitably qualified officers to offer the service with any consistency when it means pulling officers from legitimate policing duties to do so.”
As a result of the internal government feud, many families have been booking practical driving tests in places like Mareeba and Cairns and dealing with waiting lists of several months in some cases.
Mr Munday said he had experienced the frustration first-hand when attempting to get his red P-plates after notching up the mandatory 100 hours of supervised driving experience.
“We rung Mareeba and they told us the wait there was going to be until October, so, three months from when I first got my 100 hours complete,” he said.
His mother, Tiffany Brennan, said a permanent solution had to be found.
“It’s caused a lot of people distress thinking when and how we’re going to get this done,” she explained.
“It was quite disappointing to see that it was just a very abrupt ‘alright, we’re stopping it right now’ – there was no contingency.
“Everyone was just passing it off like ‘it’s not our problem, it’s not our problem.’”
The frustration was echoed by another Cook Shire resident, who asked not to be named but said the delay in being able to get their licence had cost them an employment opportunity.
“I’d been offered a great job I wanted to take, but I had to say no because I couldn’t get my licence for a few months and there’s no public transport available where the job was,” they said.
“I don’t care if police do it or [TMR] do it, but they need to stop the buck passing and sort it out because it has real impacts on people’s lives.”
Cook Shire Mayor Robyn Holmes said conversations with TMR to date had “fallen upon deaf ears”.
“Police historically had the TMR agency and were responsible for undertaking driver licencing functions, including driving examinations for all classes of vehicles,” she said.
“This agency transitioned to [a Queensland Government Agency Program in] Cooktown in 2018, at which time Cooktown police continued to undertake driving tests, for class C and RE licences, as a courtesy service.
“Six years on, and TMR are still expecting police to carry out this service; at the end of the day, TMR are the responsible service providers and are not assuming any responsibility.
“The state have failed to maintain current service levels and simply have no care factor for the added burden this poses on regional and remote communities; the removal of heavy vehicle testing and now the pending termination of the service has considerable flow-on effects impacting Cooktown, Lakeland, Rossville, Ayton, Wujal Wujal, Hope Vale and Laura.”
A QPS spokesperson confirmed licencing in Cooktown had been a TMR responsibility since early 2018.
“Transport and Main Roads duties in Cooktown transitioned from the Queensland Police Service back to TMR, under QGAP arrangements in April 2018,” the spokesperson said.
Minister for Transport and Main Roads Bart Mellish did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Cape York Weekly.
