22
the maximum a driver would pay for a licence and its endorsements would be $100 a year.
In view of the number
of endorsements licences now carry, I must insist on some charge for each endorsement. And I do not think the $5 my honourable Friend Mr. Hilton Cheong-Leen has proposed is quite high enough. Allowing for a reduced dampening
effect on the number of endorsements than the $50 charge would have had, I estimate the additional revenue from these revised proposals will be $2 million, compared with $4 million under my original proposals.
59.
(iv) Off-street parking charges
I was somewhat irked that the proposals in the budget speech for higher car parking charges were
criticised. Not only are they a perfectly logical extension of existing approved policy, but they were not even my
Not one single honourable Member saw fit to
proposals!
recognise this.
As I said, they were the recommendations of the Transport Advisory Committee except that I modified the Committee's proposals on charges for open-air car parks by reducing them! But it does seem that there is opposition to the Committee's recommendation that monthly car park tickets should be abolished. In the circumstances, I would accept the suggestion made by my honourable friend Mr. Williams that monthly passes be continued at a higher rate of $500 a month. I do not think this will affect significantly my estimate of the increased revenue for this must remain something of a guess until we know more about the impact of the new charges generally on drivers' habits.
60.
(v) Handicapped persons
Finally, I have received a representation from the Automobile Association, couched in uncharacteristically moderate and polite terms, to the effect that handicapped people who cannot use public transport will be hit particularly hard by increased levies on vehicles. The Commissioner for Transport is now considering the possibility of some form of relief for these cases.
/(vi).....