Regional Victorians have been hit with a secret tax to bankroll a metro project most will never use, after the Auditor-General exposed the Carroll Labor Government’s hidden 1 per cent levy on every single public transport fare.
The Victorian Auditor-General today revealed Labor quietly hiked every public transport ticket by 1 per cent from January 2025, buried inside the annual fare increase in a bid to fund the problematic Suburban Rail Loop project.
That equates to an additional $60 a week in public transport fares, more than $3000 a year for frequent commuters in a bid to raise $8 billion by 2062.
VAGO found 60 per cent of the revenue raised, an estimated $4.8 billion by 2062, is earmarked to fund the Suburban Rail Loop East, making the secret tax the project’s single biggest source of value capture funding.
The tax was signed off in 2021 when current Premier Ben Carroll was Minister for Public Transport.
Leader of The Nationals, Danny O’Brien, interrogated the government in Parliament on Wednesday, asking why regional Victorian travellers were being slugged a new tax to cover the cost of the Suburban Rail Loop, a project most of them will never use.
“Once again, it’s regional Victorians paying the price for Labor’s chaos in Melbourne,” Mr O’Brien said.
“Regional Victorians have no interest in the Suburban Rail Loop, yet they’ve been secretly taxed for almost two years to help pay for it, while Ben Carroll and his government said nothing.
“If regional Victorians knew they were going to be charged an extra fee to use public transport, shouldn’t they expect all that money to go towards improving an increasingly unreliable V/Line network and bus services rather than a new way to navigate Melbourne’s suburbs?”
“A Liberal and Nationals government will stop the waste and end the corruption and ensure a fair share for regional Victorians, directing 25 per cent of infrastructure to the regional areas that house 25 per cent of the state’s population.
“Victorians deserve honesty, not secret taxes and spin. It’s time for a fresh start, and the only way to deliver that is by voting for the Liberals and Nationals this November.”
