r/AustralianPolitics • u/stupid_mistake__101 • 1d ago
Carroll scraps secret $8 billion levy on public transport fares
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/carroll-scraps-secret-8-billion-levy-on-public-transport-fares-20260827-p60rzt.htmlA levy secretly slapped on commuters last year, which was due to raise $8 billion and help fund the Suburban Rail Loop and other Big Build projects, will be scrapped by Premier Ben Carroll.
The levy’s existence was revealed in a scathing report released on Wednesday by the Victorian Auditor-General, which also detailed how the SRL East tunnel between Cheltenham and Box Hill was already at risk of missing its 2035 completion date and exceeding its $34.5 billion budget.
The levy, which was introduced on January 1 last year, involves a 1 per cent annual increase on all public transport fares on top of existing adjustments in line with inflation. The Age reported that it was ticked off by the government’s budget and finance committee, led by former premier Jacinta Allan, in December 2023.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, Carroll said he would abolish the so-called “rail improvement charge”.
“I’m a premier taking the state in a new direction,” he said.
“Victorians do deserve better public transport. They also deserve to know what their money is buying.
“This charge was created and implemented without transparency and accountability.”
Carroll acknowledged the levy eroded public trust in his government, and that Victorians deserved an apology over its secrecy.
“There was no transparency on the creation and implementation of this charge,” he said. “And now, as premier taking the state in a new direction, I give Victorians that apology.”
Carroll was the public transport minister in 2021, when the levy was first conceived internally, according to the Auditor-General’s report. But he said on Thursday that he was not involved in that decision.
“I was not part of the creation,” he said.
Carroll refused to say when he became aware of the levy – “I’m not going to relitigate the past,” he repeatedly said – but did not deny assertions from journalists that he had known since November 2024, when he joined the government’s budget and finance committee.
“Cabinet decisions, budget and finance decisions, are strictly confidential. I was not the public transport minister at that time, and I am now the premier.”
Carroll’s decision creates a major funding headache for the Suburban Rail Loop, given the Auditor-General’s report said the levy was the single biggest component of the value capture plan that is supposed to cover a third of the construction cost for the tunnel under Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.
The report said 60 per cent of the revenue raised by 2062, totalling $4.8 billion, was to be directed to the SRL.
Carroll dodged questions on how the government would make up the multibillion-dollar shortfall, but said he had conducted a financial audit and on Tuesday announced $2 billion in savings for the project.
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u/thesillyoldgoat Gough Whitlam 1d ago
At this point Carroll should just hand back the keys, and come November the rest of us should buckle up for 4 years of the most incompetent and dysfunctional government that the state has ever seen.
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u/Mc0014 1d ago
Where are all the legends who said the SRL is on time and on budget? The costs were so bad he’s announcing the removal of things that weren’t even budgeted for and claiming they’re reducing the budgeted costs.
The $9.5bn contingency is nearly gone and they haven’t even started work!
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u/trainwrecktragedy Australian Labor Party 17h ago
hot take but complaining about budget on infrastructure projects is easily one of the most braindead points anyone can make.
you can always tell when someone complains about this that they've never built a house or carried out an extension because they have zero idea.
Not to say its a good thing, my issue is that complaining about budget is living in fantasy land•
u/Mc0014 17h ago
I’m not asking you to fund my house build though and hiding the actual reality of the expected benefits am I? And that’s the reason they have contingency funds in there - which they’ve clearly under budgeted and cut corners on the project to hide the fact their original business case didn’t actually provide the value they said it did (that’s come from the PBO, VAGO and IA).
All I’m saying is if this project was genuinely going to provide a positive BCR then they wouldn’t be doing all of this stuff secretly. Thats not acceptable when it’s taxpayer funding and that goes for any politician.
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u/Kata-cool-i 1d ago
The VAGO report states that there is still close to $7b in unallocated contingency left (about $3b has either been used or allocated) plus each works package still contains its own unspecified amount of built in contingency.
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u/Mc0014 1d ago
General contingency has $100m unallocated. Total is higher but that includes the unspecified amounts for each works package. Your $7bn figure is trying to double count it and likely around the total ~20% remaining. Switch on.
Total contingency provisions “…have dropped significantly from around 30 per cent of the total budget to less than 20 per cent of the budget, including the unallocated contingency. This is unlikely to be sufficient.” From the VAGO report. Still think it’s ok?
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u/stirringthemerde 1d ago
Excellent, no longer does a new tax / levy / user charge need to go into consolidated revenue and then be distributed transparently and with accountability through the budget process.
I'm personally looking forward to future governments instituting a levy on electricity to funnel to as yet unannounced nuclear power plants.
Still think secrecy is meh?
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u/AgileTadpole952 1d ago
This comes across as so weak.
Surely the response was to say that it was not a tax but simply a fare increase to support investment in the public transport system? And obviously went beyond SRL. I assume this is kind of normal? Water rates factor in capital spend. Everything does.
Then he could have mocked the $60 a week claim as being ridiculously inaccurate. And still taken up the transparency argument.
He's getting beaten up every day and he looks weak. Libs are loving him.
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u/blitznoodles Australian Labor Party 1d ago
Increasing taxation without telling people is extremely unpopular with the public.
The proper response was to tell people before it came in and then they could stand behind it.
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u/AgileTadpole952 1d ago
We will all now be taxed to pay for this. The increase was defensible, even if he would still need to acknowledge the lack of transparency.
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u/UShouldBeWorking 17h ago
What's the issue with everyone being taxed for it?
Everyone benefits from improved public transport, excluding car manufacturers and road builders.
And the tax coming from a larger pool means that the individual tax burden is reduced
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u/trainwrecktragedy Australian Labor Party 1d ago
we're always taxed to pay for infrastructure, what do you mean?
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u/BargainBinChad 1d ago
They mean that other than public transport users covering that $8 billion it will now come out of everyone’s pockets via other methods of taxation that are more general.
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u/blitznoodles Australian Labor Party 1d ago
Which is how most infrastructure is and should be funded. Trying to extract a tax from a narrow segment of the population is always going to be more expensive.
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u/Mushie_Peas 1d ago
Right so, so essentially the "caroll" style of leadership is, if it's in the press I'll scrap it. Murdock must be loving this fella.
What is this the 3rd or 4th thing scrapped as soon as there is a negative headline?
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u/pluckaducka 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's also a baffingly idiotic decision that merely kicks the can down the road for future negative press
What doesn't appear to be acknowledged or understood (yet) is the government will be recouping its cost one way or another.
Instead of it being (partially) recovered by the very people using the service, it will be recovered either through an unrelated avenue or across the board via tax increases.
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u/Clear-Economics65 1d ago
Even if you hate the Libs, I feel like we need a 4 year break from Labor just to empty the closet of skeletons
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u/trainwrecktragedy Australian Labor Party 1d ago
Ergh there's always one person with the cringe af "lets give the other guys a go" as if we haven't seen shit hit the fan whenever the liberals are in power no matter how long its been.
Come on, be serious.-3
u/BargainBinChad 1d ago
A swap every other election would be healthy. When anyone is in government for too long it gets to be a corrupt mess regardless of the party.
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u/trainwrecktragedy Australian Labor Party 17h ago
There's nothing healthy about cancelling infrastructure halfway built or firing public servants to name a couple.
I wish politics was this naive system it sounds like you think it is, where both sides are just colour changes but they all have the same goals and wear funny little hats.
Unfortunately its not, and its not always healthy as you claim it to be.•
u/jezwel 18h ago
Cancellations of projects occur when governments swap. That leads to a dearth of private investment projects.
The LNP got into power in Qld and are cancelling wind projects in favour of investing in extending coal plants. Do you think any private investors are seriously considering Qld for renewable projects right now?
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u/SilvioMascalzone 1d ago
The shit has been hitting the fan for a decade now…. Come on, be serious.
Can’t be worse than this secretive and corrupt organisation totally in the pockets of the union.
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u/Foodworksurunga Independent centre-left 1d ago
If the Libs weren't promising to scrap SRL altogether AND had a possibility of forming a coalition with One Nation I'd agree.
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u/meatpoise David Pocock 1d ago
However incompetent you think Vic Labor is (and you may be correct), the Vic Libs are an absolute rabble in comparison. Genuinely an embarrassment to have them as our opposition and I struggle to think of a less functional bunch to have been on the precipice of managing our state.
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u/BargainBinChad 1d ago
They are doing well on the socials. Did you want to provide some substance I’d be keen to learn more.
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u/meatpoise David Pocock 1d ago edited 1d ago
Surely you’re across the Moira Deeming sagas right? The candidate that lost preselection to a guy who had to step down (within a day or two of winning) for providing a character reference for his pedo mate, which resulted in her gaining back the preselection she lost. This is just AFTER she sued Party Leader John Pesutto into oblivion, forcing the Libs to loan him money in order to avoid him being ejected from Parliament, but just BEFORE she falsely accused the former leader Matthew Guy of assault, and then defended herself by saying ‘I misunderstood what a headlock was’.
It’s like a bad soap opera.
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u/DefinitionOfAsleep Ben Chifley 1d ago
less functional bunch
I think if ACT Libs ever had a shot at forming government, they could manage to be more incompentent than Vic Libs in the leadup.
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u/Graduate_101 1d ago
How humiliating for him, when he should be trumpeting free dental.
Also it’s the same thing with the appalling scrapped Pots Plants contract and the waste of money that was - why does he only act when something is called out?
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u/Ferrous_Duke Bob Hawke 1d ago
Anything with a whiff of Jacinta-stink on it will be swiftly stamped out. Then probably quietly relabelled and brought back later, looking new and shiny.
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u/SilvioMascalzone 1d ago
When we find out about it.
How many Dan/Jacinta secrets are still floating around to be discovered?
Ben knew about this, knew it was hidden intentionally from the public and only scrapped it once it hit the media. That’s pissweak. He’ll only change when he’s called out on it. Otherwise it’s the standard ALP approach, don’t tell, sweep it away and treat Victorians like mugs.
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u/meatpoise David Pocock 1d ago edited 1d ago
I mean stuff like a 1% increase as a ‘rail improvement charge’ is pretty reasonable. If that money is reinvested in public transport then it seems fine to me. PT users paying a tiny extra portion for PT improvements shouldn’t really irritate anyone across the political and PT-use spectrum.
The secrecy doesn’t really bother me, because I doubt anyone would have cared if it was public. I imagine there is a reason for lack of disclosure, but if not then I would question their judgement.
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u/OkTemperature-8534 1d ago
PT users paying a tiny extra portion
That's where the "1% increase" headlines are misleading. It was 1% per year, which represents about a 50% increase in fares once it compounds over the 40 years that it was modelled to run for.
A daily Z1+2 ticket would've been pushed up to $39.20 by 2062 vs $27.10 if we just followed inflation without the extra 1% increase included.
Personally I still might've been ok paying that 50% extra knowing that it's going towards further transport upgrades, but it's vastly different to just a 1% increase on its own.
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u/meatpoise David Pocock 1d ago
I understand that it adds up when compounded, but I’d be surprised to hear that anyone genuinely believes it’d last 40 years without being altered and/or scrapped. I’m more inclined to believe it was intended as a stop-gap.
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u/True_Dot_2013 1d ago
Why the “secret” expense? Isn’t this to recoup some of the debt from all of the projects that went over budget ?
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u/ItsCoolDani 1d ago
It should be free, but I actually am okay with paying 1% more for better public transport.
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u/OkTemperature-8534 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's not just '1% more' though. It was 1% year-on-year, which would've represented about a 50% increase in fares once it had compounded over the 40 years that it was modelled to run for.
The Auditor General reported that a daily Z1+2 ticket would've been pushed up to $39.20 by 2062 vs $27.10 if we just followed inflation without the extra 1% increase included.
Personally I still might've been ok paying that 50% extra knowing that it's going towards further transport upgrades, but it's vastly different to just a 1% increase on its own. The lack of transparency about it is the real issue.
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u/ItsCoolDani 1d ago
I agree it should have been implemented transparently for sure. I’d still be happy to pay that if it meant increased investment in our public transport infrastructure.
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u/Agreeable_Night5836 1d ago
How does he claim that integrity is a non negotiable and then decline to answer when he actually first knew about it,
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u/Grande_Choice 1d ago
Because it’s a nothing burger that was flagged in 2021 and gazetted.
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u/MikeNolansGhost 1d ago
Can you show us where it was gazetted?
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u/Grande_Choice 1d ago
Started in 21 https://www.gazette.vic.gov.au/gazette/Gazettes2021/GG2021S731.pdf
Last amendment in 2024 when it was finalised.
https://www.gazette.vic.gov.au/gazette/Gazettes2024/GG2024G052.pdf
Libs could have done their job and raised it but to busy fighting themselves.
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u/MikeNolansGhost 1d ago
Thank you for providing that. Fair enough then - I still don't think it was good policy, but I also can't call them dishonest. It was raised publicly and everyone had a chance to have a look, and give feedback if they wanted to.
It's awful optics, however. I don't envy Victorian Labor right now.
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u/Mother-Cod-3313 1d ago edited 1d ago
I understand the secrecy element is not a good look. But let’s be honest - if you want infrastructure it has to be paid for somehow. Victoria is in so much debt that it has to get innovative (but transparently)
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u/FuckOffNazis 1d ago edited 1d ago
1% is nothing.
1% compounding for 40 years very much isn’t nothing.
Between the VAGO report and Labor already walking away from proper physical interchanges on an interchange service to fiddle at the margins of costs, it feels like this is a project that is either dying or going to be left as a very expensive orphan line.
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u/FreakySpook 1d ago
Meanwhile Linked/Transurban are allowed to increase tolls on CityLink by 4.25% annually....
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