Thursday, 27 August 2026

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (10:00): The Auditor-General has confirmed what Victorians have long suspected: this government taxes them in secret and hopes they never find out. From January 2025 Labor added a 1 per cent levy to public transport fares on top of ordinary inflation-linked increases. Not one word appeared in the 2025 fare announcement, not one word in the 2026 announcement and not one word when Labor unveiled its Suburban Rail Loop value capture model last December. As late as June this year it was still undisclosed. The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office says the levy was expected to raise around $8 billion by 2062, with 60 per cent, around $4.8 billion in present value terms, allocated to the SRL East, making it the project’s largest source of value capture revenue. By 2035 a daily fare across zones 1 and 2 would have been $1.60 higher, and by 2062, $12.10 higher. Ben Carroll cannot wash his hands of this. The charge was approved in August 2021 when he was Minister for Public Transport. Yesterday he was telling Victorians his new government would level with them. Today, only after the Auditor-General exposed the scheme, he announced he would scrap it. That is not leadership; it is not transparency. It is a panicked backflip after getting caught. And this was not merely a Melbourne tax. Commuters in Geelong, Ballarat, Warrnambool and across regional Victoria were paying more to bankroll an orbital railway that will not serve a single regional community.