BILLS
Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026
Second Reading
Mr BATT (Hinkler—Deputy Nationals Whip) (11:11): I rise to speak in opposition to the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026. Through this bill, Labor wants to legislate an increase to the passenger movement charge, otherwise known as Australia’s departure tax, so that anyone who leaves our country for a holiday, or a visitor returning home or heading to their next stop, faces a rise of another $10—a jump from $70 to $80. The increase is scheduled to commence on 1 January next year.
The coalition opposes this bill because, under this Labor government, Aussies are already paying too much. The cost of living is out of control. Labor has delivered a trifecta of failure on housing—fewer homes, higher rents and confidence in the housing market smashed. On this passenger movement charge, I must point out that there are no direct international routes out of Australia from my electorate of Hinkler—so regional Australians who want to travel by air or sea are already paying more because they need to travel the extra legs.
This legislation proposes an increase that comes only 2½ years since the last increase in the passenger movement charge. If the bill passes, the passenger movement charge will have risen from $60 to $80 between June 2024 and January 2027—in other words, an increase of around 33 per cent in under three years. This is yet another hidden cash grab, and Labor has simply not made the case or answered why another increase of this magnitude is necessary. It’s feeling like deja vu—another day, another toxic tax bubbling out of the chaotic budget of broken promises. As always, when Labor run out of money they come after yours. This legislation should be rejected by the parliament.
The passenger movement charge has existed in one form or another since 1978, when the original departure tax, as it was then called, was introduced at a level of $10. Over the decades since, there have been a number of increases—and, on one isolated occasion, even a decrease. But we’re not asking whether the passenger movement charge should exist or if the rate can or should go up or down; the question is whether the government has made the case for this particular increase at this point in time, and the coalition believes it has not.
The government expects this move to raise an extra $745 million over the forward estimates; that’s a significant amount of money. But the additional revenue for the Commonwealth is not by itself a sufficient reason for imposing another tax increase on Australians—or, for that matter, another hit to our visitor economy. Our major tourism industry bodies agree. They warn that the added cost threatens Australia’s international tourism competitiveness and piles further pressure on regional economies like Bundaberg and the Fraser Coast, which are so reliant on overseas guests to sustain our local jobs and keep our local tourism sustainable. Airlines for Australia and New Zealand, the Tourism and Transport Forum and Accommodation Australia each oppose the increase and instead want government to find ways to strengthen Australia’s standing as an international destination. Airlines for Australia and New Zealand, or A4ANZ, said there is already a wave of cost pressures on airline services—fuel volatility, high government levies, increased security and credential costs, these jumps in airport passenger charges, accessibility reforms and sustainability related policy measures. It’s all hitting hard and it’s all hitting at once.
Tight margins means a tightening of the belt, and I fear what that means for regions like Hinkler. Those services connect regional communities and support tourism, trade and investment. We’ve seen plenty of airlines come and go in regional areas like Bundaberg and Hervey Bay, and the last thing we need is weakened competition and travellers priced out of the market. If passengers are paying more, it should go to improving the travel experience for everyone. But it’s not clear what this bill, if it passes, will actually mean.
Top tourism bosses say Australia could not afford to make international travel more expensive while the tourism sector is still rebuilding its international visitor base. Australia is competing in one of the most competitive tourism markets at a time of significant global uncertainty. The focus should be on accelerating the post-COVID recovery and growing the visitor economy, not adding barriers to travel. The passenger departure tax applies to all outgoing passengers, so our overseas visitors pay more as they leave and Aussies pay more when they head off. Some advocates say additional revenue should, at the very least, be reinvested in tourism and a faster, more seamless Australian border experience. But will it? I don’t think so.
The government has not established a sufficiently clear connection between this additional revenue and improved services for the people who will pay the charge. The tourism, aviation, airport and even cruise sectors have consistently argued that a greater share of passenger movement charge revenue should be reinvested in the infrastructure and services that support the movement of passengers across our borders. That includes enhancements such as more smart gates, better border technology, improved investment in airport and border infrastructure, and more appropriate resourcing for Border Force. Yet the bill provides no guarantees, no direction and no ideas, just another toxic tax. Labor can’t even promise travellers that they will see faster and more effective border processing as a result of this bill.
And why does the consultation seem to always happen after the announcement, after the budget is handed down? The sectors who will be impacted the most by this passenger movement charge increase have not been consulted. That is particularly concerning given the practical consequences of the commencement date. Of course, airlines have already been selling tickets for travel beyond the beginning of next year. The government knew, or at least should have known, that airlines sell international tickets a long time in advance. This was entirely predictable, yet the industry has been left to scramble. Airlines, travel agents, booking systems and ultimately passengers should all reasonably expect to know the full cost of a ticket when they purchase it. This is poor planning, poor consultation and poor execution. It’s fair to say that an extra $10 when you’re already spending money on international travel may not seem much, but, even so, that 10 bucks should be reinvested in tourism and border infrastructure. This bill comes with no guarantees that any of that additional $745 million collected will be directed towards industry priorities.
The Tourism and Transport Forum and Cruise Lines International Association Australasia have criticised the measure on tourism competitiveness grounds. Industry rightly wants Australia to be a more competitive destination. Yet, as usual, Labor is causing the opposite outcome to occur and is simply making everything more expensive. Let’s make this clear. This proposed increase to $80 is substantially above inflation over the relevant period. It has been imposed with a complete lack of detailed consultation with industry. It creates implementation problems for airlines and other carriers. It adds to the cost of international travel. It risks undermining tourism competitiveness. And it comes with no guarantee that the additional revenue will be reinvested in the places it needs to be.
At $80, Australia’s passenger movement charge would also now be at the very high end of departure taxes internationally. The UK and Germany can impose higher charges on long-haul economy travel. However, countries like Sweden, New Zealand, Belgium, South Africa, Austria, Singapore, Japan, the USA, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Norway and France all operate a departure tax at a significantly lower level.
Raising revenue is not, on its own, a policy justification for another tax increase. Passengers are being asked to pay more without any firm commitment that that additional revenue will improve the experience of travelling across Australia’s borders. Labor can tell Australians how much extra money it wants to collect, but it cannot tell them what improvements to public infrastructure and services they will be receiving for footing this enormous tax slug.
The coalition’s position is clear. We do not oppose changes to the passenger movement charge as a matter of principle. In the past, we supported the 2024 increase in circumstances where the charge had been unchanged for seven years and the increase broadly reflected accumulated inflation. The coalition went to the 2025 election with a policy for predictable CPI indexation, but this bill is different. This bill imposes another $10 increase after a period of only two and a half years. It lifts the charge by 14.3 per cent in one step. It goes well beyond CPI growth over the relevant period.
To sum all of this up, if the bill is passed, it would mean that the charge will have increased by a third between June 2024 and January 2027. The government has failed to meaningfully consult key sectors before putting them in the position of having to manage a rushed implementation and has failed to guarantee that the additional revenue will be reinvested in the border infrastructure in technology and services for which passengers and industry are asking—and Australians are already paying enough, or too much.
Our tourism and aviation sector is already facing significant cost pressures, and to raise another $745 million for this government in the form of a desperate tax grab to try and offset some of the many disastrous budgetary decisions by this Labor Party is certainly not a good enough reason to wave through another substantial increase in a tax on international travel. For all those reasons, and especially in acknowledgement of the position of the tourism and transport sectors on this legislation, the coalition opposes the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026. This legislation should be rejected by the parliament.
Debate adjourned.