Labor to hike fares up an extra 10 per cent

Passengers would pay 10 per cent more for public transport under Labor’s plan to scrap the successful free trips after nine weekly journeys incentive.

Transport and Main Roads Minister Scott Emerson said while the Queensland Government has a strong plan for a brighter future for bus, ferry and rail passengers, Labor has no plan other than to scrap the free trips scheme that saves passengers as much as $650 a year.

“Labor already had a policy to put fares up by 15 per cent every year and now they want to hike up passengers’ public transport bill by another 10 per cent by axing the free-after-nine scheme,” Mr Emerson said.

“About 78,500 passengers a week are currently benefiting from the initiative but they would lose their weekly free public transport travel if Labor came back into power.

“This means passengers would have to pay more for public transport or, more likely, choose to travel by car without the incentive of free travel.”

Mr Emerson said while Labor Shadow Transport spokesperson Jackie Trad wants the free-after-nine scheme scrapped, her leader Annastacia Palaszczuk said the incentive ‘would be welcomed by commuters’.

“The LNP Government has already ended Labor’s disastrous policy of annual 15 per cent fare hikes, capping increases for the next three years at 2.5 per cent – below the CPI rate,” he said.

“Labor now needs to back our successful initiative that has seen passengers take more than 7.1 million free journeys since June 2012.”

Mr Emerson said our strong plan is working with patronage ahead of its target.

“There were 176.7 million trips taken in 2013-14, more than 1 million additional trips than in the previous year,” he said.

“We have also delivered 3,000 additional weekly bus and train services since coming to office and trains are running on time as reliability for peak services have improved from a three-year low under Labor to an all-time high of 96 per cent.”

Media contact: Stephanie Shield 0418 186 625