Greens pitch 50¢ fares to Prahran voters

Commuters would pay just 50¢ a day to use the state’s public transport network if the government were to adopt the new policy the Victorian Greens are taking to the contest for the inner-city electorate of Prahran.

Greens candidate for Prahran Angelica Di Camillo will pitch the slashed fares, which would save commuters more than $50 a week, to locals on Saturday as the party faces off against the Liberals, who hope to reclaim the seat at next month’s byelection. Labor has not entered a candidate.

Victorians will save up to $50 a week under a pitch by the Victorian Greens to trial 50¢ daily fares.Credit: Scott McNaughton

The Greens’ proposal would initially trial a flat fare of 50¢ for unlimited travel on buses, trains and trams, including V/Line. Currently, commuters pay $11 for a daily full fare, while concession cardholders are charged $5.50, which is 40¢ more than the cost of a daily fare last year. The latest price rise comes off the back of two fare hikes within six months in 2023-24, when full-fare daily tickets rose by 80¢ and then 60¢.

The Greens estimate the six-month trial will cost $339 million based on fare revenue figures for 2024. They say the trial would be funded by initiatives previously promoted by the minor party, including hiking the online gambling levy and introducing a state bank levy.

Acting Greens leader Sarah Mansfield said the slashed fares would save Victorians up to $50 a week, or $2600 a year.

The policy is based on Queensland’s recent 50¢ fare trial, launched in August by the then Labor government before the state election. The cheaper fares became a fixture of the election, and both major parties pledged to make them permanent because of their popularity.

In November, the newly elected Liberal government estimated Queenslanders had saved $110 million since the trial began. Critics argue the slashing of fares was not well-thought-out, and was used to sandbag inner-city seats.

The Greens intend to take the policy to the 2026 Victorian election, but it will be unveiled on Saturday as a key policy to sway voters in the battle for Prahran, as the Greens attempt to fend off Liberal candidate Rachel Westaway’s bid to reclaim what was once Liberal heartland.

Di Camillo, a St Kilda local and environmental engineer who ran unsuccessfully for the outer-eastern federal electorate of Aston in 2023, said Queensland’s success proved cheaper fares were possible. “People in Prahran love public transport but it’s expensive, and in a cost-of-living crisis cutting fares to 50¢ will make a massive difference for our community who rely on public transport every day.”

The February 8 byelection will test the strength of the Victorian Greens’ traditional base of inner-city voters. At the 2024 council elections, inner-south and south-east voters turned away from the party, which lost councillors in Port Phillip and Stonnington. At the federal level, recent polling found younger voters had drifted away from the minor party.

The Liberals ran second in Prahran at the 2022 state election, pulling just over 30 per cent of the primary vote compared with 36.4 per cent for the Greens. The Greens easily won the two-candidate count on Labor preferences.

The byelection was triggered when Greens MP Sam Hibbins, who snared the seat in 2014, resigned from parliament after admitting at the end of last year to an affair with a staffer.

Last month, new Liberal leader Brad Battin spent his first day in the role campaigning in Prahran and conceded the byelection would be a test for the party and his leadership.

Westaway, the South Yarra-based president of the Thailand-Australia business association, has focused her campaign on addressing cost-of-living pressures, as well as initiatives to tackle crime, including on-foot police patrols, and funding for the Prahran police station.

Independent candidate and ex-Labor MP Tony Lupton denied his ticket would feed votes to the Liberal candidate.

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