Coalition costings plan includes Aussie overseas traveller tax, vape tax, public service cuts, refugee cuts

A plan to regulate and tax vapes, hiking up the fee paid by Australians who travel overseas, and slashing the public service will help fund Peter Dutton’s election promises.

A plan to regulate and tax vapes, hiking up the fee paid by Australians who travel overseas, and slashing the public service will help fund Peter Dutton’s election promises.

The Opposition leader has also pledged to reduce Australia’s refugee intake by about a third to 13,750 as part of a number of cuts to help it deliver a $14 billion budget bottom line improvement over four years compared to forecasts under Labor.

But in the short term the Coalition would actually deliver bigger deficits than the Albanese Government due to its huge election spends, including a 12-month 25c cut to the fuel excise expected to cost about $7bn.

Peter Dutton while on the 2025 federal election campaign at AGFEST at Carrick, just outside of Launceston in Tasmania. Picture: Adam Head / NewsWire

The opposition released its election costings on Thursday, revealing a deterioration of $7.9bn over the next two financial years, compared to Labor’s pre-election figures.

Coalition treasury spokesman Angus Taylor backed the decision to tax e-cigarettes, saying the opposition had also set aside $350m to regulate the sector and ensure its not being exploited by criminal gangs.

The new excise would generate nearly $3.6bn over the forwards and help offset tanking tobacco tax revenue as more Australians turn to cheaper black-market cigarettes.

Under the Coalition policy, flavoured vapes would be sold at supermarkets, service stations and corner shops to adults like cigarettes while Labor allows vapes in limited flavours to be sold to adults at pharmacies only.

Peter Dutton while on the 2025 federal election campaign at AGFEST at Carrick, just outside of Launceston in Tasmania. Picture: Adam Head / NewsWire

When asked if Labor would also look at a vape tax given the generous figures it would bring into government coffers, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said there was already a “big vaping tax being imposed on Australians by criminal organisations, criminal gangs”.

The Coalition’s vape excise plans were well-known but tourism industry sources told this masthead they were blindsided by another tax — the decision to index the passenger movement charge.

Australians currently pay $70 per person when you leave the country and it was last increased by $10 on July 1 under Labor after a five-year-freeze.

With annual indexation, it would go up to just under $78 by 2028-29 but it will be indexed every year until 2035.

The indexation will bring in $361m in extra cash over the forwards.

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Labor candidate for Leichhardt Matt Smith and ALP Senator Nita Green at the Tjapukai Cultural Park in Smithfield, a northern suburb of Cairns. Picture: Brendan Radke

The costings also included plans to make newly arrived migrants wait five years for certain welfare payments and concession cards which will save $59.3m this financial year before slowly increasing every year to reach $1.5bn for 2028-29.

The Coalition also revealed how much it would save under previously flagged plans to raise student visa charges.

Labor has also sought to raise revenue from student visas, raising the fee from $1600 to $2000 in its own costings but the Coalition will increase the application charge to $5000 for Australia’s eight leading universities and $2,500 for others.

The changes will save $3bn over the forwards.

There were also savings found by delaying projects like a research and support program in Antarctica.

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor pictured speaking about the release of the Coalition's election costings at Bligh Street, Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Despite the savings, a Coalition government would see the budget sink deeper into the red in the first two years than Labor but would have $14bn in savings in the longer term.

Mr Taylor said this was necessary to offset Labor’s economic management.

“There is a $14bn improvement across the forwards,” he said.

“We are fixing the mess created by Labor in the short term, we need to make sure that we make (the) Australian lifestyle more affordable.

“These are measures that have to be taken over the short term. You will not see a permanent cost-of-living crisis under a Dutton government.”

Mr Taylor maintained a Coalition government would bring Australia’s budget back into surplus faster than Labor but did not offer a year.

“We will get there faster than Labor and a critical reason we know that is there is a $14bn improvement here,” he said.

Mr Taylor said the Coalition’s plan also includes just under $400m set aside for their nuclear power policy which Labor has previously claimed would cost $600bn but in recent campaign events had said would cost “hundreds of billions”.

Originally published as Coalition costings plan includes Aussie overseas traveller tax, vape tax, public service cuts, refugee cuts