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Half-price myki ends on 1 January and neither side has said what comes next
On Friday 1 January 2027, 34 days after Victorians vote, the daily cap on a zone 1 and 2 myki fare goes from $5.70 back to at least $11.40. That is the full fare gazetted for 2026, before whatever the annual 1 January indexation adds, and before any decision on the 1 per cent Suburban Rail Loop levy that the Auditor-General found has been built into every fare rise since 2025. As at 17 September 2026, no page on premier.vic.gov.au, transport.vic.gov.au or budget.vic.gov.au says what a Tarneit, Craigieburn or Clyde North commuter will pay in the new year, and no Liberal Party release commits the Opposition to a figure either.
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What ends on 1 January and what does not
Public transport across Victoria was free from Tuesday 31 March to Sunday 31 May 2026, with airport buses, ferries and privately run services excluded. Since Monday 1 June 2026 every fare has been half price. Transport Victoria’s page, published 22 May 2026, sets it out: the full-fare daily cap fell from $11.40 to $5.70 and the concession cap from $5.70 to $2.85, on metropolitan trains, trams and buses and on regional trains, coaches and subsidised buses, with SkyBus, ferries and non-subsidised regional buses left out. The page gives the end date as 1 January 2027 and says nothing about what follows.
The measure was announced on Sunday 19 April 2026 by Jacinta Allan, then Premier, who gave the reason as the war in the Middle East pushing up fuel prices. Her release put the free months and the half-price period together at $432 million; the Budget 2026/27 site separates that into $155 million for free travel in April and May and $278 million “to halve the price of public transport until 1 January 2027”. Paul Edbrooke, then Minister for Cost of Living, said: “Half-price fares keep pressure off the pump for the rest of the year.” Gabrielle Williams, then Minister for Public and Active Transport, said on 1 June: “Half price fares until the end of the year will save commuters more than $850.”
Two things survive January. Children aged 5 to 17 keep travelling free on a Youth myki, an entitlement written into the Victorian Fares and Ticketing Conditions from 1 January 2026 (Gazette S 733) and carried into the consolidated conditions effective 16 March 2026 (Gazette S 141), both signed by Jeroen Weimar as Head, Transport for Victoria. The card costs $5, is sold at staffed stations, myki retailers and online, and cannot be loaded onto a phone as a Mobile myki. On 18 August 2026 the government said more than 600,000 under-18s held one and nine million Youth myki taps had been recorded; Vicki Ward, Minister for Public Transport, said: “Labor is delivering real cost-of-living relief for families by putting over $20 million back into the pockets of parents through free Youth mykis.” Seniors keep free weekend travel, and the early bird rule (free metropolitan train travel when you touch on and off before 7.15 am on a weekday) continues. Neither is part of the $278 million measure.
Tap and go with a bank card, phone or watch started on the Werribee, Sunbury, Cranbourne, Pakenham, Frankston, Sandringham, Williamstown and Stony Point lines on 7 June 2026, on the rest of the metropolitan network on 14 June, on trams on 21 June and on buses from Sunday 19 July. Transport Victoria’s page says “contactless is full fare only for now”, so concession holders, seniors and children must keep using their myki, and the ABC reported on 21 June that concession passengers must wait until 2027. Matthew Guy, Shadow Minister for Public Transport, said then that the government “should not be celebrating something that should have happened a decade ago”.
The money for an outer-suburban household
Take a full-fare commuter from Tarneit, Craigieburn, Cranbourne or Dandenong into zone 1 five days a week. Today the daily cap is $5.70, so a week costs $28.50. From January, at the 2026 gazetted fares, the same week costs $57.00. That is $28.50 a week more, $114 across a four-week month, and about $1,370 across a 48-week working year, before indexation. The government’s “more than $850” is the same sum run the other way: 30 weeks of the half-price cap between 1 June and 1 January.
Now a two-adult, two-child household in Clyde North or Truganina where both parents commute. The children travel free on Youth mykis, so the only cost is $5 a card. The parents pay $57.00 a week between them now and $114.00 a week from January at 2026 prices, an extra $228 a month. If one parent holds a Concession myki (a Health Care Card holder, a tertiary student, an Age Pensioner on a weekday), that person’s cap is $2.85 a day today and $5.70 from January, so $14.25 a week rising to $28.50.
Trips that stay inside zone 2, such as Tarneit to Werribee or Cranbourne to Dandenong, have a lower gazetted daily cap of $7.20 full fare and $3.60 concession, halved during the discount like every other fare. The weekend and public holiday cap in the 2026 table is $8.00 and $4.00. New Year’s Day is a public holiday, so for most people the first weekday commute at full price will be Monday 4 January 2027.
The 20 per cent rego rebate, the road half of the April package, is already gone. It paid up to $186 for one car and $372 for two, cost $759 million, had more than three million claims by 27 June 2026, was extended from 31 July to 31 August, and Service Victoria’s page now says it is closed and “working through the backlog of applications”. For a Wyndham or Casey household, the rebate was a one-off; the half-price fare is the part about to reverse.
Why January’s figure may be higher than $11.40
Victorian fares are re-gazetted each December to take effect on 1 January. The September 2024 conditions (Gazette S 491) had the zone 1 and 2 daily cap at $10.60 and the two-hour fare at $5.30. Amending Conditions No. 2/2024 (Gazette G 52, 24 December 2024) lifted them to $11.00 and $5.50 from 1 January 2025, a rise of 3.8 per cent on the cap. Amending Conditions No. 7/2025 (Gazette S 733, 22 December 2025) lifted them to $11.40 and $5.70 from 1 January 2026, a rise of 3.6 per cent, with the weekend cap up 5.3 per cent from $7.60 to $8.00. Those are the percentages the Liberals cited in their 31 December 2025 release headed “New year, new Labor taxes and charges on Victorians”.
Each of the last two rises added 40 cents a day to the cap. No 2027 figure has been gazetted or announced, and this article does not guess at one. The Auditor-General’s report explains why the recent rises have run a little ahead of inflation.
The levy nobody was told about
On 26 August 2026 the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office tabled “Delivering the Suburban Rail Loop”. It found the government “did not announce its decision to introduce a new levy on public transport fares from 1 January 2025 as part of the annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) fare increase”, that the levy adds an annual 1 per cent to fares on top of CPI across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria, and that “the government and Transport Victoria did not acknowledge the levy in their public communications about the 2025 and 2026 annual fare increases”. The levy was approved in August 2021 and confirmed in December 2023 and November 2024. The report says the government plans to direct 60 per cent of the revenue, “estimated at $4.8 billion in net present value (NPV) terms to 2062”, to SRL East. The ABC reported that the levy would raise about $8 billion over 37 years, had collected about $6.5 million to June 2026 because fares were free or half price for much of that time, and was known as a “rail improvement charge” that appeared in neither the budget papers nor a media release.
On a full-price $11.40 daily cap, 1 per cent is about 11 cents a day. For one household the sum is small; the finding is about disclosure, and about a charge that compounds every January until someone removes it.
The same report found SRL East, the 26 kilometre twin tunnel from Cheltenham to Box Hill, “is likely to cost more than the government’s upper estimate of $34.5 billion”, with “a potential final project cost of more than $36 billion”, and that the 2035 opening is at risk. Of eight recommendations, the Department of Treasury and Finance accepted the three directed to it, and “SRLA did not accept the recommendations directed to it”.
What Labor has said since
The ABC reported on 26 August 2026 that the levy “was approved in August 2021, when Mr Carroll was public transport minister”. Treasurer Colin Brooks said that day the charge “is not contributing directly to the Suburban Rail Loop” and that “we could have been more transparent about how we’re investing that money”, as quoted by AAP; the ABC reported he said it helped fund public transport generally.
On 27 August the ABC reported that Premier Ben Carroll would abolish it. “I am not going to stand here and re-litigate the past. I am a premier who’s put accountability and transparency at the forefront,” he said, adding that he would “abolish this charge because there was no transparency in its creation and implementation”. He was public transport minister when the charge was first approved in 2021 but said he was not part of its creation, and declined to say when he became aware of it. The ABC noted that scrapping the levy “will need to go to cabinet for approval” and “will leave a bigger hole in the state budget”. Deputy Premier Gabrielle Williams, public transport minister when the levy took effect, said: “What I was unaware of, was that, at any decision-making table, there had been any decisions taken about deliberately obfuscating the structure of our fare increases.” She added: “This is clearly something that has not met the pub test.”
Two days earlier, on 25 August, Carroll had announced $2 billion in savings on SRL East, half of it still to be found by an independent technical review: “The SRL will be built on time. Today’s changes mean it will be built under budget.” Ward said on 7 September, as tunnelling began from Burwood toward Glen Waverley: “We’ll deliver the Suburban Rail Loop on time and under budget.”
What the record does not contain is a Premier’s release on the levy, or on fares. The Premier’s media centre lists 109 releases dated 20 August to 17 September 2026; none mentions the levy, its abolition, the 1 January 2027 fare change or an extension of half-price fares. The government’s most recent word on fares is Ward’s 9 September release on travel to the NFL match: “We’re putting on extra services and offering half-price fares so fans can focus on the touchdowns, not how they’re getting home.”
What the Liberals have said since
Jess Wilson, Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Treasurer, said on 26 August: “Labor’s secret public transport tax is a scandal of the highest order.” The release continued: “Ben Carroll was the Minister for Public Transport when this secret tax was approved in 2021. What other secret taxes are Labor levying on Victorians without telling them?” AAP quoted her the same day: “So instead of being up front, taking it to an election, they hid it and they lied to Victorians.”
On 7 September the Liberals and Nationals said they would move in the Legislative Council for a select committee to run a 30-day inquiry into the levy, with a vote expected on Wednesday 9 September. Wilson said: “Taxes will always be lower under a Liberals and Nationals Government,” and that there would not be any secret ones either. David Davis, Liberal Member for Southern Metropolitan Region, said: “Ben Carroll still isn’t being upfront with Victorians or answering when he first learned of this secret tax, or why he kept it from Victorians for so long.” Neither party’s website had published the result of that vote as at 17 September 2026.
What the Liberal record does not contain is a fare policy. The party’s “Our First 100 Days” plan of 19 August names the emergency services tax, the schools tax and the GP tax for abolition; it does not mention myki fares or the SRL levy. Its cost-of-living page promises a “Lower Taxes Guarantee” not to introduce new taxes or increase existing ones, with nothing on fares. Its transport commitments are a $50 a week toll cap for two years from 1 July 2027 (15 August) and $1.7 billion for 25 hybrid electric trains on the Melton and Wyndham Vale lines (31 August). There is no Liberal release on the free or half-price periods, no commitment to extend the discount, and no statement on whether the 1 January 2027 indexation should include the levy. On SRL East itself, the ABC reported on 25 August that Wilson promised to “pause and review the project” if elected.
What to watch between now and January
For daily riders on the Werribee, Craigieburn, Cranbourne or Pakenham lines, the practical steps are these. Buy a $5 Youth myki for each child aged 5 to 17 now if you have not, because it is the one saving that outlasts January. If you hold a concession, keep the physical card; tap and go will charge you full fare. If you commute five days a week, price a 28 to 325 day myki Pass, gazetted at $6.84 a day for zones 1 and 2, against an $11.40 cap once the discount ends; over a 28-day month the pass is about $192 against $228 for 20 days at the cap. Then watch for three documents: the amending conditions in the Government Gazette each December, which will fix the 2027 fares; any cabinet decision on the levy Carroll said he would abolish; and each party’s costed transport commitments before 28 November. As at 17 September 2026 neither the government nor the Opposition has published what a myki fare will cost on 1 January 2027, and a candidate who wants your vote in Tarneit, Clyde North, Craigieburn or Dandenong can be asked that question directly.
