Cycling Advocates Make Seven Point 2024/25 Federal Budget Submission
Canberra ACT
Every year interested groups are invited to make submissions to what they think should be included in the upcoming Federal Budget.
Most people would be unaware of the sheer scale of the Federal Budget. For the current financial year of 2023/24 projected expenditure is $668.1 billion. Put another way, that’s just over two thirds of a trillion dollars.
That is more than the budgets of all state and territory governments combined. Of course, most of the Federal Budget money is already earmarked for the ongoing big ticket items such as welfare (pensions, jobseeker etc), health, education, defence and so on.
If active transport including cycling and micromobility received just a sliver of federal pie, it would make a transformational difference. But for the 122 years since Federation until today, there have only been very occasional and extremely slim pickings indeed.
Particularly in recent years, cycling advocacy organisations across Australia’s states and territories, led and coordinated by the cycling industry funded national organisation We Ride Australia, put a significant amount of time and thought into a detailed budget submission, including the latest one, just announced, that we will summarise below.
2024/25 Federal Budget Submission’s Seven Asks, in Summary:
- Legislation to exempt e-bikes from the fringe benefits tax.
- Exemption from the 5% import tariff that applies to e-bikes.
- A national initiative to create healthy futures for primary aged children.
- A national policy that requires all federally funded transport projects to provide for walking and cycling.
- A dedicated cycling infrastructure fund.
- A national Memorandum of Understanding that recognises the co-benefits of active transport.
- A national active transport plan.
You can read more about the logic and strategy behind each of these asks here. Or you can watch a five minute video from Stephen Hodge and Peter Bourke explain the submission here.