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In its never-ending quest to scrounge more of other people’s money to waste, the socialist Allan government in Victoria is turning to gouging tourists even more than usual.
A controversial tourist tax is being introduced for the Twelve Apostles on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.
The Victorian government is imposing a fee for visitors to the new Twelve Apostles Visitor Experience Centre, due to open at the end of this year.
The amount tourists will be charged is subject to consultation with local councils, traditional owners and businesses in the south-west of the state.
If the ‘traditional owners’ have any say, the gibsmedat will be as high as an elephant’s eye.
To really rub salt into the wound, the Labor government is applying their self-imposed racial separatist agenda on the money-grubbing.
But Environment Minister Steve Dimopoulos said locals and members of the Eastern Maar community would not be slugged.
It’s not unreasonable that people in the local postcode, say, shouldn’t be charged. But when differential pricing is based on race, that’s another thing entirely.
The whole thing is also yet another Labor lie exposed.
In 2024, the Victorian Government denied it planned to introduce parking fees for visitors along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.
Mr Dimopoulos said the money raised by the new entry fee would be collected by the Great Ocean Road Parks and Coastal Authority to support upgrades to beach access and visitor facilities, and maintain historic landmarks.
Does anyone really believe them?
The fees might be reasonable if that’s what they’re used for. Tasmanian similarly charges for national park access, with the money siloed for park maintenance. Who wants to bet, though, that the Allan government ends up trousering the fees into general revenue? Some locals have much the same reservations.
Port Campbell Progress Group vice-president Kylie Treble said she was concerned about how it would play out on the ground.
She said while the unregulated visitor numbers were putting immense pressure on the park, she was worried about what raised funds would be spent on […]
Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said the government’s plan was a cash-grab.
“I think it’s just another example of a government that’s run out of money,” she said.
Ms Wilson said the site was an iconic part of the state’s landscape that should be free to see.
Frankly, it’s nothing on what it used to be. Now, it’s crammed with tens of thousands of tourists every day, helicopter tours buzz overhead from dusk till dawn and the much-vaunted ‘visitor centre’ is little more than a glorified public dunny.
At least Labor are doing one thing right:
A visitor booking system will also be introduced to manage visitation numbers and guarantee parking at peak times.
Again, this is what Tasmania has had to do with the popular Overland Track route. In the popular summer months, visitors are subject to a strict booking season. In autumn and winter, it’s a free-for-all, on the assumption that only Tasmanians are keen enough to walk the track in the Tasmanian winter.
But this is a Victorian Labor government. Ten bucks says they’ll pay criminal bikies a fat salary to collect the fees at shotgun-point.
