Senior Labor figures close to former premier Jacinta Allan<\/a> have\u00a0laid the blame on Ms Williams for keeping the levy secret \u2013 claims strongly denied by sources close to the Deputy Premier and Mr Carroll.<\/p>\n Mr Carroll, Ms Williams and other cabinet members have sought to distance themselves from the now-scrapped levy despite holding senior positions in the government when it was introduced. Mr Carroll was deputy premier at the time; Ms Williams was public transport minister.<\/p>\n The June 2024 cabinet material indicates the charge had been disclosed to the broader ministry months before Mr Carroll joined the government\u2019s budget razor gang in September 2024 and reportedly gained visibility over the levy, and before Ms Williams became aware of it in the second half of 2024.<\/p>\n The revelation of the cabinet material means any minister who maintains he or she was unaware of the levy by June 2024 either did not read the relevant subcommittee minutes provided to cabinet or did not register the details contained in them.<\/p>\n One senior Labor source sympathetic to Ms Allan claimed Mr Carroll and Ms Williams were rewriting history. \u201cEveryone in cabinet should have known about this charge,\u201d the source said. \u201cIf people didn\u2019t read their cabinet briefing packs, that\u2019s on them.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked to comment on whether the levy was disclosed to cabinet in the middle of 2024, a Victorian government spokesperson said: \u201cThe rail improvement charge was not transparent and we will \u00adabolish it.\u201d<\/p>\n The cabinet disclosure was recorded as part of minutes for five separate meetings of the budget and finance committee, and many cabinet ministers insist they never saw it. It also recorded a decision to tie 60 per cent of the revenue from the charge to the controversial Suburban Rail Loop, which was overruled in a decision by the subcommittee in November 2024 to direct the revenue into the existing Public Transport Fund and use it to improve services on the wider network.<\/p>\n An internal Labor blame game over who was responsible for keeping the levy from the public has escalated, centring on a press conference Ms Williams held on December 20, 2024.<\/p>\n Multiple senior Labor sources have sought to lay responsibility at the feet of Ms Williams, claiming she resisted announcing the charge ahead of the press conference at which she was announcing public transport fare increases for the following year. <\/p>\n Sources close to Ms Williams strongly dispute that account. They say the then-public transport minister initially pushed back against plans to use the charge to help fund the SRL and did not want to be responsible for announcing the policy under those terms. But after the decision was made in November 2024 to direct the revenue into improving services for the general transport network, they say Ms Williams did not oppose publicly announcing it. One source said: \u201cClaims to the contrary are being peddled for pretty nefarious reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Williams was briefed on how to answer questions about the levy ahead of the December 20 press conference and, according to sources close to her, was surprised when reporters did not ask about it. They also pointed to the fact that the budget update a week prior did not disclose the levy as evidence that it was not Ms Williams who decided to keep it secret.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest clue that it was others who kept it secret lies in the fact that it was not in the budget update on December 13, 2024,\u201d one source said.<\/p>\n Other senior government sources directly involved in deliberations over the charge reject that version of events, saying Ms Williams and her office were adamant she did not want to announce the levy at the time. <\/p>\n \u201cGab is the reason it did not get announced. She as minister could have made it public,\u201d a source said.<\/p>\n The conflicting accounts expose deep divisions within Victorian Labor in the wake of Mr Carroll\u2019s leadership challenge against Ms Allan.<\/p>\n Last week, Ms Williams said she had expected the charge to form part of the government\u2019s \u201cbroader communications\u201d and she had been unaware of any \u201cproactive\u201d decision not to disclose it.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been part of a new leadership team with Premier Ben Carroll that has made it very clear that integrity is at the heart of our agenda, that it\u2019s in our DNA, and that it is introduced in everything we do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The 1 per cent levy on top of all public transport fares was last week exposed in a report by the Victorian Auditor-General\u2019s Office, which found that the levy was conceived as a new revenue source to finance the SRL. It was forecast to raise $8bn over the next 36 years, but ended up only netting $6.5m before Mr Carroll announced last week the government was scrapping it.<\/p>\n The government first approved a plan to use 60 per cent of RIC revenue \u2013 an estimated $4.8bn between 2025 and 2062 \u2013 to repay borrowings for the SRL. But towards the end of 2024, a decision was made to instead direct the revenue from the RIC into the existing Public Transport Fund to be spent on the wider transport network.<\/p>\n Robert Redlich, a former Supreme Court judge who was commissioner of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission from 2018 to 2022, said the secrecy around the charge may amount to corruption under expanded integrity laws promised by Mr Carroll.<\/p>\n Mr Redlich, now chair of the Accountability Round Table, said it might be that the RIC was imposed for improper motives that did not serve the public interest. If so, it would constitute a \u201cbreach of public trust\u201d under the broader definitions of corruption used by the federal National Anti-\u00adCorruption Commission and NSW\u2019s Independent Commission Against Corruption.<\/p>\n \u201cSuch conduct, if established, would fall within IBAC\u2019s proposed expanded jurisdiction \u2013 assuming it takes a similar form to the ICAC and the NACC \u2013 and IBAC would have jurisdiction to investigate and determine the motives and knowledge of those deciding to implement the charges in order to determine whether it constituted corruption,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Read related topics:Daniel Andrews<\/a>Victoria Politics<\/a> Anthony Galloway is The Australian’s Victorian political editor, having reported on![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/0ef54ea0-5899-4f67-aa10-bf324cb282e2.png\")
<\/a>Anthony Galloway<\/a>Victorian political editor <\/p>\n
\nsome of the nation\u2019s biggest security and political stories over the past decade. He was previously foreign affairs and national security correspondent at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, chief political correspondent at Capital Brief and earlier a political reporter at the Herald Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has defended his handling of a secret $8bn rail charge after it was 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