Tax petition
The Boating Industry Association Ltd (BIA) has launched a petition in a bid to stop Transport for NSW from applying the highest taxes in Australia on boating.
22 July 2024
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The BIA is calling upon all members of the boating community, from industry to the public and including boating media to help send a message to the NSW Government to stop its unfair, excessive and surprise move to increase boating fees by as much as 88 percent. The increases span fees for all boat and PWC licences, registrations and vessel moorings.
BIA represents hundreds of mostly family businesses and thousands of people employed in the sector, and millions of everyday Australians who enjoy boating in all sorts of craft from tinnies to yachts.
The petition calls upon Transport for NSW to abandon this new approach to increase boating fees beyond CPI that include x2, x3 and even x15 times higher than CPI, making NSW fees the highest in the nation by a large margin, and even reaching the highest in the world.
It further urged Transport for NSW to return to the policy and conventions applied for more than 20 years to apply only CPI (which is currently 5.89 percent) to the entire boating fees schedule covering licences, registrations and moorings.
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The BIA petition calls upon the Minister for Transport to intervene and force Transport for NSW to reset the full schedule of fees impacting licences, registrations and moorings to be no more than CPI adjusted; and to ensure appropriate consultation in such matters into the future.
BIA is asking the boating community to sign the petition and share it with friends and family who go boating.
Neil Patchett, General Manager at BIA, said they were “extremely disappointed with new fee schedule in NSW, which has been implemented without consultation on boaters and PWC riders.
“They’re the highest fees in the country, and in the world in some cases. For more than 20 years, the department has applied CPI, but this is well beyond that!
“We are fearful these increases will become a barrier to participation. We want people from all budgets to be able to experience boating.
“We’ve had several meetings with the department and minister’s office to explain our disappointment, particularly at a time of cost-of-living pressures. We’ve made it clear that the lack of consultation and the scale of fees are very concerning. Every single part of the boating sector, including fishing groups, was left out of consultation.
“We’ll be seeking another meeting with government after the boat show on the boating sector’s priority issues in NSW.”
“We are continuing to ask questions around the Waterways Fund. Boating fees and other revenue all go into the Waterways Fund, which exists in legislation in NSW. It should all be spent back into the sector.”
The petition can be accessed on Change.org.
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