Federal Budget Submission 2024–25

Commit a larger portion of the federal transport budget to active transport, bringing Australia into line with leading countries and the United Nations recommendations of 20%. [...] vii The Federal Government has recently taken decisive action to address transport emissions, through the introduction of the Fuel Efficiency Standard, incentives for EV owners, the National Electric Vehicle Strategy and the $500 million Driving the Nation Fund to establish the charging infrastructure. [...] Of its $1.2 million e-transport package introduced in November 2023, the Tasmanian Government allocated $200,000 to its e-bike and e-scooter grant scheme, covering up to $500 of the cost of standard e-bikes and up to $1000 for cargo e-bikes. [...] Invest in world-class active transport infrastructure To capture the opportunities of getting more people on e-bikes, the nation must invest more in infrastructure to encourage and support more citizens to switch to electric bicycle technologies. [...] All states and territories besides the ACT (14%) allocate less than 2% to bike infrastructure.viii The United Nations Environment Program has called on governments at all levels to invest at least 20% of their transport budgets into walking and bike infrastructure to directly tackle the international crisis of emissions and air pollution.