Labor vows to slash trailer and caravan rego for thousands of Canberrans

Canberrans who own trailers and caravans will save $150 a year under a new Labor promise to slash registration costs, if re-elected.

The party says the policy, commencing 1 July 2025, will save the city’s roughly 5000 registered trailer and caravan owners “hundreds of dollars over the next four years”, and support an increasing number of “families travelling closer to home”, as well as tradies and local businesses.

“We know that some households are doing it tough right now, and that’s why we’re helping tens of thousands of Canberrans with their everyday costs,” a statement reads.

For households with an average single-axle trailer (tare weight up to 250 kg), the annual registration fee will drop from $104 to completely free.

Double-axle trailers, commonly used by tradies and other small business owners, will be reduced by more than 40 per cent, going from $265 to $115 per year.

At the largest end of the scale, caravans and gooseneck floats weighing between 2500 and 3054 kg will drop from between $894 and $1006 to $744 and $856.

These figures bring the ACT nearly on par with NSW, which also recently reduced its fees on private caravans and camper trailers by 40 per cent (businesses in NSW still pay the full amount, however).

Together with her partner, Canberran Helen Swanson owns a standard camper trailer and currently pays $373 per year. But the local office manager says it wasn’t always that way.

“Not so much now, but we always had to budget for registration,” she says.

“Sometimes, we would let it run out of registration for a while, and just do it for three months if we had a holiday coming up.”

Registration was the highest cost in what was a fairly cheap way to holiday with her two daughters.

“Most of our family holidays have been in caravans or camper trailers, and we could have only gone to the amazing places we did with our girls doing that sort of travelling, because there’s no way we could have afforded the hotels and flights,” she says.

“There’s so many free camping spots and caravan parks and things like that, and you don’t really have to plan ahead. It’s great for families.”

Normally, they hitch it up four to five times a year for a couple of long trips and a few weekenders.

“The longest trip was seven weeks, going all the way from Sydney to Darwin and then back through outback Queensland,” Helen says.

“But it doesn’t matter if we go an hour from home here in Canberra – overnight in the camper trailer is worth like a week’s leave from work.”

Helen says the registration changes would “definitely” be welcome.

“Especially when you’ve got a couple of kids, and sometimes only one income, every dollar counts.”

ACT Labor described the proposed changes as one of several ways the party was looking “to reduce the cost-of-living for households”, alongside free preschool for three-year-olds, free public transport on Fridays, a rebate of up to $500 for local apprentices to cover the cost of school expenses, a Chromebook for every public school student, and ‘Energy Price Relief Rebates’.

The Canberra Liberals have previously announced a $100 registration rebate for all passenger vehicles, caravans and camper trailers, if they’re elected in October.

This is in addition to free public transport for students, seniors and concession-card holders, a $50 rebate on electricity bills, and a combined $250 in vouchers for every preschool to Year 12 student “to help with back-to-school costs and extracurricular activities”.

Leader Elizabeth Lee said the average Canberran would also be “almost $2000 better off” in the first term of a Liberal government due to capped rate increases at 2.2 per cent.

The party has also previously criticised Chief Minister Andrew Barr for “failing Canberrans” on other vehicle running costs.

On 3 September, Ms Lee moved a motion in the Legislative Assembly, calling for the ACT Government to come good on a 2020 announcement by Mr Barr to establish a local fuel price watchdog and address Canberra’s high petrol prices.

“The Labor-Greens government has done very little to assist Canberrans with the cost-of-living pressures they are facing, and it is remarkable that with three weeks until an election they are now pretending to do something about it,” Ms Lee told Region.