The Victorian government has announced that visitors will soon have to pay an entry fee to see the Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road.
The government argues that the fee will help protect the coastline and manage visitor numbers, and that similar charges exist at places such as Uluru and Kakadu.
At first glance this may appear sensible. Economists usually support the use of prices to allocate scarce resources. If a site attracts millions of visitors each year, charging for access might appear to be a rational way to manage congestion and fund maintenance.
But that framing obscures what is actually happening.
The proposed entry fee is not the introduction of a market price. It is the imposition of a tax made possible by the nationalisation of what was previously a communal resource.
What the Victorian government is doing is asserting exclusive control over access points over a natural formation and converting that control into a revenue stream.
The Twelve Apostles will simply become another state monopoly charging a tax.
The distinction between prices and taxes matters.
A market price emerges from exchange between buyers and sellers. Entrepreneurs must persuade customers that their product is worth paying for. If they misjudge what customers are willing to pay, the market corrects them.
Governments face no such discipline. Once they control access, they can impose a fee regardless of whether visitors value the service provided. The fee is therefore not a price discovered through market exchange; it is a tax levied through administrative authority.
This matters particularly in a tourism economy.
The Twelve Apostles already attract millions of visitors each year. That influx of tourists creates an enormous opportunity for local businesses to sell goods and services that travellers actually want: accommodation, food, tours, transport, and experiences. The economic value of the site lies precisely in its ability to draw people into the region.
Charging an entry fee risks confusing the mechanism that generates that value.
Instead of encouraging entrepreneurial activity around the attraction, the state inserts itself as the primary revenue collector. Visitors pay the government first, rather than spending those funds in the local economy.
Supporters of the tax might argue that it is simply a congestion charge. But congestion is often misunderstood.
Congestion is not an economic failure. It is the side effect of a good that people value. Traffic jams occur because mobility is valuable. Crowded tourist sites exist because people want to visit them.
The question is not whether congestion exists; the question is whether the proposed solution improves overall welfare.
Charging for access reduces congestion primarily by reducing access. That may be justified in some cases. But the trade-off must be recognised clearly. The policy is not simply about managing crowds; it is about restricting mobility and converting access to a natural landscape into a paid privilege.
The broader concern is the precedent.
If the state can monetise access to one natural attraction, there is little reason to believe it will stop there. The same logic could easily extend to other publicly accessible assets. The Great Ocean Road itself, one of the world’s most iconic coastal drives, could eventually become subject to tolls or access charges.
This risk is not theoretical. Governments facing fiscal pressure are naturally tempted to turn publicly accessible resources into revenue streams. Once that logic is accepted, communal assets become fiscal assets.
The result is a gradual shift in how public landscapes are governed. What were once shared spaces become gated spaces.
The Twelve Apostles are one of Victoria’s great natural landmarks. The real question is whether they should remain a shared public asset, or become another line item in the state government’s revenue strategy.
Victorians do not pay to look at the Yarra. They should not have to pay to look at the ocean.
Sinclair Davidson is Professor of Institutional Economics at RMIT University.
