The Victorian election campaign served up duelling hip-pocket pledges at the weekend: the Coalition promised to halve the state's elective surgery waitlist, while Labor promised to unwind the land tax changes it introduced itself three years ago, the ABC reports.

Victoria's elective surgery waitlist has kept climbing over the past year, with about 68,730 patients across urgent and non-urgent categories still waiting for a procedure in June. Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said her party would establish a program giving public patients the choice to have their surgery at a private hospital at no cost. "The program will deliver an extra 25,000 surgeries a year," Ms Wilson said. "For those people who are languishing on the elective surgery waitlist at the moment, putting their life on hold, I know they are looking for a government that is prioritising their needs."

The $1.27 billion program would be wholly funded by winding up Breakthrough Victoria, the government's investment fund. "Victorians deserve a government that isn't playing venture capitalist but is instead delivering the health services that Victorians desperately need," Ms Wilson said. The fund is currently valued at $600 million, recorded losses of $5.7 million in the 2025 financial year and $3 million in 2024, and was merged with startup agency LaunchVic earlier this year.

The policy mirrors a Queensland program that resulted in a small drop in surgery waiting lists, according to ABC analysis. The private hospital sector, which would sign four-year contracts to treat public patients with spare capacity, backed the announcement. "We're looking in the tens of thousands of patients who are stranded on longer and longer lists," Australian Private Hospitals Association chief executive Brett Heffernan said. "There's also an unofficial list and that is a multitude of patients, probably more than the official list, who are waiting for consultations with specialists to get onto the list in the first place." He called the program a "win-win" for patients, and said of Queensland: "They saw about 8,000 people in 18 months drop from their waiting lists, which may not sound dramatic, but it is because … when people come off the waiting lists, more people go onto the waiting list."

The Carroll government defended its record, saying Victorian public hospitals had delivered a record 218,000 planned surgeries over the past year and that 100 per cent of the most urgent category 1 patients were treated within 30 days. It had previously committed $50.1 million in the 2026/27 budget towards 4,000 additional planned surgeries for children.

Labor's land tax reversal

On the other side of the ledger, the Carroll government promised to reverse course on land tax if re-elected, scrapping threshold changes it made in 2023. Those changes lowered the threshold for paying the tax from a site value of $300,000 to $50,000 — bringing 250,000 more Victorians into the net. Under the new pledge the threshold would rise progressively, by $25,000 a year.

The walk-back will cost $230 million over five years, which the government says it will pay for by consolidating its car fleet and delaying level crossing removals. "Lower land tax, more cost-of-living relief, and a responsible way to pay for it," Premier Ben Carroll said, casting the move as a new direction under his premiership. The announcement mirrors existing Coalition and One Nation commitments — both parties had already pledged to reverse the 2023 changes.

Both pledges land with the election now just under eight weeks away, on November 28.