Hunch. The tax office names almost $200m a year as its reason, the same kind of card fee ban behind the one UK plan that went ahead.
The card market resolves on the ATO media centre and payment pages: YES if by 1 December 2026 the ATO says officially that it will still take personal credit cards after 1 December, by cancelling, delaying or making an exception, and NO if the change starts as announced. Calls from ministers without an ATO decision count as NO, and Guardian Australia and Reuters are the backup.
We looked for cases where a government office announced a limit on the public with a start date ahead, and faced public criticism before that date. We found none in Australia on open pages, and four in the UK, three of them at the tax office HMRC. Three times the office dropped or paused the plan before it started.