Emergency services levy
Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (09:50): I would like to thank all those who made the effort to travel to Melbourne yesterday for the Stop the Tax rally. This is a new tax to fund the faceless bureaucrats of the Victorian Labor government. Despite what those on the other side of the house may say, this is not about the volunteers; it is about filling a huge black hole in the Victorian budget. The volunteers were on the front steps of Parliament yesterday. They are incensed when they hear those on the other side say that this is a tax for them. It is not. Department secretaries are rubbing their hands together with the nearly $2 billion they will have to spend out of this tax. I would go further to say that this is effectively a land tax on farming land in Victoria – something that has always been exempt from land tax. The Allan government has effectively now introduced land tax on farming land and increased land tax for all those who have been brought into the land tax payment scheme over the last two years. This is about every property in Victoria now having an increased land tax. I would urge the members in the upper house to vote against this new land tax. Listen to the voices of everyday Victorians and vote against this new tax. Labor have wasted tens of billions of dollars on cost blowouts on major projects in Melbourne, and now they want to have a land tax to make up that huge black hole. This is socialism gone mad in Victoria.