Tuesday, 20 May 2025

Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (12:14): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. 250 Country Fire Authority brigades are offline in protest and thousands of volunteers are rallying today against the state government’s emergency services tax. Does the minister support the tax or the volunteers?

Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Natural Disaster Recovery, Minister for Equality) (12:15): I thank the Leader of the Nationals, for now, for his question to me. It is actually a really interesting cultural approach that we see here, where there is quite a binary frame set to this: do you support one or the other? What is intrinsically misunderstood, and some might say deliberately so, is that the two actually work together. This fund is there to support our emergency services, and this includes our incredible volunteers, both the CFA and, for the first time, the SES. We support our emergency services on this side of the chamber. We support our volunteers on this side of the chamber, and this is why this fund ‍–

Danny O’Brien: On a point of order on the question of relevance, Speaker, if this is supporting emergency services and volunteers, why are they on the front steps protesting against it?

The SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

Vicki WARD: Since becoming minister, in the various brigades and SES units that I have visited they have consistently said to me – and in fact I think that all of our members here, when they go out to visit their brigades and their units, will hear the same thing: ‘We are having more demands on our responses. We have to get out more. The challenges are more complex. There is more we have to do. Can we please have more support? We need new appliances.’

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Member for Kew, you can leave the chamber for half an hour.

Member for Kew withdrew from chamber.

Vicki WARD: ‘We need better facilities. We need more support.’ And this is exactly what this government is doing: giving that support.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (12:18): Even the CFA acknowledged in a letter to members yesterday that these protests were ‘a clear signal of discontent’ over the government’s new tax. What is the minister doing to address volunteers’ concerns, scrap the tax and get brigades back to doing what they do best: serving their communities?

Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Natural Disaster Recovery, Minister for Equality) (12:18): At the risk of being accused of womansplaining, you are entitled in Victoria to protest. You are entitled in Victoria to have the time to go out into a community, on the steps of this Parliament or wherever you might want to be to talk about something which either you support or you do not, and that includes people across the state regardless of what they do, including volunteering, and we respect their ability to do that.

Danny O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, on a question of relevance, the minister was asked what she is doing to get these brigades back to serving their communities.

The SPEAKER: I am aware of the question, Leader of the Nationals. There is no requirement for you to repeat it. I ask the minister to come back to the question.

Vicki WARD: We are doing a great deal to support our CFA, as we are across our emergency services. If those opposite had actually read the media release that has been put out that talks to, for example, CFA brigades across Victoria, there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven – I have run out of time.