Tuesday, 27 May 2025

Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (17:01): I rise today to grieve for all Victorians for the grievous impost that is being put onto them under this Labor government’s emergency services tax, the so-called Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund. What it is is a tax. I was astounded last sitting week when we had questions about this and we asked about the tax. The plaintive voice came from the government benches: ‘It’s not a tax, it’s a levy.’ Well, funnily enough, the budget papers say otherwise, because if you go to the section on taxation, you will find references to the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund. It is a tax on volunteers, it is a tax on home owners, it is a tax on business owners, it is a tax on industrial owners and, most egregiously, it is a tax on farmers – a primary production tax that is completely unconscionable from this government.

I would like to go through what the government is actually proposing here. The government would like to have us believe that this is just a continuation of something that the former coalition government introduced in 2012. We know that there was a Black Saturday Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, and at the time the royal commission found that the fire services levy, which was then levied on insurance bills, was inadequate because many people either did not insure or were underinsured. The government at the time took the pretty brave decision to implement a new levy that would fund our fire services properly, and that was what it was for. The recommendation from the royal commission was to create Fire Rescue Victoria, then known as the MFB and the CFA. The Premier will have us believe that this is just a continuation of that, but the fact that we have had legislation to change it, a change of name and a massive increase in scope would say otherwise.

The government’s own website has a table with a comparison of the fire services property levy rates and charges being levied this year versus the new Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund rates for 2025–26, and I want to go through them. The residential rate – the rate that every single Victorian home owner will pay next year – will go from 8.7 cents to 17.3 cents.

Richard Riordan: More than double.

Danny O’BRIEN: It is almost exactly double the figure, member for Polwarth. It is a doubling of the residential rate. The government is introducing a new rate, surprisingly. Not only are we expanding the scope of this tax but we are actually bringing in a new category as well for a residential non-primary place of residence. What does that mean? That essentially means every rental provider in the state will pay not only –

Jade Benham interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: Landlords, in the old vernacular, member for Mildura, absolutely. Landlords provide rental properties to –

Members interjecting.

Danny O’BRIEN: renters – that is right. They will cop a 100 per cent increase in the rate they pay. Not only that, but under the new arrangements, when they are brought in at the end of next financial year, landlords will see a doubling in the rate of the fixed charge that they pay as well, going from $136 to $267. The commercial rate will rise from 66.4 cents per $1000 of capital improved value (CIV) to 133 cents of capital improved value. That is also a 100 per cent increase, or a doubling of the rate.

The industrial rate goes from 81.1 cents to 133 cents, a 64 per cent increase in the rate. And most egregiously, the primary production rate will go from 28.7 cents to 71.8 cents, a tripling of the rate that farmers will pay. Now, we might remember that we have been saying different figures; we were saying that it was 189 per cent until a couple of weeks ago.

Jade Benham: So what is it now?

Danny O’BRIEN: It is only 150 per cent, member for Mildura. So instead of nearly quadrupling the rate that farmers pay, the government and the Greens have come up with a deal that apparently farmers should be dancing in the streets about because now they will only get to pay triple the rate that they are currently paying, or 71.8 cents per $1,000 of CIV.

I think it is important to add to this, for the chamber’s benefit, that the government, when it merged the fire services in 2020, froze the fire services levy for two years. It lifted that cap last financial year, and that saw farmers’ rates increase by 60 per cent last year. That was under the old scheme, and now they are copping an additional 150 per cent this year. It is completely unconscionable in drought at a time when things are difficult, when events around the world are making commodities highly volatile.

So farmers, quite rightly, are angry about this, but I emphasise this is not just a farmers tax; this is a tax on every single Victorian property owner: residential, shopkeepers, commercial, industrial, farmers. But only a few are paying a big increase, because there is another category in the government’s table of these things. It is called the public benefit category.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: Well, I will tell you about it, member for Polwarth. It is a very important category of course, because it covers things like schools and hospitals and Scout halls and those sorts of facilities. But under this government it also is the rate that wind and solar farms and other renewable energy companies pay for their emergency services levy – 5.7 per cent. And guess what the rate is next year under the new arrangements? 5.7 per cent. So 5.7 cents per $1000 dollars of CIV – no change. Those of us who have been around a few years will remember that the government actually did say, ‘Well, that’s not fair,’ about wind and solar farms, which are, to quote the Premier in question time today, predominantly foreign-owned. She was talking about where the coal generators are, but the wind and solar farms are predominantly foreign-owned.

To his credit, the former Treasurer Mr Pallas actually did try to change this. Not only was he going to, he actually brought in legislation to ensure that those renewable energy companies paid their full whack and paid the industrial rate, which would be, under this arrangement, 133 cents. But in an extraordinary backdown, the government literally just said, ‘No, it’s all a bit too hard.’ When the Clean Energy Council got the lobbyists going and said this was going to be a danger –

Richard Riordan interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: there might have been some canapés – to renewable investment in Victoria, the government backed down completely.

We have now got a situation where farmers in western Victoria, parts of Gippsland, central Victoria, north-western Victoria – pretty much everywhere in Victoria except Gippsland East – are on their knees. They are paying 71.8 cents. But the multinational renewable energy companies that are investing in wind and solar in Victoria are paying 5.7 cents. That is unbelievable – absolute hypocrisy from the Labor government.

I want to go on to a little bit about that non-residential, non-principal place of residence. In the committee stage when the bill was passed a couple of weeks ago, Ms Bath in the other place asked a question about the forward estimates as they were at the time, which showed that there was a $310 million increase over two years in what the government expects to raise from this tax. Some of us assumed that might be due to an increase in land values projected over the next couple of years, but the response from the Treasurer in the other place was, ‘No, Ms Bath, that is based on the increased fixed charge for the non-principal places of residence, which has been delayed by a year for implementation.’

So what was $310 million? If we now go to the budget papers, the increase in that tax goes to $1.8 billion. So $800 million, which is about $175 million a year, which in the three out years, once this new landlord’s tax comes in, is a total of $525 million. $525 million extra per year is going to be levied on those people with a second residence, the vast majority of whom are landlords or rental providers. They have got tenants. Now, what do we think is going to happen with that money? Do we think the landlords are so wealthy that they will just cop it and say, ‘That’s okay, $525 million’? No, that is not what is going to happen. That is what economics 101 will tell you. It is another property tax, and it is a tax that is going to be levied on renters. And yet the economic troglodytes up here in the back in the Greens thought that this was a good idea to do a deal with the Labor Party to whack another tax on renters. And then they will be saying, ‘Oh, we need rental assistance. We need caps on rents and everything.’ It is just unbelievable that the government does this.

When it comes to the to the question of what farmers are paying, one of the questions I get from farmers as I go around to events is, ‘Why us? Why have we copped such a big increase? Why are we getting 150 per cent increase when everyone else is only copping a doubling?’ So the member for Lowan actually asked the Premier that question: ‘Why is there such a big slug for farmers?’ The Premier took about 2 minutes and 50 seconds, but she eventually got to the answer. She said this:

The advice I have from the Treasurer is that the increase in the levy for primary producers is the equivalent of 0.5 to 0.8 per cent of agricultural production …

What the hell that has got to do with anything, I do not know. And then she went on to say:

… which also recognises the large landholdings of primary producers and the risk they face in the event of fire.

So basically you have got big properties, which is actually not true for many farmers, and you face risk, so that is why you are paying 150 per cent.

Members interjecting.

As the member for Lowan has just pointed out, it is actually those farmers who are generally the volunteers in our brigades who are getting on the back of the truck and saving their communities when there is a fire. Forget the risk that their own properties face, they are out there fighting for their neighbours and half the time actually fighting to protect Crown land and community assets as well, which is just extraordinary. We have got farmers who are facing a 150 per cent increase in the rate, but many are facing far more than that.

Then, to rub salt into the wound, we heard from question time today what this means. The Premier has been telling us and the Treasurer has been telling us time and time again that every single cent from this new tax will go to supporting our emergency services. As I have just said, the government is raising an extra $600 million next financial year. It is raising an extra $800 million for the three out years. So you would assume then that there is a big, massive increase for our emergency services. Well, if you go to page 158 of budget paper 3, which actually provides the outputs and the line items for the Department of Justice and Community Safety, under ‘Emergency Management Capability’ the revised figure for this year is $2.176 billion. You would think the budget for next year would be more than that. It is in fact $1.973 billion. It is a $203 million reduction in the line item for emergency management. So the government is taxing us more in the name of emergency services but actually giving emergency services less. This is just extraordinary. The government might well say, ‘But hang on, we’re now funding Forest Fire Management Victoria and Triple Zero Victoria and all these other things from it.’ Okay, let us go to another page in the book, page 112 of budget paper 3 for the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, ‘Fire and Emergency Management’.

Fire and emergency management is where Forest Fire Management Victoria is funded from – a 9.2 per cent reduction in the money going there this year. So it is not even looking after Crown land or public land – we are not doing anything there – but we are seeing a reduction in the spending both on emergency management capability and on Forest Fire Management Victoria at the same time that this government is whacking Victorians with a $3 billion new tax. And what do we hear from those opposite? We hear explanations: ‘Well, I’m lobbying hard.’ We heard Ms Ermacora in the other place saying, ‘Well, this is really difficult for me because I’m a farm girl and I’m a former CFA volunteer.’ Did she oppose this – no. Did the member for Ripon oppose this – no. Did the member for Bass oppose this? I think there was a protest outside her office today. None of this has happened.

This is a grievous new tax, and I grieve for Victorians. This is all happening not to support our emergency services but because Labor cannot manage money, and regional Victorians are paying the price.