Wednesday, 18 June 2025

State Emergency Service

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (14:16): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. What is the SES base budget for 2025–26?

Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Natural Disaster Recovery, Minister for Equality) (14:16): It is with –

Members interjecting.

Vicki WARD: Do not knock for the third time. It is an absolute –

Members interjecting.

Vicki WARD: We cannot joke too many times about this. It is a great pleasure to talk about the SES, an organisation that those of us on this side absolutely support. In fact what we have done with this budget is give investment into the SES that we have not seen before. We recognise exactly how hard our more than 5000 SES volunteers work across this state to protect our communities. They are there, and it is such a diverse range of things that our SES respond to. I know that in this budget the member for Footscray is extremely happy to see that there is $14.5 million –

Danny O’Brien: On a point of order on the question of relevance, Deputy Speaker, this question could not be more straightforward. I ask you to bring the minister back to answering it.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The minister may have strayed and will come back. The minister was being relevant on the SES before that.

Vicki WARD: The question is around the money that we are investing in the SES. It is around the money that is being budgeted for our SES. This is why we talk to the $14.5 million that we are investing for a new unit at Footscray. We talk about the $30 million that we are investing, which was announced last year, in replacement fleet for the SES. What we are seeing from those opposite is an attempt to try and create a narrative, which they have continued to do for some time, that this is a government that does not invest in our emergency services, and nothing could be further from the truth. This is a government that will continue to invest in our emergency services. As I said yesterday, nearly $2 billion –

Danny O’Brien: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, again on relevance, this is a very, very simple question, one that the previous minister was able to answer last year. Why can’t the people of Victoria get the answer today?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: A point of order is not an excuse for further debate, as you know. The minister was being relevant to the question. The minister to continue without assistance from the Leader of the Nationals.

Vicki WARD: Is that the third point of order? I have lost track – the second or third point of order. What I am doing is helping the opposition understand and unpack the budget and the investment that we have put into our SES. It also includes more than $23 million that we have invested to provide 57 new heavy rescue trucks and seven medium rescue trucks. What those opposite fail to understand ‍– and we see this time and time again – is that when it comes to emergency services, budgets are set and then continue to get revised throughout the 12 months of the financial year in response to the emergencies that our emergency services experience.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (14:20): During a cost-of-living crisis, Victorians are being slugged an extra $3 billion in tax under the guise of supporting emergency services, yet the minister will not tell Victorians the budget for these same agencies. Will the minister now admit the government’s own figures published in the Government Gazette show those services are facing funding cuts while Victorians are hit with more tax?

Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Natural Disaster Recovery, Minister for Equality) (14:21): I think the Leader of the Nationals has come to the heart of the issue, which is that they want to create a fear campaign around a gazetted figure which talks to the prospective budget of what an emergency service can provide. What he is also not acknowledging is that within that legislation it provides that all of the amounts raised go to the support of our emergency services. What we know is that there is ongoing funding that gets delivered to our emergency services.

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Bulleen can leave the chamber for half an hour.

Member for Bulleen withdrew from chamber.

Vicki WARD: Third time unlucky for the member for Bulleen. When we are talking about a government that has invested more than $2 billion in our emergency services, double what those invested in their last budget, we know this is a government that takes our emergency services seriously.