Tuesday, 14 October 2025

 Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (22:02): (1330) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Emergency Services. The action I seek is for her to urgently review the burdensome and unfair Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund levy that is affecting constituents in my electorate. This levy was the Allan Labor government’s 60th new or increased tax since Dan Andrews promised in 2014 that there would be no new taxes under Labor. Earlier this year, before Labor rammed this tax through Parliament at 2 o’clock in the morning, I stood on the steps of this Parliament, standing alongside thousands of farmers, CFA and SES volunteers, small business owners and ordinary ratepayers, pleading with the government to scrap this tax. The government ignored every single one of them.

Now the bills have started landing. Families are opening their mailboxes and finding a brand new tax, with often hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars slapped on next to their council rates because the state government did not want to collect the tax themselves. One resident in my electorate received a $1500 bill – nearly two-thirds of his council rates. Others have been slugged even more. Some businesses in my electorate have seen an extra $2100 added to their notices overnight. In a cost-of-living crisis when power bills are up, rent is up and insurance is up, this government decided the one thing Victorians needed was yet another tax. It is no surprise that Victorian businesses are closing in record numbers as they are taxed out of existence by a government that keeps squeezing harder and harder to recover its record debt.

Labor says their $3 billion tax is for emergency services, but get this: emergency services units themselves are being charged the levy as well. Recently staff at the Portland SES were charged a levy on their rates notice for their SES buildings, and when they asked for an exemption they were told no. So now emergency services have to take money out of their own budget to pay for a tax that claims to fund emergency services. Make that make sense – only in Victoria. The government cannot call something a volunteers fund while sending volunteers the bill.

Victorians reject this unfair tax, which is why over 43,000 Victorians have signed a petition to scrap this tax. It is not just people who want this tax gone, it is local government. All 79 Victorian councils have united together against this levy, signing a letter to call on the government to not force them to collect a tax that they do not support and act as the government’s debt collectors, yet the Premier has not even replied and refuses to even meet with them. A future Battin coalition government will scrap this tax. We will fix Labor’s budget mess without raiding the pockets of the very people who serve this state. We stand with every Victorian landowner, every farmer, every small business and every volunteer, and we will end this cruel tax.