Tuesday, 14 October 2025

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (22:19): (1338) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Local Government, and the action I seek is for the minister to urgently review the impact of rising regional rates and the stagnant pensioner rebates. As the cost of living continues to escalate, the growing financial burden of skyrocketing council rates in regional Victoria and government taxes and cost-shifting onto local councils, and onto residents and small businesses across my electorate and I am sure across the member for Gippsland East’s electorate and right across regional Victoria, means that residents and small businesses are having to increase rents on both residential and commercial properties. That means less housing, less properties available and more financial stress that households can ill afford during a cost-of-living crisis.

In Sunraysia and the Mallee we are already paying more for everything just because of the tyranny of distance and geography. We pay more for groceries, for petrol and for power, and now we are being slugged with the emergency services tax, which adds to that rates notice. It is also taxing the volunteers who run towards the danger when they are needed. In Mildura Rural City Council’s 2025–26 draft budget the average rate increase was around 3 per cent. It was more for businesses, though. Then you add the state-imposed emergency services tax, and then you take into account that the pensioner rebate has not increased and does not even increase with CPI year after year. This adds up to hundreds of dollars more for pensioners in Merbein, Red Cliffs, Hopetoun or wherever it might be while they are on a fixed income. How is that fair? How is that regional equity? Local governments and councils in regional Victoria are not asking for much. We are asking for equity, and we are asking for the Minister for Local Government to review regional rates and the stagnant pensioner rebates.