Tuesday, 9 December 2025

 Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (12:18): Victorians must be under no illusion about what the Allan Labor government is doing. They are desperately trying to deceive the public, hiding the full impact of their reckless spending and spiralling debt until after the state election. Take the so-called emergency services tax: make no mistake, Labor still plans to slug Victorians with a $3 billion tax hit over the coming years. The truth is most families are already paying it. This arrogance, this sudden discovery that farmers are struggling is insulting. Farmers have pleaded with Labor for relief yet only now, when it suits their political agenda, does Labor pretend to care. This is not fairness. This is not leadership. This is not empathy. It is a cynical cash grab dressed up as reform, and it is Victorian families and farmers who will be paying the price.

Regional Victorians in particular have been treated as second-class citizens by this government. Time and again Labor have failed to deliver the services, the infrastructure and the respect our communities deserve. Only a Liberal and Nationals government will ease cost-of-living pressures by scrapping Labor’s unfair emergency services tax. Let me say this: I will always do what I say. What you see and hear from me is what you get. I do not play games with people’s livelihoods and I do not make promises I cannot keep. Victorians deserve honesty, they deserve relief, they deserve respect, not more spin, not more taxes, not more deception from a desperate government trying to cling to power. That is why if elected next year we will abolish this tax.