Tuesday, 4 March 2025

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (13:12): (1423) My question for the Treasurer concerns the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund levy. We now know this will double the bills in my electorate: $10.9 million will be cut from Moyne’s economy, $8.9 million from Corangamite, $7.8 million from Southern Grampians, $7.7 million from Glenelg and $6.8 million from Warrnambool. That is $42 million, nearly twice this year’s levy. I raised previously the anger expressed by councils forced to be unpaid tax collectors for the state government despite the fact there is no guarantee the money will come back to their areas. The state government failed to respond to the Warrnambool Standard’s questions on this issue, so on behalf of the Gazette CFA, which has three fire trucks that are more than 30 years old, I ask the minister: how much of the doubled tax, the $42 million taken from the south-west’s economy, will be returned in desperately needed new equipment for volunteer brigades?