Tuesday, 14 October 2025

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (12:19): My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, given the white-hot anger across rural Victoria regarding the new Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund tax, can you confirm that you personally received the urgent joint letter, dated 15 September 2025, from mayors and councillors representing more than 20 rural, regional and metropolitan councils, which was also sent to the Premier and the Minister for Local Government. I ask: will you finally respond to the receipt of this letter?

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (12:19): I thank Mrs McArthur for her question. At the outset, in relation to correspondence that I have received in relation to this matter, particularly from councils, I have personally responded to the correspondence that came in. In terms of the amount of councils, I do not have the list, but I can tell you that before I went on leave I responded to all of those letters personally to make sure that I had responded to them, and my advice is that I responded to all of that correspondence in July. I can get you the figures in relation to the specific councils that wrote to me. Many did with different questions, and there was a lot of misinformation. Probably the overarching theme, particularly from regional councils, was wanting to make sure that the contributions from their constituents and their ratepayers were going to go back into their communities. So I took the opportunity to ensure that I could reiterate why we have had the introduction of the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, and that is about raising –

Bev McArthur: On a point of order, President, this is about a joint letter dated 15 September 2025, not from individual councillors or mayors but from mayors and councillors representing more than 20 rural councils, and they have not received the minister’s reply.

The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order. The minister was being relevant.

Jaclyn SYMES: The point I was making, Mrs McArthur, is that you have referred to 20 councils that have made a representation to me, maybe multiple times. What I am saying is that not only have I responded to all of those letters and addressed all the questions in them, but I have also pointed –

David Davis: On a point of order, President, this was a very specific question about one letter. It was not about a general run of letters from different councils and so forth. It was a single letter, and the minister needs to respond about that specific letter.

The PRESIDENT: I took it the Treasurer responded in her first sentence when she said, ‘I have responded to all correspondence on this.’

David Davis: On a further point of order, President, this is the September letter. The Treasurer responded to the July letter, and this is the September letter. She is talking about July letters that she may have responded to, but this is a specific question.

The PRESIDENT: I think, Mr Davis, you are debating the point of order. I believe the Treasurer has been relevant to the question.

Jaclyn SYMES: Mrs McArthur, as I was saying, of the councils that I think are represented in the letter you are referring to, they have all received personal correspondence from me, because they have asked similar questions. As you have referred to a particular letter, I can confirm that I have read that letter, because I was on leave when it was brought to the office’s attention. All of the issues in that letter have been responded to in various ways to the authors of that letter. That is not to say that they will not receive a follow-up repeat of the information that has been provided.

It is also important to note that we have had heavy engagement with the MAV, which is obviously the appropriate body to represent local councils in the state of Victoria. Those conversations have resulted in a number of changes to ESV. You will remember the committee stage in relation to the information that we have provided to them, as well as financial support for any issues that they had in relation to implementation of any of the small changes to the existing levy that they have been doing for many, many years.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (12:23): Thank you, Minister. Clearly you have not responded to this particular letter, otherwise all these mayors would not have assembled on the doorstep of Treasury Place the other day to resubmit the letter and call for an answer to the questions. Local governments are not activists. They are not partisans. They are respected civic leaders acting out of duty to their communities. They have been forced the collect the government’s levy, absorb the community’s outrage and funnel hundreds of millions of dollars from across Victorian councils straight into Spring Street’s budget black hole. Treasurer, will you and the Premier meet with these councils to discuss this deeply damaging tax?

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (12:24): Mrs McArthur, I have been around for a while in politics, and I have no objection to people having differing opinions. What I do object to is blatant mistruth and lying about the impact of a particular thing. You know that every single cent of the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund goes to emergency services. Standing out there and telling fire-prone communities, who are often fearful of the impact of climate change and increased risk of fires, floods and storms on their communities, that this money is not going to them is deplorable behaviour – and you are repeatedly doing it. You can object to this levy; I do not have a problem with that. But be truthful to your communities.

David Davis: On a point of order, President, the question was actually specific: whether the Treasurer and the Premier would meet.

A member: Did you listen?

David Davis: I did.

A member: And what did she say?

David Davis: I don’t think she did say that she would.

The PRESIDENT: I am not too sure what the point of order was, but I still think that the Treasurer was relevant to the question.