Thursday, 16 October 2025

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:44): (2018) My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Minister, in recent meetings with local councils across the state several have raised their concern that the Labor government has slashed funding for paid lifeguard patrols on Victoria’s beaches. It seems Life Saving Victoria is now asking local governments to foot the bill for what has always been a state-funded service. Hobsons Bay has been told to pay $88,000 for patrols at Williamstown and Altona beaches or lose them altogether. Bass Coast has seen its contribution demand skyrocket from $98,000 to over $260,000, an increase of more than 160 per cent. Councils across the state are being asked to pay up despite already battling congestion charges, waste levies and reduced library and maternal health funding from the state – and that is not to mention the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund. For decades the state government has funded paid lifeguards through Life Saving Victoria grants, but this year the organisation’s annual report shows state grant funding dropped from $14.9 million to $13.8 million, even as drowning deaths rose by 8 per cent.

So far the government has refused to admit there has even been a cut or to explain, if not, why councils are being told to pick up the slack – this despite the so-called Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund levy now raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from ratepayers. Do you seriously expect local councils, already stretched to breaking point, to keep absorbing every new state-imposed cost while remaining shackled by rate capping? Councils and ratepayers are being slowly crushed under this government’s endless cost shifting, from emergency services to recycling, libraries, immunisations, cat and dog registrations, child care and now even water safety. At some point, Minister, a straw will break the camel’s back. This death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach is unsustainable and unfair. Will the government finally guarantee stable long-term funding for paid lifeguard patrols, or will local families and visitors be left to pay the price for yet another quiet funding retreat by Spring Street?

Minister, the action I seek is a confirmation from you of the government’s funding to Life Saving Victoria. Has it been frozen or, worse still, cut? And if so, how large is the latest shortfall councils will be forced to contribute to Labor’s budget black hole?