Thursday, 13 November 2025

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:38): I rise to speak on the 2025–26 Victorian budget paper 3, ‘Service Delivery’, page 215. In doing so I propose the conversation: what would you do if you were an arrogant, if you were an ignorant and if you were a desperate government wanting to fill a budget black hole of ginormous proportions? Well, you would reclassify a property services levy and turn it into the most egregious tax, and you would label it the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund. The fact that it has got ‘volunteer fund’ in this tax sticks in the neck of so many Victorians, so many of our volunteers – our State Emergency Service volunteers, our Victorian CFA volunteers – who are the most wonderful people that protect our life and property in regional Victoria. And in my electorate of Eastern Victoria Region in particular we have had more than our fair share of bushfires and devastation, and it exists across the state.

You would have that fund, and then in a spin-doctor format you would say, ‘We are supporting the volunteers.’ The government has come out and said that all of this goes to emergency services. All of this goes into – it may be emergency services – so much that was in core government services, as in Triple Zero Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria and Forest Fire Management Victoria, which is just actually in disarray at the moment. They were in core government services. They have been taken out of consolidated revenue, and our people right across Victoria are being asked to bear the burden of this government’s mismanagement. What we know with this egregious, atrocious tax is that there is a 100 per cent hike on residential and commercial properties, there is a 64 per cent hike on industrial properties, there is a 150 per cent hike on those people who grow our food and fibre for our plates, for our nation’s tables and for international markets – many of whom of course are also doubling in their volunteer capacity supporting CFA or SES. We have seen huge rallies, we have seen frustration and we have seen a level of pushback that I have not seen for quite some time. We have had rallies on the steps of Parliament. What happened when the government announced this? Three hundred CFA brigades went offline. People hung up their hats and put their jackets over the fence, saying that this is completely offensive.

We are soon to debate – and I congratulate Mr McCracken – a petition, an e-petition. You know how passionate I am about e-petitions, because in May this year I worked very hard with our Victorian community, those people that love our outdoor spaces, that love being out in our state forests, and that petition that I tabled and debated in here with my colleagues the Liberals and Nationals had 40,000 signatures. But Mr McCracken and his wonderful people right across Victoria have topped that, and if I am going to be topped by anything, I want to be topped by that particular e-petition. I congratulate everybody who has signed this petition. Right across the board this is egregious.

What has my colleague the Shadow Minister for Emergency Services Danny O’Brien said? Supporting and standing with all of the coalition, the Liberals and Nationals, he has said and we have said we will scrap that tax. When we get into government in November 2026 we will scrap the tax, and we will properly fund our emergency services – our CFA, our FRV, our SES. We will return them to sanity so that many of those old trucks that the CFA are driving around that could have heritage plates, vintage plates, will be restored. There will be adequate funding, and we will respect those people who look after us.