Tuesday, 18 November 2025

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (20:35): I rise to make a contribution to the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025. I want to begin by making a couple of points here. First, we oppose much of this bill, but there are parts that we do support. I am going to divide the bill quickly into the three key parts and explain this to the chamber, but I will in the first instance ask the clerks to distribute the two sets of suggested amendments that I have to propose. It would be helpful if that could occur.

This is a bill that adds to Labor’s taxation. We have already had over 60 new taxes under this government. There have been massive increases in taxation that have hit our families and hit businesses. We have the highest level of taxation in the country, and the impact on families and businesses is now extreme. Some of this was recorded very closely in the recent work of the Business Council of Australia, but more broadly the local business groups have made it very clear that the tax increases are hurting so many families and so many businesses. This is a further instalment. We saw the emergency services tax come in – $3 billion over four years – just a short while ago.

This bill has three parts. The first part we strongly support. It carves out properties located in Dinner Plain from the vacant residential land tax base. Obviously these snow-based or ski field based properties are inherently likely to be vacant for much of the year because, frankly, snow is not there the whole year. People may use them at other times, but their primary purpose as places in the snowfields is reduced. It clearly is unfair to clobber those properties in the Dinner Plain area. It has a different ownership structure to that of many of our ski fields, which are on leasehold arrangements. This is a longer term ownership arrangement, a more traditional title arrangement, and the residential land tax base applies currently to those properties, which hits them very hard. We support this. A number of our members, including those in this chamber, have advocated strongly for the removal of this tax and for a fairer shake for people in the Dinner Plain area.

The second part of the bill relates to the congestion levy. There are two parts to what is going on here. This is a levy that was introduced in the early 2000s. It is called a congestion levy; it is actually just a raw tax on parking. Let us call it for what it is – it is a parking tax; it is not a congestion levy. There is no great evidence that it has an impact on congestion. But it does certainly, as a parking tax, clobber families, clobber businesses, make it more difficult for people to utilise those facilities, and it has a huge impact on the viability of a number of our shopping strips and a number of the businesses in these areas. The bill does two things: it increases the congestion tax – the so-called congestion tax; the parking tax – in the category 1 and category 2 areas to which it currently applies. Then it expands the so-called category 2 area eastwards into the City of Yarra and the City of Stonnington. In doing so it is imposing a brand new fresh tax on both of those municipalities, and it will hit them very hard.

I know this area well. The Stonnington area is part of my electorate and Ms Crozier’s electorate, and we understand very much that this is going to have a huge impact on people in our area. Rachel Westaway, the member for Prahran, has been arguing very, very strenuously that this tax is going to hit Stonnington quite hard. We know the troubles that are already there with Chapel Street, the loss of amenity that has occurred in some of those areas and the high taxes that are already placed on some of those areas because of the government’s land tax arrangements and other taxation arrangements. This will put an extra layer over the top. It will make many of the properties less viable. It will make many of the shopping strips and centres much less viable. My office is in Chapel Street, in the Vogue centre, which is the kind of area that will be clobbered heavily. That type of pocket is exactly what the government is trying to get stuck into. There are some exemptions, but nonetheless these will be new taxes applied to a large number of parking situations in these two new areas in the City of Yarra and in the City of Stonnington.

Finally, the third part of this bill doubles the amount that local councils are required to pay to the state government when collecting pet registration fees. This is a modest amount of money, but it is a huge percentage. It is an almost doubling of the fee that is scooped back by government, and you have got to ask why. It seems the government is doing this everywhere. We saw even recently the vaccination tax the government has put on councils – if you deliver a vaccination as a council, the government is now charging you a fee to do that. This is a government that is desperate for money, a government that is desperately in financial straits, a government that has huge problems with the growing debt – the debt will exceed $194 billion by the end of the forward estimates. That is a huge increase and a massive impact on the state.

This is because the government is wasting money. It is wasting huge amounts of money. We know that many of the large projects, some worthy projects, have seen huge increases in their budgets. Even if a project is worthy, the large increases in the budgets, the cost blowouts, are driving the state’s budgetary problems. There is a $50 billion addition to the state’s financial negative position because of these massive budget blowouts in major projects. I point directly to those and say this is the sort of problem that the state has got, and these are the sorts of problems that we need to deal with as a community. We need to make sure that our projects run on time, that they run on budget and that the amount of cost blowouts, the squandering of additional money on projects because they cannot manage the projects, are constrained. We cannot endlessly go on adding more and more debt to the state’s position, and we cannot clobber our businesses and make it harder and harder and harder for them to deliver the services that are required.

As I said, we strongly support the carving out of properties in Dinner Plain from the vacant residential land tax arrangements, but we do not support the congestion levy increase of 73 per cent in the category 1 and category 2 areas and the expansion of category 2 eastwards. My first set of suggested amendments will deal with both of those issues. The first tranche of suggested amendments will also deal with the amount that councils are required to pay with these pet registration fees and the collection of pet registration fees. It is a nasty tax. It is a tax that adds additional costs for families. Families can ill afford these costs being imposed on them now. Pet registration is important, but more tax that is collected in that way – the state government is scooping the money back. That has got to be passed on through to families who have got a pet, and I do not think anyone supports that.

The second set of suggested amendments takes out Stonnington. It says the expansion of the levy into Stonnington is wrong. It has got lots of problems in that area, specifically down Chapel Street, and the imposition of these new levies will not help us at all. So we will seek to remove Stonnington if our other amendments, which seek to stop the expansion on a broader front and the increase in the congestion levy, are not successful. That will be a secondary option if our first option there is not successful.

I want to draw the attention of the chamber to the Property Council of Australia’s notes that they have kindly provided to many members on the congestion levy. They deal with the congestion levy and explain it very nicely but also point to the increase in costs and precisely the amounts that are involved. Category 1 is the CBD and surrounding areas: it is $1750 per parking space. Category 2 is the inner suburbs of Albert Park, St Kilda, North Melbourne, Fitzroy, Carlton and Parkville: $1250 per parking space. Both of these are proposed to increase – a 73 per cent increase in category 1 up to more than $3000 and a 73 per cent increase in category 2. As I have said, an expansion of the category 2 eastwards from 1 January 2026 will mean a rate increase from zero to $2150 in those pockets, which is the City of Yarra and the City of Stonnington.

What does this mean? According to the data from members of the property council, the proposed levy increase imposes a minimum average cost of $13 per day per parking space on car park owners across both categories. Margins for car park owners remain slim, and absorbing the levy will lead to financial unviability. They say as a result this cost will inevitably be passed on to everyday Victorians. Multiple car park operators have already advised they will close car parks to reduce losses where losses cannot be passed on. They make the point, and I am quoting here, that this congestion levy – a tax, a parking tax, which is what it is – ‘stifles economic growth and the social revitalisation of the inner city’. That is my point about Chapel Street; what it needs is help, not a new tax. A new tax will not help places in the City of Stonnington or the increase in the cost-of-living pressures. It will also hit key workers. I mean, many key workers will be clobbered by this. Those who are staying very late in key places will face increased costs. It will lead to the closure of needed car parks. But we understand the government hate cars and they hate car parking, and they want to hit it in every way that they possibly can. It is an ineffective way of targeting congestion, in any event. There is no doubt about that; it is a very indirect and ineffective way. According to the property council, the levy:

undermines the feasibility of new market and affordable housing projects within mixed-use precincts …

reduces local government gross revenue from parking by up to 75 per cent, leading to funding cuts for community services …

applies without genuine consideration to frequent and accessible rail access, especially in the expanded category 2 zone …

without in any way providing genuine alternatives to private vehicles. So there is no commensurate increase in public transport occurring with this levy.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: No, there is not, not on this list. No, no, there is not.

Ryan Batchelor: We’re about to open the Metro Tunnel.

David DAVIS: So you are saying this is to pay for the Metro Tunnel. Is that what you are saying? Let Hansard record that the Metro Tunnel is being funded by this new tax. That is what we have heard – that the Metro Tunnel needs this new tax to pay for part of it. That is what we have heard. We have heard it directly from this government member now that the Metro Tunnel is to be paid for by these new taxes. That is what he said.

I want to point to the fact that a number of car park owners have indicated that there are serious problems that will be encountered. There are a set of issues that are pointed to. I know Infrastructure Victoria tried to say we are going to model this on Sydney. Well, there are a number of different points in Sydney: the incomes are lower in Sydney, about 25 per cent lower in many areas; the utilisation may well be less; and a number of the CBD and other parking areas that are clobbered by this actually do not have as much easy public transport. So could this levy increase have an impact on the housing supply in Melbourne? The answer is yes, according to the property council. They said:

New homes often get delivered as part of ‘mixed use’ precincts that combine … housing with retail or office space. Mixed use developers and asset owners will be forced to absorb the congestion levy, jeopardising the supply and affordability of new homes in well placed and strategically significant inner city precincts.

I think that is undoubtedly true. They are going to make it harder to get the economic viability to the point where developers will proceed, and this will certainly make the viability of access to a number of these car parks difficult for average Victorians.

We are very much troubled by the government’s endless new taxes. We are troubled by the government’s approach with this congestion/parking tax. We are troubled by the government’s approach with quite a nasty little slug on pet owners. Why do they need to hit pet owners in this way? Inevitably the new pet tax is going to be passed through from councils to pet owners. Why do those who have got a cat or a dog need to be hit in this way? I do think it is a bit nasty. I just think it is not the sort of tax that we think is appropriate, and we will certainly be opposing it. As I have said, there are three parts to the bill: one we strongly support; the other two we have big troubles with.

 Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (20:52): I rise to speak on behalf of my Greens colleagues with respect to the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025 and state from the outset that the bill proposes some relatively straightforward changes to a number of state property taxation acts, including the Land Tax Act 2005 and the vacant residential land tax, the Duties Act 2000, the Commercial and Industrial Property Tax Reform Act 2024 and the Building Act 1993. My Greens colleagues and I support these relatively minor amendments with respect to those acts. We are especially proud in fact of the effect of the changes that we previously negotiated with the government around the vacant residential land tax, which is further amended in this bill. It is an absolute no-brainer that we need to stop land banking in this state and use residential land to build homes for people to live in. That is why the changes my Greens colleagues and I negotiated to strengthen vacant land tax will roughly double the expected revenue from unoccupied housing in the 2025–26 financial year – funds that will be used to build more homes but, importantly, will also force thousands more homes to be brought onto the housing market for people to live in rather than just being left sitting vacant.

To be blunt, the Greens are the only party in this country who believe that the primary purpose of residential land is not making capital gains. We believe that this land should be used not just to build houses on but to build houses that are actually lived in as homes by owners and renters. This is also why we have negotiated to bring in changes to Airbnbs, for example, giving residents of apartment blocks the power to decide whether they want Airbnbs operating in their buildings or not. We do these things because we believe that housing is a fundamental human right.

Back to this bill: beyond the changes to property taxes, the bill also proposes changes to the Congestion Levy Act 2005 to expand the congestion levy into inner suburbs as well as increase the applicable levy rates. Congestion charges in one form or another are used in major cities all over the world to help guide people’s transport choices from motor vehicles to cleaner, healthier, cheaper and often faster options in areas where there are good active and public transport alternatives. Road congestion alone costs the City of Melbourne around $4.6 billion every year, and this is estimated to grow to $10 billion by 2030 as our city grows. We simply cannot afford the financial costs of this motor vehicle traffic in our city. But it is not just about the cost of congestion to our economy. The transport sector is responsible for almost a quarter of our state’s total carbon emissions, second only to electricity generation, and while most other sectors of the economy are reducing their emissions, our state’s transport emissions are continuing to rise every year. Eighty-five per cent of these transport emissions come from motor vehicles on roads, with 55 per cent of these coming from passenger cars. We all know the safety risks of motor vehicles on the road, but most of us do not acknowledge, at least as often, the silent and invisible dangers. It is really shocking to learn that the pollution from motor vehicles alone is responsible for around 1800 premature deaths in this country every year, which, incredibly, is higher than the number of fatalities from our national road toll. But Melbourne does not have to be this way. Especially in the inner city and the inner suburbs there should be cleaner, healthier, cheaper and, again, often faster options of getting around. In most developed major cities all over the globe – particularly looking at Europe, for example – this is the case. Melbourne should not be any different. Melbourne in this regard could be aiming to be more like Vienna or Paris or Singapore, and because more than half of motor vehicle trips in Melbourne are less than 6 kilometres, this vision is achievable. But it will not happen simply by introducing a congestion levy by itself, I will note; we also need to build a safe, accessible and interconnected public and active transport system.

To be fair to the state government, they have invested in a bunch of major public transport projects for the CBD and the inner suburbs – and noting of course the Metro Tunnel project is due to open later this year – but at the same time they have invested tens of billions of dollars more into toll roads, an American strategy of the last century which has not worked. That is a fact known basically to anyone who has driven on Transurban’s CityLink recently. Even worse than this, this Labor government has effectively given up on making the tram network accessible for people with disability, despite the fact that this could be achieved for only one-thirteenth of the cost of the North East Link toll road. Hundreds of thousands of Victorians are disabled or have mobility issues, and it is completely unacceptable and frankly shameful that these members of our community are denied the option of using public transport, which I note also puts our state government in direct breach of its obligations under the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and our country’s own national disability laws.

The state Labor government also have a poor record on active transport infrastructure like bike lanes. Ten per cent of people living in the inner city are already riding to work, with a similar proportion walking, yet Infrastructure Victoria reports that 200,000 more active transport trips would occur every day if the state government invested in dedicated bike lanes and pedestrian infrastructure. Safety fears – being hit by a car – are the number one reason why people do not ride their bikes. Tragically, preventable cyclist deaths are still far too common in our state, especially around the inner suburbs of Melbourne, yet the evidence clearly shows that the presence and quality of dedicated cycling infrastructure significantly improves safety and that, where bikes are separated from cars by separated lanes, far more people feel safe to go and ride, so we need to get on and build those.

But perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of building better public and active transport are people who do have to drive a car for their transport, because every person who decides to ride a bike or take public transport provides one less vehicle in the traffic jam and one more parking space at the end of the journey. One of the most frustrating things about a lot of the tabloid media coverage that we see on traffic problems that they commonly adopt is this false dichotomy between support for bike lanes and support for cars when the reality is pretty straightforward: having more people on bikes and more people on PT reduces motor vehicle traffic and opens up parking spaces, which is why the peak motoring advocacy organisation, the RACV, is among the loudest supporters, calling for more separated bike lanes and bike superhighways, even across inner-city Melbourne.

My Greens colleagues and I support congestion levies as a principle, but we also support the recommendations of Infrastructure Victoria that at least some of that revenue that is generated must be directly invested into building the essential alternative transport infrastructure that is still lacking in our city, especially active transport infrastructure around those inner-city areas. To this end, I will now speak to the amendments that have been prepared in my name. I request that they now be circulated. Under the current Congestion Levy Act there is no requirement for the government to distribute any revenue towards building and improving alternative transport infrastructure to provide people with safer, cleaner and more efficient alternatives to driving a car. I note a lot of those who have voiced opposition to the congestion levy have said that they do so because they feel it is purely a means of revenue raising from the state government. I also previously have noted – just before – the recommendation from Infrastructure Victoria that the congestion levy revenue should be invested in active transport projects. Effectively, to this end, the amendments that I am moving in my name seek to address these concerns to ensure that at least some of that revenue that is generated from the congestion levy goes directly back to the inner-city communities who are generating the income to build new and improve existing active transport infrastructure in these areas.

Amendment 4 would insert a new section 34B into the act. It says that the minister, on behalf of the state, must enter into a MOU with each municipal council whose municipal district includes any land that is in the levy area and that this MOU relates to the annual allocation of funding to each council for active transport or other transport initiatives. For ease of administration the amendments have not been drafted to insert a formal hypothecation of congestion levy revenue, but in practical effect this is what the amendments will deliver. If passed, this means there will be a legislative requirement for each of the Melbourne, Yarra, Merri-bek, Port Phillip and Stonnington city councils to be provided with new annual funding from the state government for the purposes of funding active and other transport infrastructure. For the Yarra, Merri-bek, Port Phillip and Stonnington city councils, this will mean that they are allocated funding from the congestion levy scheme for the first time.

While the specific details of the MOU and exact allocation of funding to councils are not established within the legislation, we have an agreement with the government that this will provide no less than $15 million across all councils, provided each and every year on an ongoing basis. It is significant funding that will now be reinvested directly in these inner-city communities which would otherwise have just been sitting in the state government’s consolidated revenue, as has been voiced by some members. It is a great outcome for these communities, and I commend these amendments and the bill to the house.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (21:02): I am pleased to rise to speak on the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025, a bill which makes a number of amendments to the state taxation system. I just want to confine my remarks tonight to the topic of the congestion levy, because it has been the subject of a bit of debate. Mr Davis has given it a range of other names. I will refrain from repeating those here. He is more than capable of speaking for himself. But I want to talk a little bit about the fact that we know congestion does affect our city. We know that trying to move around our city in particular is affected by congestion. We have had the reports from Infrastructure Victoria saying that congestion costs Victoria and Victorians billions of dollars. In fact Infrastructure Victoria has modelled the congestion cost to the Victorian economy at over $10 billion from 2030 alone. We know it is felt in a range of places, but particularly it is areas close to and including the city which suffer disproportionately in many respects from the effects of congestion.

I know that I am not alone in having spent many an hour sitting on Punt Road waiting for some traffic to clear – spending quite a long time only to move a small number of kilometres. That is one of the things that have obviously been motivating the government to look at how we can improve transport and improve the way we move around Melbourne. The congestion levy included in this bill is one of those measures. Two things are being done to the congestion levy today. One is that the rate is being increased, and the other is that the area to which the congestion levy applies is being expanded. It is not the first time that this Parliament, this chamber in fact, has considered a state taxation amendment bill that seeks to both increase the levy and expand its operation. We had a debate on a very similar piece of legislation about a decade ago. I just want to read out what the Assistant Treasurer in that debate said. At the time the then Assistant Treasurer said:

We accept it is not necessarily going to be popular among business groups and others, but we believe as a government that it is an appropriate measure having regard to investments the government is making in public transport and transport infrastructure more generally in the inner city, which is the area in which this levy will apply.

Of course that comment was made by the Liberal Assistant Treasurer Mr Rich-Phillips, a former member of this place, in May 2014, which I believe would have been under the Napthine government. It is a bit hard to keep track of who the Leader of the Liberal Party is in any given year, but I think in 2014 it was Denis Napthine. He was the Premier of this state. It was the Napthine government, in fact, that increased the rate of the congestion levy and expanded the boundaries of the congestion levy in a state taxation bill passed by this Parliament in 2014. It is interesting that now Mr Davis stands up and rails against a measure that is basically very, very similar to something that he voted for on 8 May 2014. He is against it today, but he was in favour of it before.

David Davis: On a point of order, Acting President, it is not a fact that I voted in favour of something at that time that is on the same level as this. This is actually an increase –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Mr Davis, what is your actual point of order?

David Davis: My point of order is that the member is wrong and is misleading the house.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): No, that is not a point of order.

Ryan BATCHELOR: I am sorry if Mr Davis does not know which way he votes from one day to the other, one year to the other and one decade to the other. If he wants to stand up and explain his voting record, he is more than capable of doing so. What we saw in 2014 was the Liberal government increase the rate of the congestion levy and expand its application to new areas.

Members interjecting.

Ryan BATCHELOR: They voted for it. They voted to increase the rate of the congestion levy in 2014, and they voted to expand its application.

Members interjecting.

Ryan BATCHELOR: The interjections from the opposition, who cannot quite understand how today they are voting against something that they used to be in favour of, I think speak to everything that is wrong with the current Liberal Party. They are against something for a moment and then they are in favour of it, or they are in favour of something and then they are against it. They do not know what they support and they do not know who they support from one day to the other.

Members interjecting.

David Davis: You’re a goose!

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Mr Davis, I heard that one. I ask you to retract that.

David Davis: I retract that he is a goose.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Mr Davis, I want you to retract that properly.

David Davis: I retract.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Thank you.

Ryan BATCHELOR: I do not know why members of the Liberal Party or Mr Davis have got such difficulty explaining why they were in favour of something one day and are against it the next, because what their bill did in 2014 was increase the rate of the congestion levy and expand its application to new areas, and that is exactly what this bill before us today does. So maybe the Liberal Party, Mr Davis and others can explain why their votes keep changing – why they keep shifting their position. I do not know – maybe it has got to do with who their leader is at any particular point in time.

I will just make one more comment. Mr Davis in his contribution expressed concern about the way that this levy applies to certain retail premises and the effect it has on retail strips. What he is also doing with the amendments that he is circulating here today, particularly his amendment to omit clause 15 from this bill, is seeking to omit a provision that will reduce the rate of the levy on all of the spaces in the category 2 areas that fall under the congestion levy. So what he is trying to do through his amendments to this bill is block concessions from the congestion levy that will apply to parking spaces for retail premises or shopping centres. I would like the Liberal members in their contributions further in this debate to explain why they are opposed to clause 15 in this bill, why they are opposed to a concession for parking spaces and why they have moved an amendment specifically to seek to omit that from the bill. The inconsistency in the positions of the Liberal Party is breathtaking. They have got an opportunity in front of them today. Maybe someone other than Mr Davis can help clarify why they are opposing something they were in favour of when they were in government – in fact triple the rate of the congestion levy when they were in government – and expanded to considerably more parts of Melbourne than this bill does today. But I cannot speak for them. I cannot explain why they have changed their position. Only they can explain why they have changed, and I look forward to hearing them do so.

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (21:11): I am pleased to be able to speak on the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025. The bill is bittersweet, and I will speak to that later. But ‘further amendment’ is so accurate. Further amendment – Labor love amending tax legislation. They just keep adding to it. It is like a long roll of toilet paper that just keeps going; it never ends. We have seen over 60 new or increased taxes under this government, and I think we are losing count. Think of the emergency services tax. We have got the holiday tax and the schools tax. We have the vaccination levy and the payroll tax. We have had hikes in land tax and even number plate taxes. The births, deaths and marriages fees have gone up. I know just last week, in that sitting, I spoke about Probus clubs that are being asked to pay $437 to Consumer Affairs Victoria if they make a change to their constitution, and yet other states charge just between $23 and $84. Everywhere we look, Victoria loves to tax, and that is because they have a big debt. They have a big black hole, and now we have a big pile of taxes. How big? We are heading towards $194 billion state net debt, and we will soon be paying $29 million every single day in interest. When I spoke about this last year we were paying $15 million every day. That is soon going to be double. It is quite extraordinary what we are seeing.

According to the budget forward estimates, Victoria’s net debt will reach 25 per cent of its gross state product. Analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office of the last decade to 2023–24 shows that net debt has increased by an average of 22.9 per cent each year. Anyone with a home loan knows that interest rates matter – how much extra it costs to borrow money. The Treasury Corporation of Victoria have estimated that the state will need to refinance $86 million in debt between 2029 and 2034. I have heard it called a debt time bomb, because during the pandemic interest rates on that debt were just 2.4 per cent, but they have jumped, and they are expected to double to around 5 per cent in future. Recent reports show again – and you will be aware of it, the people of this chamber – that the government certainly has not reined in spending. The public servant wages bill blew out by $540 million. The Helen Silver review – we have been waiting months; it has not been released yet. There have certainly not been any details.

You wonder why the government keeps looking for additional tax revenue. I would say the Suburban Rail Loop – I know Mr Welch has raised that topic many times. It has had ‘TBC’ in the budget papers. Victorian taxpayers are funding a $900,000 salary for the chief. I find that extraordinary. It is over $200,000 higher than recommended by the Victorian Independent Remuneration Tribunal. On top of that, he lives in Queensland, so Victorian taxpayers are actually paying for his flights down to Melbourne. But we still do not have any idea of what the Suburban Rail Loop is going to cost. The Prime Minister says, ‘Oh, yes.’ The Prime Minister says, ‘Yes, yes, come down. We’ll put in extra money, but you’ve got to wait till May to find out.’ This is extraordinary. I will add too that the chairman of the Suburban Rail Loop Authority is a former Deputy Premier to Daniel Andrews, James Merlino, and he receives nearly $170,000 for the privilege.

So it comes as no surprise that this bill contains increased taxes. But it is bittersweet, as I mentioned, because I know that we have advocated very strongly for Dinner Plain to be exempt from the vacant residential land tax because it is just like every other snow resort, but for some reason Dinner Plain was left off, and it makes no sense that people are having to pay that tax. I know my colleague Mr McCurdy in the lower house, the member for Ovens Valley, has advocated strongly for that. I did raise questions with the Treasurer about this back in May and then also raised it again and wrote again. I was very excited when I heard that changes were coming – that was a positive. Then I was very frustrated to see that it has been put in with much of the content of this bill.

We have heard Mr Davis talk about the impact of the congestion levy. This bill amends the act to change the category 1 area levy rate to $3030 per leviable parking space, in line with the parking space levy rates in Sydney’s CBD. But what has been pointed out is that we certainly do not have the same property prices or the same salaries as Sydney, so it is not a very good comparison. The bill also changes the category 2 area rate to $2150 per space, and these changes will commence from 1 January 2026. Mr Batchelor wonders why we are opposed to it. A big hint: a 73 per cent hike on the cost is a good reason, I would say, to certainly reject it. At the time of the bill briefing the Treasurer’s office estimated that the additional revenue raised by the levy increase will be approximately $85 million to $90 million per year. We have heard Mr Davis talk to that, about the Property Council of Australia. They have provided further insights into it. According to the data that they have received from their members, it imposes a minimum average cost of $13 per day per parking space. Those costs flow on – taxes have a habit of doing that – and it is households that end up paying more. The Property Council found that the 73 per cent increase proposed would pass on that extra cost of $13 per day. Since this congestion levy was introduced, it has been increased by more than 600 per cent, but the council receives a fixed sum of $7 million a year, and that amount has not increased since the levy was introduced almost 20 years ago.

This is a repeating pattern that we are seeing from the Allan Labor government. I was on that local council parliamentary inquiry, and we heard from so many councils talking about how the state government has passed on many costs to local councils. We have seen that with the emergency services levy as well. They are using local councils to actually collect state revenue, and they are using councils now as a bit of a cash cow to collect funds on their behalf. We see this through the animal registration fees, where it talks about increasing the amount payable by a council to the Treasurer in respect of each registration fee collected by it in a financial year for a dog or a cat, and then it goes on to say ‘for each financial year after that, an amount that increases from the previous financial year by the rate fixed by the Treasurer’. Red flag. That just means, guess what, taxes are just going to keep going up. The Allan Labor government is doubling its tax on all dogs and cats from $4.51 to $9 per animal from July next year, as I said. This might sound small, but there are 2.2 million registered pets in Victoria, and this will certainly easily deliver another $10 million windfall each year to the government. Every dog, cat and greyhound also will have their registration fees double, because the act seeks to increase the amount payable by Greyhound Racing Victoria to the Treasurer in respect of each registration fee collected by it.

Victoria is now the state with the highest taxes, highest net debt and highest unemployment and certainly very low business confidence. And every dollar we see spent on interest reduces our capacity to invest in health, in education, in community safety and in the transport services that our state desperately needs. This government are doing everything they can to use smoke and mirrors, as I have said. They are using councils now to try and collect additional revenue and return that money to the state. But these new taxes will be passed on, and they are just going to put more pressure on households and add to our cost of living. Nothing is off limits. This is a very desperate government, and we are seeing that in this bill. They are looking for the coins down the back of the couch. They are searching through the car at the back of the seats, looking there too. Labor cannot manage money, and Victorians are paying for their waste and financial mismanagement. Thankfully, we are just one year away from the next state election in November 2026.

This tax bill is bittersweet. As I said, we definitely want to see Dinner Plain exempt from the vacant residential land tax. I thank Mr Davis for the amendments that have been put forward, because we cannot stand by and support a government that is crippling our state with even more taxes.

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (21:22): Others have spoken on various provisions, so I will not take up the chamber’s time by going over them again.

Georgie Purcell interjected.

David ETTERSHANK: You cope with your disappointment well. Instead I will turn my attention to the congestion levy. A congestion levy sounds like a fine idea, and it would be reasonable to assume that its purpose is to prevent congestion on our roads, and one would expect that such a levy would be accompanied by corresponding uptakes in public transport and the like. That all sounds great. However, this is not a congestion levy, this is a car park levy. In most major cities – such as London or Singapore, for example – where a congestion levy has been introduced, it applies a cost to vehicles driving through the regulated area. Our more, shall we say, oblique Victorian congestion levy is simply a tax on car parks.

The levy will increase parking costs by around 73 per cent in the existing category 1 and category 2 areas, and it expands category 2 to include parts of Burnley, Cremorne, South Yarra, Windsor, Richmond, Abbotsford and Prahran that have never been liable to this levy in the past. And surprise, surprise, there is actually no evidence whatsoever that it will do anything to decrease congestion. There has been no analysis on whether the levy has reduced congestion at all. The congestion levy was introduced in 2006 – I thank Mr Batchelor for his erudite history of the levy – and since that time it has increased by a whopping 658 per cent. If passed, this congestion levy will collect more revenue from people parking their cars than is collected from all of the gaming venues in Victoria collectively.

There is no doubt that car park operators will pass this levy onto their patrons, and many of these are workers and families who likely have no alternative but to drive to their place of work, adding to their cost-of-living pressures. My region is host to some of the suburbs with the highest private commuting rates. It is not because the residents are particularly wedded to driving to work, crawling along the Calder for an hour and a half each day, each way – most of them would rather not do that. But with the abysmal public transport options available to many of them, they really do not have much of a choice. And while well-heeled inner-city suburbs boast the highest work-from-home rates, areas like Cairnlea and Hoppers Crossing in my neck of the woods have some of the lowest work-from-home rates in Melbourne, so the levy will increase their parking costs by an average of $1386 per year. The levy will negatively impact people like hospitality workers and healthcare workers, many of whom are women, as well as shift workers, who are understandably reluctant to catch public transport home after their shifts. Students and young people, who are particularly vulnerable to price increases, will be disproportionately affected, as will tradies, community workers, retail workers and salespeople who rely on off-street parking for their work.

Other members have spoken about the impact on retailers who will be negatively impacted by this car park tax. Stallholders at the Queen Victoria Market reckon this will seriously damage their trade, as a huge proportion of shoppers travel from outside of the city to go to the market and this will be a real deterrent to them. I could go on, but essentially we oppose this cash grab by the government dressed up as a congestion levy.

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (21:26): I rise to speak on the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025. I would like to thank the Treasurer for helping us steer the state budget back into an operating surplus whilst delivering the essential services Victorians rely on.

This bill delivers on seven key objectives, and I want to go through each one in detail. First, it makes changes to the congestion levy and the rates within each category. Next, it also makes changes to the vacant residential land tax, particularly as to how it applies to Dinner Plain Alpine Village. The bill will also pass several exemptions to the land tax in certain circumstances. The bill also contains reforms for the foreign purchaser additional duty as it relates to New Zealand citizens in Victoria and their circumstantial exemption. There is a minor amendment to the limitation period for cases of fraud. Six, this bill will make amendments to the building permit levy in relation to consistency and validating past, present and new rates with the Building and Plumbing Commission, formerly known as the Victorian Building Authority. Finally, the bill also passes changes to payments for dog and cat registration fees collected by councils and for greyhound registration fees collected by Greyhound Racing Victoria. There is a longer list of more minor forms which I will touch on later, but I want to explain these seven objectives in greater detail for the benefit of the chamber or those listening.

First, the changes to the congestion levy: the congestion levy amendments will see the rate in category 1 increase to $3030 per parking space from the start of January 2026, which brings the rate in line with the rates in Sydney CBD. Category 2 areas, which are largely in inner Melbourne, will be expanded towards Chapel Street, Bridge Road, Swan Street, Victoria Street, Hoddle Street and Punt Road. The rate for this category will increase to $2150 per parking space from the start of next year and will be adjusted annually for inflation from 2027. The commissioner of state revenue will also publish a map of these levy areas on the State Revenue Office website, where most Victorians access their information on state taxation. Government school premises will be exempted from this levy from 2026, when it will be provided free of charge, bringing government schools in line with non-government schools, which already enjoy such an exemption. Following some further consultation with key industry stakeholders, a new 50 per cent concession from the congestion levy will apply to spaces in category 2 which are located on or are adjacent to retail premises such as shopping centres. Car park owners who own and operate exclusively residential parking spaces will also no longer be required to register with the State Revenue Office.

This bill makes changes to the vacant residential land tax when it comes to Dinner Plain. Dinner Plain will be excluded from this tax, applying retrospectively from 1 January 2025. It shares similar amenities to nearby Mount Hotham Alpine Resort with a similar seasonal economy and provides the same service for visitors. It is functionally very similar, economically speaking, to the alpine resort which is exempt from the tax, so as such we are retroactively exempting Dinner Plain from all of the taxes as well. This is a straightforward change which is only fair. The State Revenue Office will contact local owners to refund any tax paid by them this year before this amendment comes into effect.

Next, we have a new land tax exemption from the start of next year. A new exemption will be available for land valued at less than $300,000 if it contains a non-permanent shelter. That means things such as caravans or tents which are used as the owner’s home. This will help ease financial hardship and the tax burden on those who may own a plot of land but cannot afford to build a home on it. This bill also includes new exemptions where it relates to New Zealand citizens. New Zealand citizens under this amendment will be excluded from paying any foreign purchaser additional duty, or FPAD, and the absentee owner surcharge, or AOS, when appropriate. There are of course conditions attached to this. A requirement for being an ordinary resident in Australia will be in effect replacing the existing special category visa test. That visa test has in the past caused some administrative anomalies for some New Zealand citizens, and this amendment will fix that up. The new requirements will bring the treatment of New Zealand citizens in line with other foreign citizens in Victoria. This bill will also remove the requirement for New Zealand citizens to hold a special category visa to be eligible for the first home owner grant. There will still be a need to comply with the existing 12-month residency requirement to qualify for the first home owner grant; they will just no longer have to deal with the administratively confusing and tiresome special category visa.

Next there are the changes to section 27 of the Limitation of Actions Act 1958. The amendments provide for postponement of the limitation period in cases where fraud or mistake apply to proceedings which section 20A(2) also applies. The amendment will not affect the limitation period that applies to the recovery of taxes on other grounds.

Sixth, this bill proposes changes and amendments to the Building and Plumbing Commission and associated rates for permits. The bill will make clarifications on the method of calculating the building permit levy, and it will be validated past current levies. This will provide consistency and certainty for consumers, buildings and the Building and Plumbing Commission, which was formerly the Victorian Building Authority. With that, I commend the bill to the house.

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (21:32): I rise to speak on the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025 too. From the outset, I wish to note that I will ultimately be supporting this piece of legislation. While there are some aspects of this bill that I absolutely do not agree with, there are also some positive changes to come from it, particularly for my constituents in Northern Victoria. I will highlight the good before I get into the bad.

Firstly, under these changes residential land tax within the village of Dinner Plain will be excluded from the vacant residential land tax scheme, and this will apply retrospectively from 1 January this year. This change brings Dinner Plain into line with the Mount Hotham Alpine Resort, which shares a similar seasonal economy and is also not subject to vacant residential land tax. I am informed that upon this legislation’s passage, local owners at Dinner Plain will be contacted by the State Revenue Office to organise any refunds.

I also welcome the decision to create a new land tax exemption for land which is valued at less than $300,000. This will be a welcome change for people in my electorate who are living in a caravan or a tent on their land. I hope it will make a meaningful difference in reducing financial hardship for people who cannot afford to build a home on their land.

For our friends across the ditch – I was actually just messaging my good friend Reed Fleming from New Zealand about this – this bill will bring the treatment of Kiwis into line with other foreign citizens by replacing the existing special category visa test with an ordinarily residing in Australia requirement.

Turning my attention to perhaps the most controversial bit of the bill, expanding the congestion levy, I did um and ah about whether to support this for some time, and I want to put on the record that I broadly do support any effort to ease congestion in or around the city. A congestion levy done well does have the power to not only raise revenue but to also reshape how Melburnians move, live and work. I want to be clear that I do not make the decision to support yet another increase on tax lightly. The government cannot continue to rely on just taxing Victorians as a short-term solution. It does need to find a way out of its budget crisis without hitting hardworking people. I know that there has been opposition to expanding this scheme, and I want to recognise the groups and councils that have advocated against this. I have listened over the past few months in good faith and considered all of their arguments. I do have concerns that expanding this charge will only give car park operators the mandate to jack up their prices even further. When Victorians are already struggling to make ends meet, any move to drastically make parking even more expensive than it already is should be condemned, and I hope the car parking conglomerates will respond to this change with empathy. In landing on this decision I considered the impact that this would have on shift workers, and many others have spoken about the risks particularly to young women who rely on their own vehicles because they do not feel safe catching public transport, especially at night. That is something that I can certainly relate to myself as well.

I am pleased that some shopping centres have received carve-outs and on-street parking will remain exempt. I have also considered the flow-on effects that any price impacts may have on families from outer Melbourne and regional Victoria who are wanting to travel into the city to enjoy sport, live music or hospitality. The government needs to understand that not everyone lives near accessible public transport. We have heard the argument just to drive to the nearest train station, and I do think that many of us in regional areas know that this is not as straightforward as it seems. I myself grew up in a small country town with no public transport options, and driving to a train station to then get on a train just is not a feasible option; it actually takes up significantly more time. This answer from the government just does not work for everyone in reality. Ultimately the government have given me repeated assurances through our conversations that they do not believe any anticipated increase passed on by car park operators will be majorly noticeable to consumers upon exiting the car park.

Despite my concerns raised, I do think that there are positives that could come out of expanding this levy. The Grattan Institute have recently described it as:

… an attractive instrument for governments because it helps to better align the incentive to drive with the full costs to the community of one person driving.

It is a fact that encouraging people to leave their cars at home is a good thing. Everyone in this place knows that driving in Melbourne’s CBD is an absolute nightmare at the best of times, so less cars on these roads can only make things better. But I can understand why people do opt to drive when our public transport system is also buckling under immense pressure. I do not envy anyone getting on a tram during peak hour in the morning or at night and being jammed in like sardines. The government must use the revenue raised by this expanded tax to increase services, particularly on our tram and our train networks. We cannot simply tax our way out of congestion. Victoria’s Infrastructure Strategy 2025–2055, developed by Infrastructure Victoria, has identified desperately needed improvements to our tram and train network that would go a long way to easing traffic on our roads and freeing space on public transport. The government, as has been touched on by multiple members already, in typical fashion, have decided to lump multiple proposals and things into the one piece of legislation, which has deeply frustrated and I think made this a difficult decision-making process for many of us.

The last component that I want to speak on is the changes to the amount of money that the government will collect from pet registration fees. This is something that has obviously come across my desk quite continuously since it was announced, being an Animal Justice Party MP. They are proposing to double the cost of fees to register cats and dogs, from $4.50 to $9. In 2024 to 2025 almost 630,000 dogs were registered with councils, which raked the government in $2.84 million, while almost 222,000 cats were registered, collecting $999,000. It is important to note that the only reason that I am supporting this is because the total revenue, which is expected to be about $7.5 million according to some quick maths based on similar figures, will go directly towards funding animal welfare initiatives. I have canvassed this proposal quite extensively with many in my community who are very used to paying pet registration fees, as I am as well, and the consensus has been that they are more than happy to pay an increased pet registration fee if they know that that money is going into initiatives that directly benefit and improve the lives of animals. I have had direct conversations with the government about the fact that this funding cannot just go to the larger organisations and the regulators but also needs to be dispersed across the many smaller community rescue groups and animal welfare organisations which are run by volunteers and survive on donations and once a year can apply for a grant.

It has been really difficult to get any attention for them from the government, and it is my hope, with a bigger pool of funds that is raised from this registration fee system, that there will be more money to go around to these incredibly hardworking groups who do just so much work to rescue, rehome and rehabilitate all types of animals across the state. It is a very, very thankless job, and this amount of money, if shared around in the right way, would be so meaningful to them and significantly improve the ways in which they run their operations and the way in which they feel supported by this government. And I must say that right now that feeling of support is very minimal – they feel quite left behind – which leads me to the bit that really annoys me here about this bill, and that is the cost of registering a racing greyhound, which will only rise from $3.50 to $7. That means that the racing greyhound, which exists for the purpose of making a profit – they are a cog in a brutal machine – will actually be paying less than the family pet within a household. That is just not good enough. It is an absolute farce, and to be completely honest, it is totally out of step with community expectations. I think it is not just my people – the animal activists and the animal protection community – that are outraged by this proposal; it is a joke that Greyhound Racing Victoria–registered participants are paying less money for these dogs that are having their lives gambled on and their lives put at risk every single day.

Just yesterday morning I woke up to an email from the Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds telling me that four dogs broke their legs at the one meet in the one night at Sale. This is an industry that will be paying less and contributing less to animal welfare initiatives when they are the ones that are creating the problem. They are the ones creating the animal welfare crisis; they are the ones creating the dogs and the animals in need of homes. I think that the government owe us an explanation as to why they think these people who exploit animals as part of a desperate bid to win a buck should pay less than the everyday family registering their golden retriever or, like me, registering the rescue dachshunds that have come out of the puppy farming industry or my Cavalier Aggie or my cats, who have all come to me from these hardworking rescue groups, who will be paying more and fighting to receive government funding.

There really is a lot to be answered for about this decision. We have made it clear to the government how we feel about this. This is an industry that very, very recently released its annual report for 2024–‍25, and in this report they outed themselves for having the highest euthanasia rate, highest animal cruelty incidents and lowest adoption rehoming figures in four years. They have low rehoming figures, while again these community rescue groups who are in desperate need of money and who I am really hopeful will get some money out of this increased pet registration system, are rehoming more dogs than this well-funded, industry-affiliated program that receives constant backing and support from the government. The industry-aligned Greyhound Adoption Program, the group that I am referring to, are funded by Greyhound Racing Victoria, and they found homes for 283 fewer dogs than the previous year and found homes for fewer dogs than these community rescue groups that are run by volunteers and survive off donations with basically no government support.

We have long known that volunteer-run community rescue groups rehome more dogs than the industry does itself – I talk about it a lot – and it is awful for these people who step up and give these dogs a safe, loving home and life to be hit with a higher registration fee. Like I said, these people are actually more often than not happy to pay a higher fee if they know that money is going towards animal welfare initiatives that actually directly benefit the lives of these animals, and that is what we will be pushing for. This is all while Greyhound Racing Victoria are still flat out refusing to introduce a breeding cap, leaving volunteer rescue groups to absorb the consequences of their negligence, and not only that, they are paying a lower registration fee. What is more than that, the government is rewarding them for this incompetence. They are constantly rewarding them. They refuse to admit that the industry is failing and refuse to admit that this program itself is failing, and just a few weeks ago they gave the Greyhound Adoption Program $3 million of taxpayer money. That is a huge amount; that is almost half the amount that this increased registration fee system will raise, which we hope will be spread appropriately across animal welfare initiatives. The government once again really needs to reflect on its priorities and really needs to think about the way that it continuously throws taxpayer money at this blood sport.

It is telling that the government insists on pushing ahead with propping up this dirty industry that has absolutely and well and truly lost its social licence. In collating my comments for this speech, I was talking to my staff and saying that I do hope to have conversations with the new Leader of the Liberal Party, the member for Kew, to canvass her view on whether it is an economically sound decision to throw copious amounts of money at such a flailing operation. The alternative Premier has expressed a keen interest in bringing the budget back into line, and I am saying right now that we have a solution for her and we have a solution for the Liberal Party, because we only need to look at other jurisdictions which are led by both Labor and Liberal governments who have had the courage to call out the greyhound racing industry. It is happening all around us. We are the outlier when it comes to racing dogs. In fact just last week the Tasmanian government introduced legislation to make it illegal by mid-2029. The Liberal government in Tasmania are banning greyhound racing, and they started that process by doing exactly what I am talking about now, and that is defunding the industry – telling the industry that if they think they have a social licence, then they should stand on their own two feet. Guess what their immediate response was. It was: ‘We can’t. We can’t survive without taxpayer money; we can’t survive without having everyday people’s income thrown at us.’ We should look at doing the same thing here.

Meanwhile the Labor government in Western Australia is currently undertaking a parliamentary inquiry into the so-called sport, the Labor-led New South Wales government has also held two inquiries and in South Australia the ever-popular Premier Malinauskas has also had an inquiry and he has put the industry on notice. He has told them that if they cannot clean up their act within two years, they will be shut down as well. So that is almost every state in our country that is taking action on the overwhelming community feedback that we need to do something about the way that these dogs are suffering, the way that they are continuously injuring themselves and dying on racetracks and the way that the industry are constantly thrown money despite the fact that their social licence has just completely diminished. And here in Victoria, what does Premier Jacinta Allan do? She throws more money at it and protects the industry from her own government’s latest tax grab. She chooses to tax the family pet more than the racing greyhound which is exploited across our state.

I was having positive discussions with the government about making a change to increase the cost of racing registrations to be higher than the cost of registering the family pet, and they seemed to show a willingness to help facilitate this change. Mysteriously, however, these conversations suddenly fell flat, and I suspect that this is a case of one person stepping in – which has happened with many of my issues before – and calling the shots, which is incredibly disappointing. I had intended to still move this as an amendment in my own name to increase these racing registrations and put the racing industry on notice to say to them: you should be paying more, you are complicit in cruelty and you are the reason that we have an animal welfare crisis in this state. But unfortunately, due to the workings of the upper house when it comes to taxation bills, it was procedurally impossible for me to do so. So I just really want to have on the record my absolute disgust and disdain that the government have made this decision and that they have chosen to give the racing industry another get-out-of-jail-free card, and that in order to make the money that they need to make to protect animals in this state, they are not going after the people responsible for the animal welfare crisis. They are going after the family pet in the family home and not the ones creating this problem before us; they are not going after the ones creating the rehoming crisis and they are not going after the ones creating the welfare crisis.

Ultimately, as I stated earlier, the only reason – and I want to be clear about this – that I am pushing ahead in support of this legislation with a whole lot of hesitation is because without the security of this extra revenue, I have no confidence that the government will actually sufficiently fund animal welfare initiatives. We only need to look at the evidence; we only need to see what is going on around us. We are seeing the constant defunding of critical services and really, really important initiatives that improve the lives of Victorians. Without this dedicated fund to go towards animals and their protection and ensuring that the pot is sufficiently full – which, as I have said, I have canvassed with my community, and they are happy to pay this increased cost, knowing that it goes into protecting animals – I have no faith, without this specific delegation of money set aside, it will be funded at all.

We have had to fight really, really hard to get animals included in the state budget. In fact it was something that was not given a whole lot of attention before the Animal Justice Party was in the Parliament. Each and every year we have made significant strides in making the case to the government about why they need to fund animal protection initiatives, and I am moving forward in supporting this bill in good faith that the Treasurer will appropriately assign the money raised to the people who need it the most. That is not the large organisations and that is not the regulators; that is the people who are using their own income and their own time every single day to try and help animals. They are at breaking point. They are burnt out. They are at their wits’ end. I can only hope that in making this decision their lives will be improved.

I am supporting this legislation not as a favour to the government but as an obligation to my community and the people that I represent who need that recognition and who need that funding in order to carry out their work – because if they are not carrying out their work, the government is not carrying out that work either. All that does is leave animals to languish and to suffer in our state, and that is the very, very last thing that I want, because we know that animals are already being failed by this government. There is no way that I can risk that even further by cutting off the guaranteed funding stream or by refusing to support an increase to their funding stream, which is ultimately what this bill will do. For the reasons outlined and on balance, I will be supporting this bill, although somewhat hesitantly, and I look forward to canvassing a number of those issues that I have spoken about in the committee-of-the-whole stage of the bill.

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (21:53): I will make a short contribution on this. This is another new Labor tax that does not do what it says it does, in a long line of them. There is a congestion tax. It is not about addressing congestion any more than the COVID tax was about addressing COVID debt or the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund has anything to do with emergency services or volunteers. It is just another new tax.

I met someone out in Blackburn the other day, and they mentioned the cat and dog tax. They said, ‘It’s just Labor being Labor, essentially, because if it’s not nailed down, they’ll tax it and they’ll take it away.’ If you are going to have a targeted tax – not a broad tax that funds general revenue – then it really should have a very targeted purpose. Otherwise it is really just punitive; it is a punitive revenue-gaining exercise. If we are going to have a congestion tax, then surely the objective has to be to reduce congestion. There is absolutely no evidence that simply imposing a tax on the parking lot operators is going to reduce congestion. In fact I suspect it may increase it because people will be less likely to use that form of parking and they will seek parking on the streets, which is not included in all of this. This is a targeted tax without a targeted purpose, so it is actually a punitive revenue-generating exercise.

In terms of the pet tax, what is the value for money there? What this amounts to, the registration of your cat or dog, is a glorified spreadsheet sitting there somewhere with dog names on it – Fido, Charlie, Max. That is effectively all it is. It serves no other substantive purpose. What are they doing to earn any registration fee whatsoever, let alone double it and let alone give themselves the latitude to up it however they like whenever they like? It is a targeted tax without any really specific purpose. I admire Ms Purcell’s faith in the system, but there is no money going to animal welfare out of that. Maybe it will go to some administrator who is tapping away on the spreadsheet and maybe putting in a few formulas to see how many brown-eyed terriers we have or something like that; I do not know. There is no value in it.

There is a bigger impact as well. As Mrs Broad explained, the congestion tax will raise about $85 million a year. That is $85 million that comes out of both consumers’ and operators’ pockets, so that has a clear, direct economic impact. That is $85 million less that consumers have to spend in the shops. It is $85 million less that the operators of the car parks – which we want to be maintained in good condition, to have good, safe environments and to have the latest technology – have to maintain them in a way that maintains standards. They have less working capital to do that as well. What has the government done to earn this money? Nothing. It is simply confiscating the working capital of one business to use for itself, again, for no targeted purpose. It is just a punitive revenue-raising exercise. It really goes to show to me, at the end of the day, that the lady who said that it this is just Labor being Labor is spot on, because this government has become a dead weight around the neck of Victoria.

If we are trying to grow as a state – we are a state with manifest economic challenges, mostly because of the debt and the need to service the debt – the high level of tax is completely suffocating the ability of businesses to grow. We will never grow out of the debt. We obviously cannot tax our way out of that debt, though these economic geniuses think we can. The government is offering us no solution. This is a good example. Their only solution is, ‘We won’t grow the state’s revenue; we’ll just tax more of what’s there for ourselves.’ It is an ever-diminishing circle, a diminishing marginal return approach, and we are circling the plughole right now and are going to go down the drain.

Mr Batchelor made a remarkable contribution when he asked how we could possibly justify opposing a congestion charge. How could we, when 10 years ago – maybe it was 14 years ago – we supported one? Well, it is as simple as the difference between a small thing and a big thing. If you can tell the difference between something that is small and something that is big, then you will understand why we might have supported something 14 years ago but do not support it now. At that time of course we had not added 64 new taxes, had we? That is why we do not support it now and we might have supported it then. We had not run the state into the ground economically back then. That is maybe another reason why we would have supported it then but do not support it now. Maybe we actually had a genuine purpose for a congestion tax, whereas this is simply an exercise in raising money because you are broke and you cannot fund anything properly – essential services.

There are some sensible bits. We are finally getting the tax off the necks of a couple of communities out there – good. But of course Labor, being Labor, had to bundle this up into an omnibus bill so that they can sneak the nasty stuff through, because they are a nasty party. The only things they know how to do is misrepresent their work, tax people –

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.

Ingrid STITT: Pursuant to standing order 4.08(1)(b), I declare the sitting to be extended by up to 1 hour.

Richard WELCH: I am glad I have got another hour to go. I do not really. I think we heard a contribution that said this was part of responsible budgeting as well. Anyone in the real world out there just looks at it and rolls their eyes. This is just Labor being Labor, because this is where we are after X number of terms of Labor, a government so bereft of ideas that the genius economic move when we have got the highest unemployment in the nation, the highest inflation in the nation and the highest debt in the nation and we are falling miles and miles behind the rest of the nation in the adoption of AI and data centres – when all that is going on – is ‘Let’s tax cats and dogs.’ Well done. I would have loved to have seen the focus group that sat down and said, ‘Come on, we’ve really got to crunch the numbers here. How do we get Victoria out of this abyss? Cats and dogs – that’s what we’re going to do. Cats and dogs! And when we’ve done cats and dogs, what else can we cut?’ In 1966 the Beatles released the album Revolver, and on side 1, track 1 was a song called Taxman. It had lines like ‘If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street’, ‘If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet’ and ‘If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat’. Well, Labor will tax your car park. That is the economic genius of this government. We are going to have a car parking led recovery in Victoria, and it is so important that they had to put a bill through to tax cats and dogs and car parks. If you look at the scale of the problems, they are broadly commensurate, aren’t they? It is a tired government bereft of ideas. This is their big idea for the week – congratulations. The rest of the community are rolling their eyes, going, ‘It’s just Labor being Labor.’

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (22:02): I will tell you what, I am pretty happy to stand and support this bill, being Labor, particularly today when we talk about the community rolling their eyes at the Liberals being the Liberals: Guy, O’Brien, Guy, Pesutto, Battin and Wilson. What a load of theatre we have heard from over there, today of all days.

The State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025 will amend the Congestion Levy Act 2005 to increase the category 1 area levy rate to $3030 and the category 2 area levy rate to $2150 from the 2026 calendar year. It will also expand the category 2 area to include the suburbs of Burnley, Cremorne, South Yarra, Windsor, parts of Richmond – excluding Victoria Gardens shopping centre – Abbotsford and Prahran. It will provide a 50 per cent concession for conditional free retail parking spaces within the category 2 areas that are located on or adjacent to retail premises and retail shopping centres. It seems that some of those opposite have a problem with that. It will make minor technical amendments to the Land Tax Act 2005 to exempt vacant residential land if significant renovations or repairs on the land start and finish in the same calendar year, to exclude land in the village of Dinner Plain from the imposition of the vacant residential land tax and to introduce a land tax exemption for low-value land with non-permanent shelters.

We will amend the Domestic Animals Act 1994 to increase fees charged on pet registrations from $4.51 to $9 and for greyhound registrations from $3.50 to $7, amend the Duties Act 2000 and the Land Tax Act to exclude New Zealand citizens from the foreign purchaser additional duty and the absentee owner surcharge if they satisfy an ordinarily reside in Australia test, amend the Building Act 1993 to remove uncertainties when calculating the building permit levy and retrospectively validate past and current BPL calculations, amend the Commercial and Industrial Property Tax Reform Act 2024 and the Duties Act 2000 to clarify when land enters the commercial and industrial property tax reform scheme and amend the Limitation of Actions Act 1958 to reduce the risk to state finances where a court finds a state tax to be invalid. I will leave my remarks there.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (22:05): I also rise to speak on the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025. I have got good news and bad news on this. I will start with the good news. Good news is always good. The exclusion of Dinner Plain from the vacant residential land tax makes sense because it is snow country and it is not occupied for a lot of the year, so it makes sense that they do that. The land tax exemption for low-value land with a non-permanent shelter is about people that have a block of land and have a caravan or tent on it. Yes, they should not be paying land tax, and so that is a good thing. It also does some things around New Zealand citizens, with exclusions from paying foreign purchaser additional duty and other things, which are good things.

Now, the bad things – well, the minor bad thing is with the domestic animal and greyhound registration fee amendments. Yes, they will be increasing. There has been lots of coverage about this in the media, saying that they are doubling fees and this sort of thing. Well, that is not quite true, because most of the fees actually are from council, not from the state government, but nevertheless they are increasing it somewhat.

But the thing that worries me the most is this congestion levy amendment. The congestion levy amendment is very deceptive because it does not address congestion at all. It actually just addresses the number of car parks. If it was the number of car parks that were actually used, then it would be a congestion levy, but it is not. In fact some of the people in this area that will be affected by this have been forced through planning regulations to provide a certain number of car parks, and now they are being forced to pay tax on those car parks of around about $3030 per parking space – not quite double but quite an increase from the current levy – regardless of how they are used. I fail to see how this reduces congestion at all, because it has no relevance whatsoever to whether the car park is actually used or not.

I will also note that I have spoken extensively to different people who have properties in these areas, and they have told me that many of these businesses allow their staff to use these car parks for free. So what we will see through this congestion levy is that the businesses that currently allow staff to park at their place of work for free – and some of these places are quite scary at night, actually, around Richmond –

A member interjected.

David LIMBRICK: Yes, around Richmond. These staff may no longer have these free car parks, and because the purpose of the congestion levy is to get cars off the road, these staff will not be driving their cars to work but rather will be taking public transport at night, and this is dangerous. I have spoken to business owners that say that they have staff, many of them being women, who do not want to walk around Richmond at night to catch public transport – which with the current state of things is an extremely dangerous thing to do, walking around Richmond at night, as a young woman especially. They will be forced into catching public transport. I think that this is outrageous. I think that what the government is doing here is totally wrong. If businesses want to provide free parking for their workers to ensure their safety, why on earth should the government be interfering in that process?

In fact the government claims to care about the safety of workers, claims to care about the safety of retail workers, and yet they institute this tax that will force them potentially to take public transport in the middle of the night in areas of Melbourne that I think all of us here would agree are not particularly safe for people to wander around in at night by themselves. I think that this is an outrageous thing, and therefore the Libertarian Party will be absolutely opposing this bill, because what they are doing with these congestion levy amendments is wrong. It is putting workers in danger, and it is forcing taxes on things for reasons that are misleading. The government is misleading Victorians through this. It is not a congestion levy. They are not taxing congestion. If it was a tax similar to the one in New South Wales, maybe I could say, ‘Well, actually they are trying to stop congestion because that is based on whether or not the car park is actually used.’ But in Victoria, no, we are just basing it on how many car parks you have, regardless of whether they are used. So it is not a congestion levy, it is just a tax on car parks, and this is wrong.

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (22:10): I rise to speak on the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025, and it is a dog’s breakfast of a bill. If they could tax dogs’ breakfasts, they would; in turn they have just taxed dogs. This bill is an absolute tax grab by this Labor government, desperate to find revenue to plug its ever-growing debt. It contains two significant tax increases that just illustrate how tired and bereft of ideas this government has become. The first is a completely unjustifiable hike on the congestion levy, payable on car parks in the CBD and surrounding suburbs; and the second is a completely shameless tax grab that increases the registration fee for our beloved pets to either be passed onto pet owners or to be absorbed by already stretched local councils. How many times do you want to whack councils with more and more costs that have always been in the remit of the state government? We had an entire inquiry on this actually, where the government was found out for continuously handballing responsibilities and debt onto local government.

I want to talk about the 73 per cent increase in the congestion levy, because it is a whopper of a tax increase. The levy hike punishes Victorians, it harms small businesses, it discourages visitors and it undermines Melbourne’s recovery, and all without any credible evidence – not one shred of credible evidence – that this tax reduces congestion. And we know, because the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop has not ruled it out, that the Suburban Rail Loop precincts will be covered by a congestion levy, and you can have any bet they will be at these increased rates. So if you live in Cheltenham or Box Hill or Glen Waverley or around Monash along the Suburban Rail Loop, you can guarantee – because they will not deny it – that those communities are about to be taxed with a congestion levy. ‘Oh, but no tax increases for existing home owners,’ the minister for the SRL says. Actually there is, and it is in the form of a congestion levy on all of those areas to fill their value capture black hole, which will be funded by state debt up-front.

This government has run out of money. We are hurtling towards $194 billion of debt – $25 million a day; over $2 million an hour. And when Labor waste – as they have wasted $50 billion of infrastructure cost blowouts, all under Jacinta Allan’s watch – and when they torch $600 million on the Commonwealth Games, somebody has to pay for that, and the people that are paying the price are, around the clock, health workers and frontline workers who work in inner-city locations like Richmond or Stonnington or park around the Alfred or some of our hospitals around Richmond. Now they are going to be taxed. So this side loves to say that they are for workers, but they would love nothing more, absolutely nothing more, than to get some revenue out of them too.

Jaclyn Symes interjected.

Evan MULHOLLAND: I will take the interjection from the Treasurer, who says hospitals are exempted from it. But we know that many staff park in existing areas outside of their hospitals, as what happens –

Jaclyn Symes: Street parking is exempt as well.

Evan MULHOLLAND: Have you tried to park around those hospitals, Treasurer? I do not think so. I have, and many will use existing car park facilities like Wilson. Frontline workers in the city will be taxed because this government has run out of money. You have run out of money, and you are going to apply the same congestion levy to all those Suburban Rail Loop precincts. We know this because the minister has not ruled it out. It is going to be part of the value capture plan. As we have seen, the congestion levy will apply to those areas to fill their value capture black hole, as reported by the Age and the Herald Sun, who scoped out five so-called different options to fill the value capture black hole. If you live in those areas, you will also be getting a congestion levy. Category 1 is rising from $1750 to $3030 per parking space. The category 2 levy is rising from $1240 to $2150 per parking space. This government clearly does not like people who travel into the city by car.

I thought Mr Ettershank made an excellent point, because it goes the same way for people in my community as well. He was talking about places like Wyndham Vale. Wyndham Vale is very similar to the outer suburbs in my electorate, where over 70 per cent of people in those communities have to leave those communities for their employment. This government does not care about those communities. They have to leave those communities. They have no public transport. Mr Ettershank mentioned Wyndham Vale. The government have been promising for the last two elections – not one, two elections – that they will electrify those train lines, and no-one believes them. You rock up to Tarneit station or Donnybrook station, and what should be a metropolitan electrified rail service is a three-car V/Line service with a packed platform of people unable to get on the train. Why is that? It is because of this government’s decisions, because of this government’s waste and because of this government ploughing $50 billion of cost blowouts. Instead of, as we saw with Infrastructure Victoria, urgently required infrastructure projects in our growth areas of Melbourne, they have carried the horse and cart along to plough into the Suburban Rail Loop in the eastern suburbs, instead of the urgent priorities that Victoria needs. That is what this government has done. Again, it does not actually care about the growth areas of Melbourne and their needs.

I ask those ministers making a decision to go to Donnybrook station early in the morning and watch the train cancellations go by and stations pack up. Go to Tarneit station and they will see that, first of all, the public transport system is not adequate, and secondly, they will know that people have to travel by car. Many people work around the clock in those communities, in the city and in the inner city, and this government does not care about them.

This is a terrible tax. It will affect many people in my electorate, and it is just a disgraceful tax. It expands east into parts of Burnley, Cremorne, South Yarra, Windsor, Richmond, Abbotsford and Prahran. Car parks in the City of Yarra and the City of Stonnington are now captured for the first time. This will have a huge impact on Victorians. The average cost will be $13 per day plus GST per CBD car space. That has to be passed on. I do not want to hear lectures from this government about cost-of-living pressures and how it cares about cost-of-living pressures when it is literally adding to the cost-of-living burdens of all Victorians. This government is doing that. Of course costs will be passed on. Regional Victorians travelling to Melbourne for medical appointments will be paying. Families heading into the city for events, shows or sporting matches will be paying. Victorians with a disability for whom public transport is not always suitable will be paying. Anyone who prefers to avoid late-night public transport for safety reasons will be paying because of this government’s decisions to waste, to rack up the debt and to blow out on infrastructure projects – that is what this government has done. Driving and parking in Melbourne should remain accessible and affordable. This policy absolutely does reduce choice and safety, especially at night.

Car park owners, who are operators, warn closures are likely as costs cannot be absorbed. Local businesses and shopping strips, like Bridge Road, Chapel Street, Fitzroy and Albert Park, will suffer from reduced customer access and foot traffic. In the same way that they have damn near killed Victoria Street they are eyeing off other streets to tax and to make pay. Businesses are already struggling through economic conditions, debt levies and other charges.

There is no evidence that this tax will reduce congestion. The claim that the levy reduces congestion lacks evidence. No modelling has been provided. However, the government did model the revenue that it expects to generate but just not on the claim that the levy reduces congestion – it is funny, that. This is a revenue-raising measure, not a congestion reduction strategy. This is a government focused on plugging budget deficits by taxing Victorians.

I will just finish off by saying that this bill introduces a 100 per cent increase in the state government’s share of cat and dog registration fees. The amount payable to the state government per pet registration will rise from $4.51 to $9, indexed annually under the Monetary Units Act 2004, and the greyhound registration levy paid to the state doubles from $3.50 to $7. The government is running out of money, and it is now targeting family pets as a source of revenue. You know that if it woofs or purrs, Labor will tax it. This is a bad tax as well. We knew that the government would tax anything, but this is a step too far. Many dog and cat owners will be appalled by this, as I am.

It just goes to show the waste of this government and its decisions around infrastructure cost blowouts, its decisions around the Commonwealth Games, its decisions which I highlighted last week. It cut $1.3 million in a cruel, heartless cut from Parentline, a much-loved service. Almost a week later it announced round 2 of the little anglers program for $1.5 million to hand out fishing rods to schoolkids – after the success of round 1, where it also spent another $1.5 million, only to have hundreds of Victorian government–branded fishing rods up on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree. But ‘Yes, let’s cut Parentline and use that cut to fund little anglers.’ Those decisions symbolise the character of this government and of the waste that we have seen. We have up to $194 billion of debt that we are heading to, $25 million a day, over $2 million an hour. When you waste money – when Labor wastes money – somebody has to pay for that, and all Victorians are paying the price for your terrible decisions, including this terrible tax, which will impact my community.

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (22:25): Thank you to those that have made contributions on the bill and for the opportunity to briefly sum up on what is a relatively straightforward bill. People seem to have grasped the intention of it, so I do not need to go over it in too much detail, but I do want to just revisit the non-permanent shelters exemption. It is something that is going to have a really big impact on a small cohort of people. It exempts properties with a value of under $300,000 from land tax if there is a non-permanent shelter on that land that is being used as the owner’s home. This is a situation that has come up on occasion. I have had requests for ex gratia consideration from people in this situation. I have had stories of people for a range of reasons, whether it is loss of employment, illness, marriage breakdown or other things that have happened in their lives that perhaps have meant that they are living in a temporary structure or a caravan on their land. This is effectively a legislative fix that is catching up with the way I have been treating these examples that have been brought to my attention, because I have exempted many of these people through the ex gratia process. So ensuring that this is an automatic exemption, in my view, is only fair. I thank in particular the State Revenue Office for the information also in feeding through some of these examples. I am very pleased to have this minor fix, which impacts just a very small amount of people but has a big impact on them, given the stories that I have come across in my inbox.

Dinner Plain is obviously in my electorate, and I am very familiar with it. The bill brings the village into line with other alpine resorts across the state by exempting them from being liable for vacant residential land tax. Again, this is common sense. Accommodation at Dinner Plain, for all intents and purposes, is very similar in relation to usage of other alpine resorts like Falls Creek, Mount Hotham and Mount Buller. They are almost exclusively used for only a few months a year and quiet for the majority of the year, so this is fixing this up and ensuring that this community is treated similarly to those. I know that there are many MPs that have had this brought to their attention as well, particularly those of us that share the same parts of northern Victoria as those people that we represent. So thank you to those members that have welcomed that change.

Obviously most of the debate tonight has centred on the congestion levy, and I think that is probably where we will spend a bit of time in the committee stage as well. But I do want to point out that it is not a new tax; it is a levy, and it was introduced in 2006 by the Bracks government. The original levy was $400 per space. That went up to $1300 per space when the Liberals were in government in 2014. I think Mr Batchelor went through some of the history in relation to that. But for the past 11 years the rate has only been indexed, and today we are responding to advocacy, advice and information in relation to the benefits of making changes to the congestion levy, because it will go some way to tackling congestion in the city. We know that congestion stifles business, it clogs up the city, and we will have over $10 billion in lost productivity by 2030 if we do not act in relation to making these changes. Both through this bill and by increasing public transport offerings, we think that this is about getting the balance right and providing a good outcome for the city of Melbourne.

The total increases per day for each zone, I just want to reiterate, are $3.50 per day for current category 1 and $2.50 per day for category 2. Despite Mr Mulholland’s contribution, there are a range of exemptions that pick up things like hospitals, on-street parking, car parks that are provided for shift workers and schools. I guess what I would say too is that this this was announced in the budget update last year, and since that time I have engaged in a lot of consultation on this bill to make sure that we have had the conversations with a range of people, which is why we have picked up and made some new exemptions and things reflecting the experience and real-life examples that have been brought to my attention.

The increase is liable to be paid by the car park owner, and I do not know why people are sort of making their comments about the concern of it being passed on to the consumer. That is deliberate; we want it passed on to the users of the car parks, because that is how you deter people from using their cars who could take up the many, many options in relation to public transport here in the state of Victoria, and the very affordable public transport, because we have made changes in relation to regional fares, opportunities for seniors – that will be extended to every weekend next year – and obviously the announcement in relation to free public transport for under-18s. So public transport in Victoria is very affordable and very accessible, not to mention more and more services coming online with increased rolling stock and obviously Melbourne Metro Tunnel, which is going to allow, again, more and more services for people to get into the city and move around and really reduce the use of cars, not to mention making the city a safer place for those that want to engage in cycling or walking – less cars, less opportunities for them to interact and cause issues with active transport users.

What I just did also want to point out is the daily increases that are referred to cover a 24-hour period. If you think about when car parks are used, generally someone does not park in a car park for 24 hours; generally there is a fair bit of turnover. If you consider a car park in category 1 of $3.50 per day, even if that is passed on to the car park user, that is going to be passed on and spread across multiple users. That is my experience of seeing what happens with the turnover in car parks for that period of time.

There has been a little talk about the expanded zone. I have got a map that clearly demonstrates that this is about fairness. This is about equal treatment of like communities, and these are small amendments to lines on a map. I think there was a lot of talk about the impact on those communities in relation to the car parks, but there are actually not a lot of paid car parks that are going to be picked up by the congestion levy in this respect, because there are a lot of existing exemptions and a lot of on-the-street car parks. I heard a lot about Victoria Street – well, the parking on Victoria Street is not picked up in this bill. In relation to some of the car parks in that area, some of those are also the conditional car park arrangements, where it is free for a period of time unless you stay past a certain amount of hours. We have made special accommodation for those types of car parks as well in the interests of fairness.

There has been a lot of commentary around the fact that this is not about dealing with congestion, and I think it is best for me to point to others that suggest perhaps that is wrong. We know it works, Infrastructure Victoria found it works, and the Grattan Institute have also found it works. In 2018 Infrastructure Victoria – so, again, this is an independent infrastructure advisory body – conducted a review of the last time the levy boundary was expanded. They concluded that the levy had been successful at reducing the supply of leviable car parking in the leviable area, which led to 3900 vehicles off the morning peak period. By way of comparison, that means that the last increase in the levy saved around two lanes of freeway worth of congestion on our roads. This is a significant impact. They have done the modelling; this is not government modelling. In today’s money, I am advised that this would be almost $1.6 billion in avoided freeway expansion costs. So there is a lot of benefit in looking at this model, and that is why we are here today.

Also, in their 2020 report titled Good Move: Fixing Transport Congestion, Infrastructure Victoria again commented on the benefits of congestion levy and went further, recommending the congestion levy charge be increased and be expanded to include Richmond, South Yarra, Windsor and Prahran to tackle congestion. This was in 2020. The Grattan Institute has consistently called on the Victorian government to increase Melbourne’s parking levy to match Sydney’s, as Melbourne’s parking levy is around half the cost of Sydney’s. The institute also believes a reduction in banked-up cars will create a more livable city while improving road safety for pedestrians and cyclists, issues I touched on before.

I do want to thank all of the organisations that we consulted with. As I said, it was probably originally intended that this congestion levy would be part of an earlier bill, but I delayed it to ensure that I could continue to have active consultation in relation to the impact and consider some of the suggestions that were coming through. In particular I would like to thank the Shopping Centre Council of Australia, Vicinity Centres, Property Council of Australia, Salta Properties, Wilson Parking, Queen Victoria Market, Parking Australia and Assemble. I do particularly want to call out to the Shopping Centre Council of Australia, because without their consistent engagement we would not have had the reliable data and material available that got us to the position of being able to provide a 50 per cent concession for shopping centres providing conditionally free parking. Without this information and assistance to government, we would not have been able to implement the concession without being confident that it was the right thing to do. This, I believe, is a good outcome. It will make the application of the congestion levy fairer.

Throughout the consultation on the bill, as I said, we have made multiple concessions, following representations. I would like to particularly point to the shift in boundary applying to the Queen Vic market from category 1 to category 2. Queen Vic market is right on the border of the categories, and we think that its congestion impact is more closely aligned with category 2 than category 1 after consulting with them. It also brings the market into line with other markets in the congestion levy area – namely, South Melbourne Market and Prahran Market. Also, we really do recognise the importance of encouraging the weekly food produce shop at these markets, so I was very pleased to be able to respond to that advocacy and make that change.

I will move on from the congestion levy to a couple of the other elements of the bill. We are doing some good things for the New Zealanders. The tax bill, as I said, has a lot of fairness components, and so that is why we are making it better for New Zealanders who ordinarily live in Australia. They will be exempt from the absentee owner charge and foreign purchaser additional duty. I thank the members that have welcomed that change.

Pet registration has attracted some conversation as well. It does make modest increases for pet registration fees charged by the state for dogs and cats from $4.50 to $9 and for greyhounds from $3.50 to $7. It is important to note that this reflects the growing demand and complexity in animal welfare management and costs in providing these programs and services. All revenue goes towards animal welfare, ensuring that Victoria can continue to have the services and laws in place to protect our pets and wildlife. This will fund responsible pet ownership programs, research into domestic animal management, administration of laws that protect our pets and trial of the RSPCA’s two-up model and allow for an expansion of animal welfare initiatives. I understand that there are a few amendments for the committee stage. I am more than happy to deal with those, and I might leave that for the committee stage. I commend the bill to the house.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Committed.

Clause 1 (22:39)

David DAVIS: I move:

1.   Suggested amendment to the Legislative Assembly –

Clause 1, page 2, lines 1 to 19, omit all words and expressions on these lines and insert –

“(b)   to amend the Congestion Levy Act 2005 to make statute law revision amendments; and”.

This is a suggested amendment because we cannot amend money bills and hence we can only suggest it to the Assembly. But this, as I understand it, is a test for our other amendments on the omission of congestion levy changes. What we seek to do here, in short, is to deal with the expansion of the zone and the increase in the amounts in the congestion levy.

Jaclyn SYMES: I think it goes without saying that the government will not support an amendment that effectively diminishes the good work that is contained in the bill.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: The Greens will also not be supporting this amendment.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The question is that Mr Davis’s suggested amendment 1, which tests his amendments 3, 5 and 7 to 17, be agreed to.

Council divided on suggested amendment:

Aiv PUGLIELLI: I move:

1.   Clause 1, page 2, after line 19 insert –

“(vii) to require the Minister to enter into a memorandum of understanding with each municipal council regarding the funding of active transport initiatives; and”.

I will speak to this briefly. As I said in the second-reading debate, there is currently no requirement for the government to distribute any revenue to affected councils or towards transport infrastructure under the Congestion Levy Act. This amendment inserts into the legislation a requirement that the government must effectively do both of these things – that it must allocate some annual funding to the five councils currently affected by the levy and that the councils in turn can use to fund active transport initiatives in each of their local communities. The amendment provides a mechanism for this by requiring the government to enter into separate memorandums of understanding with each council that is affected by the levy. Currently the state government has an MOU with the City of Melbourne that provides the council with $7 million annually for active transport initiatives due to the congestion levy, but for Yarra, Merri-bek, Port Phillip and Stonnington city councils, this would mean they would be allocated funding as a result of the congestion levy scheme for the first time.

Establishing this requirement in legislation would also ensure that all these inner-city councils, including Melbourne, could be confident that they would receive this annual funding from the state government on an ongoing basis. While the amount allocated to councils is not legislated, we have a separate agreement that has been reached with the government that at least $15 million in total will be distributed across all the councils every year. For Yarra, Merri-bek, Port Phillip and Stonnington, this will mean they receive funding for the first time that they would not otherwise receive, and for the City of Melbourne it will mean they receive more funding than they currently do under their existing agreement with the state government. The governments also agreed that the MOUs will specify that funding must go to active transport infrastructure projects and cannot be used simply for the routine maintenance of roads and footpaths that the councils already carry out.

Regardless of where you stand, I suppose, on the congestion levy as a whole, what my Greens colleagues and I are putting forward is requiring that some funding must be directed to these communities from which the revenue is generated for active transport infrastructure instead of it all sitting in the state government’s consolidated revenue. This we see as an improvement on the changes proposed in the bill, and I commend the amendment to the house.

David DAVIS: The Liberals and Nationals will on this occasion not support the amendment, but we understand the spirit that it is brought in. The congestion levy, the parking tax, scoops in a truckload of money, and it goes into consolidated revenue, often to be squandered on large projects that do not return what they should, and there are other similar issues. I think what the Greens are seeking to do here is to in some respect, to a certain level, hypothecate, but we do not think this goes to a level that would achieve that. And we do not agree that only active transport should be considered. There are other worthy transport projects that surely would be worthy of consideration. But it is an amendment brought in good spirit, and we recognise that.

David LIMBRICK: I thank Mr Puglielli for putting forward this amendment, and I actually appreciate the spirit in which it is intended, which is to return the money back to the communities from which it was taken. However, I share Mr Davis’s concern in that I am not sure that this is the best way of going about this; in fact I am very upset about the money being taken in the first place. Therefore my position is that I will simply oppose the bill overall and not support this amendment. Regardless of that, I acknowledge the idea of returning the money back to the community from which it was taken, but I would rather it was not taken in the first place.

David ETTERSHANK: We have indicated already our position on the car park tax. However, we are supportive of this amendment from the Greens. It will make a contribution, particularly in preserving the current funding to the City of Melbourne and also to a couple of other local councils. On that basis, to the degree that it will assist in active public transport use, that is a desirable thing.

Jaclyn SYMES: I thank Mr Puglielli and the Greens for this amendment. I note the government is supportive of it. I would also like to thank the Greens for their constructive conversations in relation to this matter. As has been pointed out by Mr Ettershank, there has been an existing practice with the City of Melbourne in relation to $7 million going back into council’s funds for active transport projects, and having conversations in relation to extending this to other impacted councils is common sense. As I indicated in my summing-up, tackling congestion in the inner city is really important to productivity. I think it has been articulated as money that comes out of these communities. I have said that these are communities and councils that will benefit from a congestion levy because they will have less congestion and therefore their businesses will have people coming and going and there will be less emissions and a nicer environment to perhaps get on your bike or take a stroll in. Obviously we are also investing in public transport and making that more accessible and more affordable. So there are plenty of opportunities for people to take up those transport options. The improvement of active and public transport alternatives is in the spirit of this bill; therefore the suggested amendment specifying the MOU is something that we are happy to support and again thank the Greens for.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The question is that Mr Puglielli’s amendment 1 be agreed to. This tests all of Mr Puglielli’s remaining amendments.

Council divided on amendment:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Mr Davis, I invite you to move your suggested amendment 2, which tests your suggested amendments 4, 6 and 18 to 20.

David DAVIS: I move:

2.   Suggested amendment to the Legislative Assembly –

Clause 1, page 3, lines 29 to 32 and page 4, lines 1 to 3, omit all words and expressions on these lines.

This is the Fido and Kitty tax amendment, and this seeks –

Jaclyn Symes: Is that your pet’s name?

David DAVIS: No, we have a different name for our pet, but this is two archetypal pets that are to be taxed by the government. That is what is going on here: a tax for Kitty and a tax for Fido. It is a modest amount of money, but it doubles the amount of the government take, and it inevitably will be passed by councils through to the owners of Kitty and Fido.

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.

Jaclyn SYMES: Pursuant to standing order 4.08, I declare the sitting to be extended by up to 1 further hour.

David DAVIS: This is a test for the remaining amendments that apply in relation to this particular issue.

David LIMBRICK: I will be supporting this amendment, although I do not own a Fido or Kitty. I have a rabbit, which is exempt from taxes.

Members interjecting.

David LIMBRICK: Rabbits are libertarian, I think. Not for long under this government – they will come for the rabbits eventually. I know that they will come for the rabbits, so I will stand up for the dogs and cats now, but the rabbits will come later.

Georgie PURCELL: I just thought it was important I spoke on this one briefly as well because it is obviously an issue that has come across my desk quite significantly, being from the Animal Justice Party. I will not be supporting this amendment. I have made it really clear that the revenue raised from this increase goes into really important animal welfare initiatives across Victoria. I have actually engaged pretty significantly with the organisations who benefit from this funding. They are in need of this funding, and many pet owners across the state are happy to pay an increased amount if it means that animals are better protected in Victoria, although I have expressed my disappointment that the greyhound racing industry is paying less than what is paid for the family pet. I hope that the government do take that feedback on board, given that they are creating many of the animal welfare problems in Victoria. And my cat is actually called Kitty.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: I concur, effectively, in whole with Ms Purcell’s contribution. For similar reasons, the Greens will not be supporting this amendment.

Jaclyn SYMES: I thank Ms Purcell for her conversations with me on this introduction to the state tax bill. Obviously it is in relation to changes under the Domestic Animals Act 1994, so it was something that came in and used my bill as a vessel. I had the opportunity to talk to Ms Purcell about some of the important initiatives that she gets behind and some of the animal welfare outcomes that can benefit from what is a really, really small increase. It is about $4 million a year that it will raise, and it will all go to helping fund responsible pet ownership programs, animal welfare initiatives, research and the like. I would also put on record that this is being communicated as a doubling of registration fees. I have had a lot of correspondence come through my office that says, ‘The Liberals told me that my pet registration fee is going to double.’ No, it is the state government component, which is $4.50, which is about 8 cents per day. I have had a lot of feedback saying, ‘For $4.50 a year I would love to contribute to animal welfare.’

Nick McGowan: $4.50 or $450? A day?

Jaclyn SYMES: Four dollars and 50 cents a year per cat or dog, not rabbit. I would just put it that there are a lot of people who are concerned they are going to receive doubled registration bills from their council, which is not what is happening. It is a $4.50 increase going to causes that Ms Purcell would rather –

Members interjecting.

Jaclyn SYMES: It is a levy from the Domestic Animals Act and it does not come to the Treasurer, Mr Mulholland, so we will not be supporting the exclusion of this from the bill.

Council divided on suggested amendment:

Clause 18 (23:12)

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Mr Puglielli, I invite you to move your amendments 2 to 4, which have already been tested by your amendment 1.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: I move:

2.   Clause 18, line 15, omit “section 34A” and insert “sections 34A and 34B”.

3.   Clause 18, line 24, omit ‘area.”.’ and insert “area.”.

4.   Clause 18, after line 24 insert –

‘34B Memoranda of understanding with municipal councils

(1) The Minister, on behalf of the State, must enter into a memorandum of understanding with each municipal council whose municipal district includes any land that is in the levy area.

(2) A memorandum of understanding under subsection (1) must relate to an annual allocation to the municipal council for the purpose of funding active transport or other transport initiatives.”.’.

Amendments agreed to; amended clause agreed to.

Clause 19 (23:13)

David DAVIS: I move:

1.   Suggested amendment to the Legislative Assembly –

Clause 19, lines 16 and 17, omit “, Stonnington”.

2.   Suggested amendment to the Legislative Assembly –

Clause 19, lines 17 and 18, omit “Dandenong Rd, Queens Way,”.

3.   Suggested amendment to the Legislative Assembly –

Clause 19, page 15, lines 6 to 8, omit “, a straight line extending, at the same angle as Williams Rd N, to Williams Rd N, Williams Rd N and Williams Rd” and insert “and Punt Rd”.

These are levy area changes and they relate to the City of Stonnington. They are advocated strongly for by the member for Prahran Rachel Westaway. She is very determined that everything be done to make sure that these new parking taxes are not imposed in the area of the City of Stonnington in this way. The government’s major expansion will have a very detrimental effect on key areas in Stonnington, including Chapel Street and associated areas. She has been a very strong and as I say a fierce advocate for her area and has insisted that this amendment be put and that for those who wish to penalise Chapel Street it is seen very clearly that that is what they are doing.

Jaclyn SYMES: The government will not be supporting this amendment. The expanded zone is reasonable, legitimate and about equity. The areas of Prahran, South Yarra, Richmond and surrounds are similar to the inner south and inner north, with similar congestion levies, transport serviceability and distance from the city. That is why Stonnington has been included in the expanded levy and, thanks to consultation with the Greens, will benefit from some flow-on funds for active transport for their community and visitors to their community. I will also point out that in their 2020 report titled Good Move: Fixing Transport Congestion, Infrastructure Victoria provided recommendations that the congestion levy charge be increased and be expanded to include Richmond, South Yarra, Windsor and Prahran to tackle congestion.

David DAVIS: I appreciate the government’s view on this and I know Infrastructure Victoria did work on this area, but Infrastructure Victoria did not look at the detailed negative effects of these parking taxes on local areas. They did not look at the increased impact on small businesses and related matters. So in those circumstances I understand why Ms Westaway would be so firm in pushing to protect areas.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: The Greens will not be supporting this amendment.

Council divided on suggested amendments:

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (23:22): I move:

That the report be now adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (23:22): I move:

That the bill be now read a third time and do pass.

Council divided on motion:

The PRESIDENT: Pursuant to standing order 14.28, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that the Council have agreed to the bill with amendments.