Thursday, 18 June 2026

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (12:00): (1365) My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, on Tuesday, you suggested I was spreading misinformation. You said:

… there are those out there saying that farmers are paying more when they are not … saying volunteers are paying the tax and they are not.

If you had been at the Bendigo rally, you could have listened to those people yourself. You could have told them they were mistaken, that they do not understand their own rates notices and that they turned up obviously for no good reason. But just this week the VFF said:

Victorian farmers will pay significantly more under the ESVF …

So, Treasurer, are you accusing the VFF of spreading misinformation too?

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:01): Mrs McArthur, I can show you the correspondence that I have written to the VFF, which absolutely confirms that there is no change to the rate that is applied to primary production properties as a result of the ESVF. It is the same as it was under the fire services property levy. In relation to farmers who are also eligible active volunteers or life members of the CFA or the SES, they are eligible for a rebate. So farmers will be paying the same rate or less if they are also a volunteer. That is a fact.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (12:02): Treasurer, you clearly do not even understand your own tax. You absolutely do not. The last full year of the fire services property levy raised $1 billion. Your own budget papers now show the volunteer tax raising $1.6 billion. Which Victorians are paying the extra $570 million if you are saying everybody is exempt?

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:02): As we went through in great detail during the committee stage of this legislation, the average increase to a residential property is around $60 a year from the introduction of the ESVF. Only 10 per cent of the ESVF is raised from primary production land, with residential and non-resi industrial and commercial properties making up the other 90 per cent. As I have reiterated, one of the other elements of misinformation is that country people are paying more than city people for the ESVF. I can confirm that the ESVF is around 24 per cent from the regions and 76 per cent from metropolitan Melbourne, which is below proportional population rates.