Hundreds of CFA volunteers have descended on Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan’s home town to make their voices heard on Labor’s emergency services tax. Their message was clear – scrap the tax!
Victorians are now paying the highest emergency services levy of any state in the nation at $221 per person per year. For the average household, that’s a 33.4 per cent increase. For commercial properties, it’s a staggering 77.3 per cent hike. An independent Parliamentary Budget Office report has confirmed what regional communities have known for some time: this government is treating Victorians like an ATM.
What makes this so galling is what we’re getting in return. While the tax has surged 44 per cent, the Allan Labor Government has actually cut the budgets of the CFA and SES over recent years.
Our volunteer firefighters are being asked to do more with less, in some cases operating trucks that are nearly 40 years old. Some of the oldest firefighting equipment in the nation is being driven by the very people who give up their weekends and holidays to protect our communities.
The CFA volunteers who rallied weren’t just protesting a tax. They were protesting a government that has lost control of the budget and is passing the pain on to the people who can least afford it – regional families, farmers, and small business owners already doing it tough.
The Nationals stand with the CFA and our emergency services workers. A future Liberals and Nationals government will scrap this tax entirely and replace it with a fairer, more sustainable funding model that properly supports our emergency services and the volunteers who power them.
Regional Victoria protects itself. It’s time the government started protecting us too.
Danny O’Brien MP
Leader of The Nationals, Shadow Minister for Emergency Services, Member for Gippsland South
