TREASURER Tim Pallas’ announcement of significant increases in the emergency services and volunteers fund (ESVF) have been condemned by the opposition parties as a blatant tax grab.
Last week Mr Pallas said from July 1 next year the ESVF would replace the fire services property levy (FSPL).
He said it would “help support a broader range of emergency services and for the first time include VICSES, Triple Zero Victoria, the State Control Centre, Forest Fire Management Victoria and Emergency Recovery Victoria, as well as the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV)”.
The Treasurer, who announced this week that he would be stepping away from politics, said the ESVF would expand upon the services funded by the existing FSPL, to include funding for more of Victoria’s emergency and disaster response services.
Adding the ESVF will fund up to 87.5 per cent of FRV’s budget, and up to 95 per cent of the CFA’s budget.
In addition, the ESVF will fund up to 95 per cent of the following budgets:
* Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES)
* Triple Zero Victoria
* State Control Centre
* Emergency Recovery Victoria
* Emergency Management Victoria
* Emergency Alert Program (automatic emergency warning SMSs)
* Emergency Management Operational Communication Program
* Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic) and its support functions within the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action
The ESVF will be calculated on a fixed charge varying by property type, and a variable charge based on property value and collected by local councils.
Pensioners, veterans and single farm enterprises will continue to receive concessions.
Key changes include:
From 1 July 2025:
* The vacant land category will be abolished, with vacant land allocated to its corresponding land use classification (e.g. vacant industrial land will be reclassified as industrial land).
* Variable rates will increase to raise additional revenue to fund the services being covered by the ESVF (see Table 1).
From 1 July 2026:
* A new category will be created for residential PPR.
* Non-PPR residential properties will incur the non-residential fixed charge.
The Nationals Member for Murray Plains, Peter Walsh, said the Allan Labor government’s latest tax grab – more than $2.1 billion through the fire services levy – was pure theft.
Mr Walsh said the tax slug had been almost doubled, from 8.7 cents per $1000 in a property’s capital improved value, to a whopping 17.3 per cent.
He said Victorian homeowners, businesses and especially farmers “are all victims of this blatant scam”.
“Even worse, commercial, industrial and primary production landowners will pay 100, 64 and 189 per cent more respectively – in a shock announcement coming just days after Labor’s fraudulent ‘economic growth statement’ which failed to reduce any tax on businesses,” Mr Walsh said.
“The Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund (ESVF) will see all of Victoria’s emergency services, which are normally allocated funding in the annual state budget, now rely on the new levy to fund up to 95 per cent of their operations.
“But with a classic Jacinta Allan sleight of hand, her Labor government will claim it is handing money to all sorts of organisations and sectors and in the end no-one will know where it has gone – it will just disappear along with all the billions and billions of dollars this incompetent government has made disappear into the Big Bill, the pockets of the CFMEU and into its army of consultants.”
Mr Walsh said to clobber families with yet another tax, in Australia’s most taxed state, during our worsening cost-of-living crisis, was “outrageous”.
“All Labor’s new tax grab will do is put further pressure on prices of essential goods and services during a cost-of-living crisis, at a time when inflation remains high,” Mr Walsh said.
“The financial recklessness of Labor means it cannot fund our frontline emergency services and is now hitting Victorian ratepayers with yet another increased tax.
“After slashing tens of millions of dollars from Triple Zero Victoria, the State Emergency Service and the Country Fire Authority in the past two years, it’s clear Labor cannot manage money, cannot manage emergency services and Victorians are paying the price – let’s just hope we don’t find out how bad that cost will be as we head into another fire season.”
