Ratepayers in the Rural City of Wangaratta have already started to pay for the Victorian government’s recently introduced Emergency Services Volunteers Fund levy.
It replaced the Fire Services Property Levy (FSPL) on July 1, and will see rural city ratepayers collectively fork out another $3 million this financial year, as part of an additional $610m the FSPL will raise across the state for the government.
Labor MPs have justified the hike in the state tax to fund a range of emergency services, including 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).
Let’s be honest and call a spade a spade.
This has less to do with volunteers and more to do about filling the government coffers - at your expense - to pay for government departments and public sector agencies.
As respected veteran Wangaratta firefighter Garry Nash - in his capacity as Victorian Fire Brigades Victoria District 23 president - points out in today’s edition, only around 20 per cent of this tax will go towards helping fund the CFA.
If that isn’t insulting enough for the 55,000 plus volunteer firefighters who freely give their time, often at great personal loss, to help protect our communities, the CFA budget remains challenged and these same volunteers have to fund their own equipment, trucks and and even station improvements.
For decades our state’s firefighting capacity outside Melbourne has relied on the goodwill and skills of our CFA volunteers.
That continues to be tested, unfairly, by a government that seems hell bent on making others pay for its costly budget blowouts.
