Thursday, 20 March 2025

Bills

Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Eden FOSTER (Mulgrave) (15:02): I am pleased to rise today in support of the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. I thank the Minister for Finance for introducing the bill as well as the hard work and contributions the Treasurer and the Minister for Emergency Services have made in developing this legislation.

In Victoria we are lucky to have a broad and varied array of services ready to protect us from everything life can throw at us. From Fire Rescue Victoria to Triple Zero Victoria and the SES and CFA, our community is served by great institutions that make great sacrifices to keep the rest of us safe. If you have been paying attention to the national news recently, you will have watched the destruction caused by ex-tropical cyclone Alfred with a vexed combination of fear and awe. We have all been devastated by the pain and loss experienced by our northern neighbours. At the same time, I have been struck by how our courageous emergency response forces have stepped up to save the needy and endangered in the path of Alfred and indeed the trail of destruction it left behind.

For those Queenslanders that did not have multimillion-dollar harbourside mansions in which they could wait out the storm and schmooze big business, institutions like the SES and Triple Zero have been the difference between recovery and ruin, life and death. All of this stands to reiterate one crucial thing: as much as we hope it will not, when the time comes that nature throws its worst at Victoria, be it fire, flood or cyclone, we need our emergency services to be ready, resourced and supported to get the job done. That is exactly what this bill is about. Acting Speaker De Martino, I am sure in your own electorate of Monbulk you have seen firsthand the impact that Mother Nature can have on our community and the work that the SES has done to support that community of yours and mine alike.

This legislation will allow the government to fund a broader range of services, thus better reflecting the realities of the sector as it exists in Victoria today. As it stands, Victoria stands alone in the emergency services funding model. Other states have had a singular levy contributing to the funding of emergency services for a while now. They have done this, and we are following suit. It makes sense that despite their varied operational responsibilities these organisations, which share a primary purpose of keeping Victorians safe, are fairly and transparently funded through a single source of revenue. Up to $19 of every $20 that the SES, Triple Zero Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria and many more are given will come from this fund. I want to stress that every dollar raised will go towards vital life-saving equipment, vehicles, staff, training for volunteers, community education and recovery support for when Victorians need it most. At the same time this reform will mean our services are better funded, and that is a change that is coming not a moment too soon.

Those opposite, by blocking this bill, are actually blocking the $250 million investment in more trucks for the CFA and SES, and they should be ashamed of themselves. As we all know all too well, Victoria is one of the most fire-prone jurisdictions in the world. Even so, our emergencies are bigger, more frequent and more devastating than they used to be. The impact of climate change is exacerbating the extremes of our natural disasters and the pain they cause. Who would have thought in the middle of March that we are getting 31-degree days. That tells us a lot about the effect that climate change is having on us, and we need to respond and support our emergency services. It is not just fires; we are reckoning with bigger, harsher and more frequent floods, storms, heatwaves and cold snaps. To put it simply, once-in-a-lifetime weather events and natural disasters are becoming a natural part of Aussie life. We all know that the very real and very lasting destruction these crises bring is not solely measured in material loss, though that is extremely hard to swallow. It is also the mental, physical and emotional scars of these catastrophes that linger far longer than the harm to infrastructure or the state’s bank balance. We often speak about such events in this place, acknowledging the hurt, the loss and the selfless work of emergency responders, professional and volunteer, those people that have been on the scene from response to recovery. It is my position and that of the government that we should act on those sentiments. Actions speak louder than words.

The new funding that this legislation provides for ensures that our emergency services have the boots on the ground and that our emergency workers have the resources they need to step in, step up and save lives even more effectively than they have previously done. This is not just a nice-to-have. The repercussions of our climate crisis, which Aussies around the country experience every single day, make it a necessity. It is not enough to let our emergency services merely scrape by and operate in austerity, having the tin rattle on weekends and those barbecues they do every weekend at Bunnings, as great as they are. We need to be helping them out. We must invest in their work, because in doing so we invest in our safety, our security and our community.

I have come to this conclusion over the course of my tenure as member for Mulgrave. In that time I have had the pleasure of meeting many of our brave community heroes – some volunteers, some professionals – each and every one of them remarkable and inspiring in their devotion, dedication and tenacity in preparing for and responding to those crises. I am particularly influenced by a recent meeting I had with the community branch of the State Emergency Service in Monash, where it became very clear very quickly that the men and women of the service were aligned in their belief that Victoria’s existing funding model left the service worse off than equivalent state branches and indeed the state fire service. Whilst I am on the topic, a big shout-out to George Haitidis and the crew at the Monash SES and to Daniel Pastean and the crew at Greater Dandenong SES for their hard work and their resilience but also their passion for helping others.

But they have stressed to me the importance of such a change, and it is evident that many other representatives in this place have heard the same cries for help and advocacy for change. They know, as we do, that a new form of funding will put our crucial emergency services in a more comfortable financial position and, crucially, allow them to invest in their operating capabilities, thus aiding their long-term service provision. This is not just money, better balance sheets or a healthier bottom line for the management side of these organisations, these are lives saved, homes recovered and livelihoods protected. That is who I will be thinking of as I vote to support this bill becoming legislation: the families of Mulgrave who rely on the capable operation of their emergency services to respond when things go bad and just to be there when they are good, providing valuable assurance that they have got their back should their luck change. It is something that allows me and millions of Victorians to sleep easier at night, and when we back our services in with this new funding, we will all rest even easier. Again, I would like to thank those hardworking volunteers and their families for the sacrifices that they make to keep us safe, to look after us, in these times of need.

I have heard time and time again from my local SES that this levy is needed. If you just look up the website of my local SES, they have publicised that this levy is crucial to them and is very much needed. I support all the emergency services. I support the SES. I support keeping our communities safe. And on that, I commend this bill to the house.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (15:12): I rise this afternoon to absolutely contribute to the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. This bill is another massive tax attack on regional and country Victorians. This tax attack is a disgrace. It is poor form, and it is a tax that every single country Victorian will be paying literally millions and millions and millions more to across country shires right throughout regional Victoria. This tax, in essence, is completely unfair.

The government, in its attempt to make this tax look agreeable, to try and get communities on board, has gone and falsely inserted the word ‘volunteers’ into its title. This bill does nothing of the sort. The state has an essential responsibility to fund and maintain emergency services right throughout country Victoria. For the time that we have had the CFA, the SES, ocean rescue, surf rescues and any number of other emergency service providers in our regions, the state has taken care and funded them.

Back in 2013 a decision was made to cut a tax that was levied against people who paid insurance and offset so everyone fairly contributed to funding emergency services. In this case it was the CFA services and fire services in the state of Victoria. This government, because it is broke, this government, because it cannot manage money, this government, because it is now endlessly at war with property owners, has decided to levy a big new tax and try and convince the people of regional Victoria it is going to help support their essential volunteer services. It is not. This tax will see the best part of an extra $1 billion taxed against Victorians with only a portion of that going back to support volunteer services. It is a nonsense. It is an unfair tax.

In fact my community is telling me that, for an average CFA shed in a hardworking farming district, the collective increase in tax for the farmers that are volunteering for that brigade could have in fact replaced their old and decrepit CFA shed. They could have in fact replaced their 35-year-old CFA truck with the increase in tax that that community will be paying. Instead, this massive new tax – millions and millions of dollars that will be sent from regional Victoria – is in fact going back Melbourne. It is paying for the metropolitan fire service, and not only that, it is going towards paying for government agencies, not volunteers.

It is going to pay for Triple Zero Victoria. Triple Zero Victoria is an essential service that a responsible government should be funding and maintaining out of general revenue. It is going to fund Emergency Management Victoria – again, a service of bureaucrats that should be funded and managed and maintained by a responsible government from general revenue. It is going to fund Forest Fire Management Victoria – again, another government bureaucracy that should be being paid for out of general revenue by a responsible government, by a government that has not gone broke, by a government that has not wasted its money on overblown projects here in Melbourne and a government that is not allowing criminal behaviour on Big Build projects to blow budgets by billions. This is completely irresponsible management. Not only that, it is going to support, with massive increases, FRV, the metropolitan fire service. Again, those services are supposed to be being funded by a responsible state government. Instead, what do our hardworking volunteer brigades in regional Victoria get? What do hardworking surf lifesavers get? What do hardworking SES units get? Very, very little. With the amount extra just next year alone in the first tranche of the tax increase regional Victoria will be paying, or the state will be collecting, more than $600 million extra in this next year. Beyond that, it continues to rise year in and year out until the state is receiving an extra $1 billion on a tax that only started out at less than $400 million when it was first brought in. These are massive increases to the tax, and people in rural and regional Victoria, people that belong to volunteer emergency service agencies, are not seeing a corresponding increase in their much needed and sought after funds and support that a responsible government should give.

For example, take the Corangamite shire: an extra $4.5 million from the Corangamite shire ratepayers will be sucked from Corangamite, and I can assure you that the Corangamite shire will not see an extra $4.5 million this year and an extra $5 million the year following poured back into their emergency services. You know, the Port Campbell Surf Life Saving Club or the SES at Lismore or the SES down at Port Campbell or the SES in Colac or the SES in other parts of Polwarth – in Winchelsea and Lorne and Torquay and other places – none of these places will see the millions extra that have been sucked by this irresponsible government out of their communities getting poured back into those communities. Instead, the government is using the cover and the good nature and the strong reputation of our hardworking emergency service volunteers to massively increase a property tax. It is unfair, it is unjust and it is the hallmark of a government that has lost control of its finances and a government that is refusing to manage the general revenue of this state in a responsible and sustainable way.

So what are we left with? We are left with another lever this government is pulling that will put undue pressure on households in a cost-of-living crisis; it will make rental properties more expensive. Take, for example, just this tax alone combined with already skyrocketing land tax bills. In regional and rural Victoria this is adding massive dollars every week, week in, week out, to the cost of rental property. Now, rentals in parts of the Polwarth electorate, particularly those along the coastal areas, are already well above what most people can afford to rent for those that need to provide essential worker services, whether they are schoolteachers, childcare workers or working in the local hospitals in Apollo Bay or Lorne. In fact we are now going to have, on top of land tax, a massive increase in the fire services levy, which will make Victorian lives more expensive and cost-of-living pressures less sustainable, and it just goes on and on from this government. This government has fundamentally lost control of its budget to the extent that it is now using property and property ownership as its unbridled cash cow. It is inflicting more and more tax year in, year out. This measure of course is coming to us before the budget in another couple of months time, when we will undoubtedly expect to see even bigger increases.

Do you know what is really galling for so many people across the Polwarth electorate with this massive new price increase, this tax increase on their lives? It is that for some of the biggest multinational energy companies, the Minister for Climate Action, who is across the way on the table today, has overseen a massive fire service levy cut and land tax cut to these agencies. Take, for example, one of the richest families in the world, the people that own IKEA, investing in a massive wind farm on the edges of my electorate, and they get millions and millions of dollars cut to their rate and land tax and their fire services levy. How does this government justify that? How does this government say that to all the hardworking farmers and farming communities around wind farms, for example, who will be expected to come out and fight a fire and protect the assets of a multinational, some of the richest energy companies in the world? How do they look them in the eye and say, ‘You’re going to be paying millions more, community, but these guys from overseas, who take their profits overseas, we’re going to give them a massive discount.’ This is unfair, and it speaks to where this government’s priorities are.

They are not worried about the average ratepayer and the average taxpayer in regional Victoria. No, they are certainly not. They are happy to oversee crumbling roads, failing infrastructure and lack of investment in real CFA assets such as sheds, trucks and other equipment that many communities desperately need. In return the investment they are putting into regional Victoria is massive fire service and land tax discounts for multinational energy companies that this government has done its deals with. These are unfair deals. These are unfair tax increases. I do not support this bill.

Alison MARCHANT (Bellarine) (15:22): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. I will just speak a little bit about what this bill aims to do and what that might mean for the electorate of the Bellarine. This bill is about amending the Fire Services Property Levy Act 2012 to replace the fire services property levy with the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund to enable it to fund a broad range of emergency services, and this is to reflect that broader purpose of the bill. The bill renames the principal act to the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund Act 2012.

From 1 July 2025 this bill will make sure that Victoria’s hardworking emergency services – and I will just list who they are. That includes Fire Rescue Victoria; the Country Fire Authority, the CFA; Victoria State Emergency Service, VICSES; Triple Zero Victoria; Emergency Management Victoria; the State Control Centre; Forest Fire Management Victoria and our recovery agencies. This is to ensure that they have the resources they need to keep Victorians safe and help them recover.

This bill will do a couple of things. It will raise an additional $750 million a year when fully implemented. It introduces an exemption from the levy for eligible CFA and VICSES volunteers and life members on their primary place of residence or on a farm of which they are an owner. It does provide the SES and CFA with an additional $250 million support package for a rolling fleet replacement plan, volunteer training, a doubling of the volunteer and emergency services equipment program, those VESEP grants, as they are known, and the modernisation of the Victoria Emergency app. With the opposition opposing this, they are blocking that $250 million investment.

At the very heart of this, though, is the safety and resilience of our communities and the volunteers that are a part of those organisations. This includes the CFA and our State Emergency Service. These wonderful volunteers who dedicate their time are not just agencies or organisations, they actually are the lifeline for countless Victorians when we have a disaster in this state. Whether we are battling bushfires, responding to severe storms or saving lives in times of crisis, the emergency services, the CFA and the SES represent the best of our values of service, courage and commitment.

As beautiful as the Bellarine landscape is, it is also unpredictable. Each year we also face the threat of bushfires or grassfires to our livelihoods and our homes. The CFA, with its tens of thousands of dedicated volunteers and career firefighters, are our first line of defence. They stand ready day and night for when the pager might go off to turn out to a fire or an accident in our communities. They are experts in this fire prevention space as well, but it does not stop when the flames are out. They actually support our communities through that recovery as well and help families rebuild what may have been lost. They educate us on fire preparedness. Many of the CFA brigades on the Bellarine will often be at markets so they can educate and be available for information for our communities, and they actively work in that prevention space as well.

I have been very fortunate to be invited to many CFA stations across the Bellarine, but I had a real-life training experience with the Leopold fire brigade recently, who invited me to their training event. They kitted me all out in the gear – in a helmet and fire protection jacket and pants. They put me in the new tanker, and we were in a real-life training experience session. They put me in the new tanker that we have been able to support them to purchase under that VESEP grant, and I got to experience what the communication was like. They talked to each other about the job that they were going to, what roles each of the members was going to play and what was going to happen when they got to the incident. We then got to the incident, and I was instructed to go with a certain person. Then we grabbed a hose and we attempted to put out a fire in a shipping container, which was very much alight. I could hear the captain, Chris Wilkinson, behind me saying, ‘Advance. Go towards the fire.’ Of course our instant reaction is to go the other way. My heart started pumping pretty quickly, but it was an incredible experience. The hose was turned on, and that was quite an effort to stand my ground, to hold that hose and to put out that fire inside the shipping container. It was all very safely monitored as it was a training exercise, but it gave me a real appreciation of the work that they do and of the professionalism that they have in talking and communicating with each of their team members. It really did give me a great sense, so I want to thank the brigade and particularly the brigade captain Chris and his team for putting me through my paces. I thank them for all the work that they do.

While fire is one of the elements and challenges that we face, it is not the only one. We have been faced with storms more recently as well, floods and all these unexpected weather events, and the SES are also there for us. They turn up and are sometimes the first to turn up to incidents. When disaster strikes, the SES are often first on the scene and they do work really closely alongside the other emergency services. And they do it while we are tucked up in bed and feeling comfortable or watching the VicEmergency app. They are the ones out in these often harsh conditions making sure that we are safe and our communities can recover. We had some major storms last year in September and in February again this year – significant storms where the SES had to respond to multiple calls for assistance. They were addressing water damage and fallen trees, and they certainly are equipped and trained in a real professional sense to respond to those incidents. I thank them for the work they do as well.

Beyond this, the Bellarine SES unit are also actively engaged with their community. They promote that safety and preparedness for events. They conduct educational programs and participate in local events to raise awareness, and it is about preparing us as a community when we have emergency. They have joined me at markets, and I have seen them out and about at various events as well highlighting the work that they do. I was really fortunate to have three women at the International Women’s Day event here in Parliament from the Bellarine SES unit – Nicole, Rachel and Emma were here – just to thank them and to acknowledge the work that they do in the SES unit. More and more women are joining the SES. It is a great organisation to be involved in, and they are very welcoming at the Bellarine SES unit. I am proud that this bill will support the Bellarine SES unit and the team’s unwavering commitment to protecting lives and property.

Both the CFA and the SES are truly extraordinary in their volunteer hours and their dedication to our communities. They are from all walks of life, and they put service beyond self. They are our neighbours, they are our friends and they are our family members who give up their time and their comfort and often their own safety to protect others. We owe them more than just our gratitude; we owe them the resources and the training and the respect that they deserve. Whether it is ensuring their equipment is all up to date and they have adequate funding or just simply showing them appreciation, we must do all that we can to support these heroes who really do so much for us. I have several CFA brigades across the Bellarine and one SES unit. I just want to take this opportunity to thank them for all the work that they do and their commitment.

I want to stress that every dollar that is raised will go towards this vital life-saving equipment – the vehicles, the staff, the training of volunteers, community education and recovery support when Victorians need it most. We have invested heavily across the Bellarine. St Leonards has a new CFA station and, as I have talked about, Leopold has a new tanker. The VESEP grants have been incredible for our Drysdale CFA, Portarlington CFA, Bellarine SES, Queenscliff coastguard and lifesaving clubs across the Bellarine. We are a government who invest in our emergency services and we support our emergency services, because they support us when we need it the most.

Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (15:32): I have listened to this debate intently, both in my office and in the chamber today, and I have noticed the wringing of hands about support for the volunteers from those on the other side of the house. I would ask the rhetorical question of all the MPs on the other side of the house: where were you when your former Premier and Peter Marshall went to war with the CFA volunteers. You were hiding. You were nowhere to be seen sticking up for the volunteers. You did not stick up for the CFA when Daniel Andrews –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): Through the Chair, please.

Peter WALSH: and Peter Marshall went to war with them. You did not stick up for the volunteers at all. You went to war with the volunteers.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): Member for Murray Plains, order! Through the Chair, please.

Peter WALSH: The only one that stuck up for the volunteers on the Labor Party side of the house was the late Jane Garrett when she was the minister. She actually stuck up for the volunteers. No-one else was there. No-one else was sticking up for the volunteers. The late Jane Garrett actually saw the merit in what the volunteers did and actually, to her credit, stuck up for those volunteers.

Union thuggery that we are talking about at the moment is not something new in recent times. If you go back to that time when the Labor Party was at war with the volunteers, Peter Marshall threatened to take an axe through Jane Garrett’s head. That is union thuggery at its worst. A minister of the Crown being told that she would have an axe through her head for sticking up for the volunteers. All these crocodile tears on the other side about sticking up for the volunteers – where were you when it counted, because you were not there at all as you go through that.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): I remind the member: through the Chair, please.

Peter WALSH: If the Labor Party genuinely cared about the volunteers, why have half the volunteers of the CFA actually left since that war went on? They resigned because they are just so disenchanted with the administration of the CFA, how it is structured now and how the CFA does not have its own dedicated staff anymore. If you are serious about the volunteers, why have they all left or why have half of them left? We on this side talk to the volunteers as well. There is no uniqueness about the Labor Party MPs being the ones that speak to the volunteers. We speak to the volunteers in our electorates, and they are disenchanted. They are disenchanted with the administration of the CFA now.

Those on the other side have tried to rewrite history about the fire services levy. The member for Malvern, the former Treasurer, who was there when this levy was brought in, actually explained it very well: that previously the fire service was funded by a levy on the insurance industry. Only those that actually took out property insurance paid for the CFA and the MFB. So what was brought in was a system where all property owners paid, and that was about fairness and equity. But if we actually look at this legislation, if you look at the legislation before the house that we are talking about today, there is no fairness and there is no equity, and it is not an emergency services tax, it is actually a tax to fund the bureaucracy of this state. If you actually look at the amount of money that is being raised over the forwards, there is going to be $2 billion in additional money raised. There is a lot being said from the other side of the house about how $250 million of that is going to go to the CFA and the SES for trucks and equipment and buildings. That leaves $1,750,000,000 unaccounted for as to what is going to happen into the future. It is going to go and fund core government businesses. It is going to fund Triple Zero Victoria. It is going to fund the State Control Centre. It is going to fund Emergency Recovery Victoria. If you talked to the people of Rochester after the floods, they would wonder why Emergency Recovery Victoria would be funded at all, let alone out of this particular levy. It is also going to fund Emergency Management Victoria. The people of Rochester would say the same thing about that organisation, because they were absolutely useless through the floods and afterwards. It is going to fund the emergency alert program to send out SMS messages to Victorians. Why isn’t that core government business? Why do we have to have a new tax to actually pay for that? It is going to fund the emergency management operational communications program – core government business. Why do we need a great big new tax to fund that? It is going to fund Forest Fire Management Victoria. Why do we need a new tax to fund Forest Fire Management Victoria? That is a core business of government, not another new tax.

People in Victoria are the highest taxed of any state in Australia. Why do we need another new tax to pay for what is core government responsibility? It is a rhetorical question. The answer is: because the Labor Party cannot manage money and they are wasting all that tax that they collect, and so they are going to have another tax to actually make sure that happens.

I think the real kicker in what is going to be funded out of this is the support functions within the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. Might I remind those on the other side of the house: do not get between the secretary of a department and a pot of money, because you will get knocked over in the rush. I am sure that the Secretary of the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action will make sure that he can get as much as possible out of this bucket of money to fund core business of government. Do not stand between the secretary and that pile of money, because those on the other side will get knocked over in the rush there.

So of that $2 billion of extra tax that is going to be collected over the next three years, as I said, $250 million goes to the CFA and to the SES for vehicles, for equipment, for sheds. Everyone supports that, but there is the capacity to do that within the existing budget without a new tax. But $1,750,000,000 – that is nought, nought, nought, nought, nought, nought –

Jade Benham: How many noughts?

Peter WALSH: A lot of noughts – is actually going to fund core government responsibility, and I think that is just totally wrong. I support the member for Brighton’s reasoned amendment that this bill actually be withdrawn until the government genuinely consults with stakeholders about the rebate scheme and who is actually going to receive money out of this great big new tax. With the rebate scheme, fortunately, I think local government has actually done the right thing in saying to the government, ‘We will not manage this rebate scheme for you. We will not put our heads on the chopping block to be your patsies to get all the criticism for this scheme, because it’s going to be complicated. It’s going to be very hard to do. People are going to be very unhappy.’ They are going to have to apply to the State Revenue Office to get this back. We all know from our offices, from the people who are having trouble with land tax bills, how hard it is to actually get money back out of the SRO. There is only one thing worse than the secretary and a pot of money, and that is the State Revenue Office having to pay back some money, because they actually do not ever want to pay it back. That is not their role in life.

To think that the State Revenue Office is going to be responsible for actually paying these rebates back to people. I think the volunteers who give up their time for the CFA or the SES actually need to know how they are going to get this money back. We do not want to have another piece of legislation where it is ‘Pass it and trust us.’ The reality is Victorians have lost trust in the Allan Labor government. They do not trust the Allan government to manage the money they already take from us appropriately. They just see it disappear into the Big Build in Melbourne with over $50 billion in cost overruns, so why should they trust the government that they will actually pay back this particular rebate?

I think this is just a tax to fund the bloated bureaucracy of the Allan Labor government, and it is wrong. It should not be in place. The things that it is going to fund are core responsibilities of government. We would oppose this legislation.

Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (15:41): I am speaking of course on the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025, and I do so, like the member for Murray Plains, having listened intently since the very beginning of this debate. I note that the lead speaker, the member for Brighton, really just gave us 30 minutes of effectively insubstantial cliché with varying degrees of pitch, all of which was really at 180 decibels, but it does not really add much to the debate. I am glad that the member for Sandringham is at the table, because I missed his mellifluous tones and his economic competence in that debate. I genuinely did always enjoy his contributions, and I do not wish to besmirch his future career.

But the opposition, I think, have been tying themselves in some knots in this debate with claims of wanting to support our SES volunteers but in their contributions undermining them, in effect, at every turn. I think it is important to be clear that opposing this bill deprives the SES and CFA volunteers, in my community and across Victoria, of essential new equipment. We are a growing state with a climate that is exerting an increasing impact on our communities, with the implication being that the call-out rates for SES volunteers and CFA volunteers across the state is growing. We need to support that.

The member for Murray Plains took us on a trip to history corner. I am going to join him there, but I am going to go a little bit further back, to 6 AD when the Emperor Augustus instituted what might be regarded as the first organised fire brigade in some recognisable form. His system involved slaves handing buckets to each other. This might be the opposition’s alternative approach given their disdain for union members, but it was not an effective approach, because as we know about six decades later Rome burnt down. So the Julio-Claudians on the other side would be devastated with that approach because it would not work. We had a fairly rudimentary approach to fire prevention over the next 17 centuries. I am going to get to the contemporary era in due course, but cities burned down regularly. We did not have an organised approach to fire prevention.

But there were a couple of events in the second half of the 17th century that moved things on a little. Firstly, the Hamburger Feuerkasse, the Hamburg fire office, in 1676 became the first officially established fire insurance company in the world. Also, in 1666 of course the Great Fire of London ravaged that city and led to a very significant reappraisal of the way in which fire and natural disaster was managed. It led to the institution of a system of fire insurance, but one that was incredibly piecemeal, one whereby individual property owners would acquire fire insurance and there were brigades which would then respond to fires, but they would only respond to fires at properties where there was some insignia depicting that that property was in fact insured. It was a system that was exposed very quickly as incredibly flawed. Rival brigades were running around London not actually putting out fires if they discovered that building had no insurance at all.

Edinburgh was the first jurisdiction, in the 1830s, to come up with a model of a municipal fire brigade that actually responded to fires irrespective of where they were. The reason this is all relevant is this slow evolution towards a system of universal insurance and fire protection exemplifies what I think is a classic collective action problem. It is at the core of what we are talking about here today. We are all better off if we fund our emergency services properly and enable them to cope with the workload that the increasing incidence and severity of natural disasters is placing upon them.

There is an advantage to acting collectively, because it renders the entirety of our community safer. What we have been hearing from those opposite is that in effect they want that universal provision, but they are not prepared to fund it in a way that enables that service to be provided. That renders us all less safe. So what is the opposition approach? Is it to ration emergency services – some fires get a response, some do not? Is it to ration SES volunteers’ capacity to respond to services – some traffic collisions will get an SES response, some will not? Or should we expect SES volunteers to continue to dip into their own pockets to buy essential equipment to get out there on the roads to keep our community safe and to respond to floods, car accidents, trees through roofs and the multitude of other scenarios that they are called to? I do not think they should be, and that is why I think this bill is important. Its primary purpose is of course to amend the Fire Services Property Levy Act 2012 and to replace the existing fire service property levy with an expanded emergency services and volunteers funding levy, which will ensure that every dollar raised goes towards vital life-saving equipment, vehicles, staff and training for volunteers. I have spoken to my local SES unit in Craigieburn at length about this, and it is what they told me in no uncertain terms they want to see.

I am here representing them today, because I know that over the last number of years their call-out rate has doubled from what it was a decade ago. Between 2009 and 2013 the call-outs across the state in absolute terms were about 20,000 a year for the SES. Over the last three years they have averaged 35,000. There are a number of factors that play into that. There are the vagaries of climate that I touched on before, but I would also suggest that Melbourne is encroaching into newer areas where they have got a higher incidence of grassfires, like in your community as well, Acting Speaker de Martino. Trees have a tendency to fall on roads and onto people’s gardens and houses. All of that generates a high call-out rate, particularly when you have got an increasing incidence of storms and a higher intensity of storms when those storms do occur. I think that in response to this increased workload, which is shouldered by extraordinary volunteers, we need to ensure that volunteers do not have to then worry about raising funds so that they can focus on what they love doing most, and that is – what they tell me at least – helping and serving the community when they need it most.

I want to particularly acknowledge Omar Sayegh and Harminder Singh, who are the controller and deputy controller at the Craigieburn unit, for their impassioned advocacy to me and other colleagues in Melbourne’s north who are in that area that the Craigieburn SES unit serves, for explaining in really vivid terms the pressures that they have been under as a consequence of the previous funding regime and what this new package of reforms will mean in a very practical way for their capacity to serve our community. I was at the Craigieburn unit awards evening the very day that the Treasurer in the other place – at that time I believe she was the Minister for Emergency Services, if the chronology is right ‍– made the announcement about this new package of reforms. It was incredibly inspiring and quite moving to hear the impact of that higher rate of call-outs that the Craigieburn SES unit has been subject to on the emotional wellbeing and on the physical wellbeing of the volunteers. I keep coming back to the word ‘volunteers’, because these are people who do dedicate themselves and their time to the service of our community. During that awards dinner in fact there was a call-out that necessitated about half the room rushing out. Without a second thought, a second glance or a second word they were out the door, going to someone in distress at McIvor lake, I think, down in Roxburgh Park. The evening that was there to celebrate them was itself interrupted by their service to community. On that evening there were a number of people who were recognised with life membership of the Craigieburn SES, and I do want to acknowledge them now: Kevin O’Callaghan and Anne O’Callaghan, Alan Penaluna, Paul Ledwich, Emily Ledwich, Wayne Jordan and Maree Jordan. They have given decades, if not in fact cumulatively centuries, worth of service to the Craigieburn SES unit since it was established in the early 1980s, having been previously the civil defence unit in the area.

This $250 million package that will go the SES, in part in my area, will make a difference. I want to thank each and every one of the members of the Craigieburn SES unit for advocating to me and for advocating to the Premier, the relevant ministers and the Treasurer to ensure that they have the tools they need to make timely responses in a way that does not necessitate them dipping into their own pockets and placing themselves in more jeopardy than they need to be in.

I want to go back, in the very brief time remaining to me, and revisit the start of the fire services levy, which we know came out of Black Saturday and the royal commission in its aftermath. The impact of those fires was writ large across many of our communities. I know in your own, Acting Speaker De Martino – and I speak often with my in-laws whose lives perhaps were saved only by the change of wind that took that fire bearing down towards Healesville up, very sadly, towards Marysville, and we know the impact of what happened there. The royal commission in its aftermath revealed a sort of patchwork and inefficient system of funding services. It was Premier Baillieu and the member for Rowville indeed – I am not sure if he has made a contribution yet, but I would be very interested to hear it – who brought in a system to replace that piecemeal and inefficient system of financing our fire services across the state, and that is what we are doing with this. We are expanding the fiscal base to enable emergency services across the board to be more sustainable.

When it was done 12 years ago the member for Rowville said it was the most important reform of state taxes in decades. Now apparently the sky is falling in. I suggest it is not. I suggest it is going to put our SES on a firmer footing. I commend the bill to the house.

Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (15:51): I rise to make my contribution on the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025, otherwise known as this Labor government’s 61st new tax on hardworking Victorians in a cost-of-living crisis. At the outset, I would like to take the opportunity to recognise our amazing emergency services personnel for their incredible services in my electorate. There are 10 CFA fire brigades and one SES unit who turn out constantly to keep people in my community safe. We saw no better example of that than last weekend with a significant bushfire in Montrose. The Montrose CFA fire brigade and more than 30 other CFA brigades from the broader region turned out to fight that fire and protect our community. I acknowledge their bravery and courage and thank them for their commitment and dedication to our community.

Let us be clear, though, from the start: this bill represents nothing more than another new massive tax on all Victorians. As I said, this is the 61st increased or new tax under this Labor government. What a disgraceful record of this Labor government – a broken promise of this Labor government. They cannot manage money, and Victorians are paying the price. What is even worse is that this tax will not only cost Victorians more, it is also going to discriminate against Victorians, especially people who live in regional Victoria, including the Yarra Valley region and my electorate. Farmers who produce the food that we eat and agribusinesses like wineries, distilleries, flower growers and plant nurseries and manufacturers will all suffer massively under this new tax.

It was no surprise that on the same day that this massive new discriminatory tax was announced the 2024–25 budget update was handed down, which revealed net debt was growing by $59.6 million a day and had increased by almost $11 billion over the previous six months. Clearly under Labor the budget is bleeding money. There is a mammoth budget black hole, and the government is looking to tax Victorians more to try and fix it. So how did the government respond to their brutal budget update of soaring debt? Well, just a week before Christmas, this government decided it would impose a $2.1 billion massive new tax on Victorians by increasing the fire services property levy – some Christmas gift – making Victorians suffer more as a result of Labor’s financial incompetence.

Let us go back to 2010 when this fire services levy was first proposed. The Black Saturday bushfires royal commission recommended that the then fire services levy be replaced with a property-based levy. At that time Victorians were paying a fire services duty through their insurance premiums to big insurance companies. The insurance companies at the time were required to contribute to funding our fire services and in turn would recoup their contributions by imposing a duty on insurance premiums for building and contents insurance. The royal commission criticised the duty on the basis that it lacked equity and transparency, and the royal commission argued that it was not clear whether insurance companies were actually making a windfall from the levy or whether they were passing on all of the funds they raised. It was also found to be unfair because those who were not insured would still receive the same level of fire protection as those that carried appropriate insurance cover and paid more.

The royal commission argued a fire services levy based on property value would be a more equitable proposal, and it was left up to a Liberal government to make this important reform and remove this inequity and lack of transparency and introduce a fairer and more equitable levy for Victorians. It meant a fairer system that delivered a $100 million saving to Victorian families. I note the Labor Party opposed this reform at the time. Twenty-five years later we see this tired Allan Labor government come full circle. Labor, this Labor government, wants to move a new system that brings back the inequity and lack of transparency that the royal commission condemned. It is clear the Allan Labor government does not care about the inequity and lack of transparency or fairness, and all they care about is taxing Victorians more.

The Allan Labor government is introducing this new tax under the guise of supporting volunteer services like the CFA and SES with more funding, but that is just disingenuous, because it will actually impose a bigger tax burden on Victorians to channel more money to prop up Labor’s bureaucracy and back office for core government essential services that were never previously funded by a levy. These services were always funded through consolidated revenue. The budget is now so broke that the Allan Labor government is now forcing Victorians to pay more tax for core government services, and it is clear that this massive new tax will not be quarantined for CFA and SES volunteers. In fact the government conceded that mostly it will fund Triple Zero Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria and Forest Fire Management Victoria, most of it to the public service back office and not frontline services. This comes after the Labor government ripped $38 million in funding from Triple Zero. Labor rips money out of Triple Zero’s budget, then plugs that hole by making Victorians pay a bigger tax. What an absolute disgrace.

I have long advocated for increased funding for Victoria State Emergency Service, including the Lilydale SES in my electorate. We should value our SES volunteers more, not less, and ensure adequate funding for capital and operating expenses. I know that this Labor government will try and tell the SES volunteers that this legislation will deliver them more funds, but it will not, and the question of sustainable funding for the SES is not answered by this legislation. I have spoken directly to many of the volunteers at the Lilydale SES, who have told me firsthand that they need to put their hand in their own pocket to fund maintenance on equipment and vehicles, even to fill the SES trucks with petrol. It is absolutely outrageous given the tremendous service they do for our community in times of storms and other emergencies. I thank them for their efforts given the many storm events in our community.

Lest there be any doubt, I have no objection to the SES being in receipt of more funds raised from this levy, but the SES will be denied their fair share because the majority of the tax collected will instead now be funding core government services and back office bureaucracy. When we asked in the bill briefing for information about how revenue collected will be split between the SES, the CFA and the government bureaucracies listed, the government failed to answer. What is more, the government has tried to say the CFA and SES volunteers are exempt from this tax, but in some twisted way they will still be forced to pay up-front. Our dedicated and hardworking volunteers will be forced to pay up-front and then sometime later be required to go to the State Revenue Office, get a form, fill it out and hope they get paid back, hope they get reimbursed. I mean, how crazy is that situation? Volunteers are exempt but still have to pay and hope they get reimbursed later in a cost-of-living crisis. This is just punishing community – our community heroes, our volunteers – for this bungled legislation by the Labor government.

Furthermore, one of the harshest aspects of this bill is how hard it will hit our primary producers. In my electorate across the Yarra Valley I am fortunate to be surrounded by some of the greatest vineyards and fruit and vegetable growers in the world – cherries, apples, tomatoes and brussels sprouts as well as flower and plant growers. There producers are huge contributors to our economy. They employ thousands of people, export domestically and all over the world and put food on our table. Yet because these primary producers occupy thousands of acres of land to produce and grow these amazing products, they will be hardest hit under this massive unfair tax. Under Labor primary producers will face a tax increase of more than 189 per cent. It is a complete outrage and completely discriminatory.

What Labor have forgotten is that these farmers are already required to have significant firefighting capacity, and they maintain massive stores of water and pumping capacity to meet the demands of firefighting units. Often they are volunteers too. But Labor wants our farmers to pay the highest rate of tax under this new levy, and it is nothing more than a de facto land tax on Victorian farmers. Also, the massive new tax will force some of our small and medium manufacturers to pay between 64 and 100 per cent more, and this means Victoria’s manufacturers will suffer even more under this government, impacting their ability to employ more people like apprentices, and potentially making them move their operations out of Victoria altogether because the cost of doing business in Victoria has now become so prohibitive.

Local councils have objected to this new tax too, given there was no consultation with any of the 79 councils across Victoria and given the cost-of-living crisis. The Yarra Ranges council in my electorate were not consulted and have informed me that this new tax grab will likely cost Yarra Ranges residents $10 million more. We oppose this tax because it is unfair. It is unfair because this government is seeking to penalise Victorians for the reckless spending and sheer financial incompetence under this Labor government. It is not fair that farmers and manufacturers will be facing a doubling of their tax bill, and it is not fair that volunteers, supposedly exempt, will still have to pay this tax up-front. This massive new tax proves Labor has run out of money and will continue taxing Victorians more.

Jordan CRUGNALE (Bass) (16:01): I rise to speak on the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. It is a vital step forward in ensuring Victoria’s emergency services have the resources they need to continue protecting our communities. Before I start, I do want to mention the SES volunteers in my local area. We have units in Inverloch, Wonthaggi, San Remo, Phillip Island and soon Clyde, and we have neighbouring units in Pakenham, Cranbourne and Hastings who are always ready to respond. They are out there day and night turning up to incidents, braving wild, woolly weather and providing support to other emergency services, whether that be the CFA, Ambulance Victoria, Life Saving Victoria or police. We see them out on the roads, on top of roofs, at fires and at so many other emergencies, and their visible presence at markets, schools, festivals and community events just shows their community spirit, dedication and how welcoming and approachable and amazing they are all around.

It was probably this time last year, or over the last couple of years, that the impassioned advocacy of my SES units led us to look at an emergency services levy beyond the fire services levy, to capture them in that program, as per other jurisdictions, and this has come to fruition with this bill. I was speaking with one of my unit managers – we have heard this being debated in the chamber today – about the things that they have to pay for. They do get a protective initial uniform, but anything else they have to pay for themselves, including equipment, repairs around the unit, fundraising, merchandise and fire equipment. When they do extinguisher checks, they can be up to $800. Security systems – the SES do part pay the unit, but they have to make up the rest. And of course there are the unit vehicles as well. They are having to apply for council grants for chainsaws and, as we have heard, having to pay for their own fuel.

In this bill we have announced a $250 million funding package to support our dedicated emergency services organisations and volunteers, and key investments in this package include increased operational funding for VICSES units and CFA brigades, investment in rolling fleet upgrades for both organisations; a doubling of the Victorian volunteer emergency services equipment program, VESEP; and funding for training and technology enhancements to better equip our volunteers in their life-saving roles. This change will align us with funding models in other states, as I have previously mentioned. The $250 million package, for example, includes $70 million for fleet replacement programs for our VICSES and CFA and $62 million to expand VESEP, allowing more volunteers to access vital vehicles, equipment and station upgrades. We were very pleased at our local CFA Pound Creek – we got electric battery-operated tools, which was very exciting because it is really hard to run a lead when you are out there on the ground. There is $29 million for additional training helping VICSES volunteers gain the skills and support necessary for their critical work, and $53 million for a full modernisation of the VicEmergency app, improving communications for all Victorians by allowing users to translate the app into their preferred language.

As a sign of appreciation for the hard work of our SES volunteers and CFA volunteers, we will also provide an exemption for eligible active volunteers and life members on their principal place of residence. Speaking with a lot of my brigades and units, it is something they are very, very happy about. I think they would like us to go further and have an exemption on drivers registration, rego, as well, but we will put that one aside. Understanding the challenges climate change poses to our farmers, we are offering these volunteers the choice to apply the exemption to either their home or their farm, ensuring they are supported in their crucial roles both as emergency responders and as essential contributors to our agricultural industry.

This bill delivers on that commitment by amending the Fire Services Property Levy Act 2012 and replacing the fire services property levy (FSPL) with the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund (ESVF) levy. This important reform will create a fairer, more sustainable way to fund not only the fire services but, as I have mentioned, a broader range of emergency response and recovery efforts. Reflecting this expanded focus, the principal act will be renamed the Emergency Services and Volunteer Fund Act 2012. Beginning 1 July 2025, this change will provide stable and secure funding for Fire Rescue Victoria, the Country Fire Authority, the SES, Triple Zero Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria, the State Control Centre, Forest Fire Management Victoria and our essential recovery agencies. These organisations do extraordinary work responding to natural disasters and supporting communities as they rebuild. This bill will ensure they have the tools, training and resources they need to keep Victorians safe.

From 1 July 2025, the fund will provide up to 95 per cent of the annual budgets for SES, Triple Zero and all the other agencies that I have mentioned. These agencies who work alongside our fire services to respond to floods, storms and other emergencies, helping to keep communities safe and ensuring rapid recovery. The flexible funding model also allows for adjustments when necessary, ensuring the right level of support is always in place. In addition, it introduces greater flexibility in funding for our fire services. Currently the FSPL provides a fixed percentage of funding for CFA and FRV. From 1 July 2025, the new fund will allow for more adaptable funding, covering up to 95 per cent of the CFA’s budget and up to 87.5 per cent of FRV’s budget. This means our emergency services will have the funding structure that meets their evolving needs, ensuring that they are well equipped and fully prepared to serve Victorians.

We know our emergency services volunteers are the heart and soul of our emergency response. They give their time, their expertise and their energy to protect our communities, and this bill recognises their incredible contribution. How this will work is the Treasurer, in consultation with the Minister for Emergency Services, will define the specific eligibility criteria for volunteers through a notice published in the Government Gazette. Additionally, they will have the authority to designate further emergency volunteer-based organisations whose members can access this offset. To ensure fairness, the maximum offsets for farmland will be capped based on a specified land value as determined by the Treasurer. This approach guarantees that the offset remains dedicated to supporting our hardworking volunteers while maintaining the integrity of the ESVF and preventing unintended misuse.

The government acknowledges that the bill introduces a significant change in how local government collection agencies administer the levy, and to ease the administrative workload on councils a designated entity appointed by the Treasurer through a notice in the Government Gazette will administer the offset scheme. This responsible entity is expected to be a state government public service body with statutory responsibilities. The State Revenue Office will also improve sharing of principal-place-of-residence status data, with councils to simplify administration while maintaining strict privacy protections.

We cannot ignore the reality that fires, floods and storms are becoming more frequent and more severe. The impact of these disasters can last for years, affecting families, businesses and entire communities. That is why this bill is not just about funding; it is about futureproofing Victoria’s emergency services, ensuring they have the resources they need not just to respond but to recover, rebuild and strengthen our resilience for years to come. It establishes a strong and sustainable funding model to support emergency services well into the future. This is an investment in the safety and security of every Victorian to ensure that no community is left behind when disaster strikes. And it reinforces our commitments to the people who put their lives on the line for us – our firefighters, our SES volunteers, 000 call takers and emergency managers – by giving them the resources they need to continue their life-saving work. I commend the bill to the house.

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (16:10): I would also like to speak today on the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. I would like to state at the outset that the Victorian Greens absolutely support ensuring that our emergency services workers, whether they are professional – paid – or volunteer, who go out and respond to disasters on our behalf are adequately resourced to do their vital work. They do incredible work, they do important work. Just to give a local example – a lot of people in this place have given local examples – following the 2022 floods that affected my community in Kensington I saw the excellent work of our local SES up close. After that I went and visited our local SES, which is actually located in Footscray, and I learned about the lack of facilities there and the impact that was having on volunteers. I campaigned alongside those volunteers for the next few months for better facilities for them. They had gone for years begging and begging to upgrade their facilities. They did not even have internet and a phone signal in their facilities in Footscray, which was really hampering their ability to do their important work. After my visit and that community campaign, they magically did then get their money for planning for a new unit. Sometimes it is funny how change can happen. I would like to thank all the volunteers in my electorate but also across Victoria as well as the paid and professional emergency services workers who get up day in, day out and respond to emergencies for all of us.

We know, as many people have canvassed in this debate, that extreme weather events and climate disasters are becoming worse. We are all feeling this. None of us have been able to escape it. We have just sweltered through the hottest summer on record. Last week we had another heatwave in Victoria. I do not know about anyone else in this place, but the heat in my house – upstairs is not air-conditioned ‍– was absolutely stifling. We have people in public housing in my electorate who, when there is a heatwave, are forced to sleep on the oval at the local park because the conditions in their flats are literally like an oven. It is terrible for people’s health. It costs people their lives; heatwaves cost more lives than any other natural disaster in Australia. People are having to choose between sweltering through these impacts of extreme heat or paying through the nose to run their air conditioning if they have it at all. We are, unfortunately, woefully underprepared to cope with more of these heatwaves in future. Of course we all watched as Cyclone Alfred wrought havoc on our friends and family in northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland the week before last, causing billions of dollars of damage, and this is a really scary new normal. Make no mistake, these events are being made worse by climate change, which is caused by burning coal, gas and oil.

You would think in the face of these climate disasters, given how serious and terrifying and costly they are, that we would have governments falling over themselves to deal with the root causes of climate change, but what do we have instead? Instead we have Labor governments, both state and federal, not only continuing to allow coal and gas projects to be built but expanding coal and gas burning and drilling, making the climate crisis worse and leading to more extreme and more frequent climate disasters. Federally, Labor has approved more than 30 new coal and gas projects since coming to power, and the federal Labor government has pushed setting the 2035 climate targets back until after the next election. And here in Victoria we saw the state Labor government approve gas drilling just last year on Gunditjmara sea country near the Twelve Apostles, and then Premier Allan, the Labor Premier, promised to fast-track even more gas drilling than this. Victoria’s coal plants are approved to continue burning well into the 2030s, against all the scientific evidence. This is absolutely disastrous for our climate.

On top of this, Victoria is not even on track to meet our emissions reduction targets. Infrastructure Victoria just last week reported that Victoria is not delivering large-scale renewable generation projects fast enough, and we do not even have emissions data for Victoria for the last two years. The latest data we have, from 2022, is that in Victoria our emissions went up by 5 per cent, and a lot of this is due to the inaction on our fastest growing source of emissions transport.

Members interjecting.

Ellen SANDELL: I can hear some interjections from Labor members opposite, saying, ‘Why aren’t you talking about the bill?’ This bill is about climate disasters and how we refer to them, and if Labor does not understand that climate change is making these disasters worse, then we have got a real problem.

Juliana Addison: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I believe that the member for Melbourne has strayed significantly from talking about our essential services and the bill before the house, and I ask you to bring her back.

Jess Wilson: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, dare I defend the Greens, but this bill does actually speak to the reason why it is being put in place – the government claims it is because of worsening natural disasters – so I think the member on her feet is being relevant to the bill.

Ellen SANDELL: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, there are some opposite who might be a little upset that they are actually not the leader of their party, but the leader of a party actually is afforded larger scope in debating bills than just the bill itself.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): I will rule on the point of order. Previous speakers have raised the issue of climate change in connection with the bill, but I do ask the member on her feet to draw her comments back to the substance of the bill at hand.

Ellen SANDELL: I have talked a bit about climate change and how bad it is, because this bill is about funding for climate disaster response, and the reason I am raising these issues is because we do not just need ambulances at the bottom of the cliff, we actually need to be doing more to prevent worsening climate disasters from happening. Instead, we have a Labor government here who has cancelled many of the programs designed to help households reduce emissions. Labor has cancelled the home battery cashback scheme. Solar rebates have been reduced. Labor has cancelled the community climate change adaptation program after just one year. They have cancelled the home heating and cooling upgrades program for low-income households. All of these programs are designed to reduce emissions and then go on to reduce climate disaster severity. We have also heard evidence during the parliamentary inquiry into climate resilience and the built environment just recently on how underprepared our built environment is to deal with these extreme weather events. Whether that is heatwaves or flash flooding from big rain events, storms, rising sea levels or riverine flooding, these are all events that the SES and our emergency services need to respond to.

One thing that came up during that inquiry and the submissions was that our stormwater systems cannot cope with the increase in rain being dumped all at once in our communities. Yet there is no funding for councils to update those stormwater systems, so then we are getting more floods and we are getting more severe floods that the SES has to respond to. People are sweltering in buildings that hit 50 degrees inside during a heatwave, and yet mandatory energy efficiency standards for rentals still have not been implemented here in Victoria. What prompted this inquiry in the Parliament in the first place, which the Greens moved, was that the Victorian government, to their credit, have developed some really good climate change adaptation plans that talk about the risk to Victoria’s built environment when it comes to climate change – they are good reports that list all of the risks to Victoria, and they are well researched – but when it comes to the actions at the end of the document, it is very scant. There are very few real solutions being put on the table to deal with these big structural issues that are having and will continue to have such a profound impact on our lives, on our health and on our safety. Stakeholders do tell us that other states do this better. We are being told that New South Wales has a more comprehensive climate risk register than Victoria has. So why is Victoria so much further behind?

Again, a local example where this and this bill in particular are very relevant is Kensington Banks in my electorate. It is just one example of huge government failure significantly affecting people’s lives. This is an estate, Kensington Banks, that was built just 25 years ago supposedly to withstand the 1 per cent AEP flood risk. Thousands of residents bought and moved into their homes after being explicitly told by Melbourne Water that they were above the 1 per cent flood risk level. People made huge financial and life decisions based on this information, some of them just a year ago. Then last year the government essentially admitted that they got it wrong, that the estate actually was flood prone after all – ‘Sorry, everyone.’ Now they have to live with years of uncertainty, worry, anxiety, plummeting house prices and skyrocketing insurance premiums, which my community is now facing. So people are asking the question: what will the government do about this, given that it was a government failure that led to this problem that all residents now live with and pay for? Well, residents are being told, ‘You can wait 18 months for the results of a study into what the options might be, and then once we know what the options are after 18 months we will wait to see if the government will fund those flood mitigation options.’ All the while, in the short term or the medium term, the government has not committed anything to support residents, so residents are just out on their own. This is not even to mention the residents whose homes were flooded in 2022 in places like Rochester or Maribyrnong and other parts of our state. Where other state governments have set up funds after floods and applied successfully for federal money to help households retrofit their homes to deal with flood risk, Victoria has left people on their own, ruling out any government help.

Coming back to this bill: who pays for all of this? Victorians do. Climate disasters cost us. They cost lives, they cost health and they cost billions and billions of dollars to clean up and for communities to recover from. Who pays? Communities across Victoria do, in rebuild costs, in lost wages and productivity, in skyrocketing insurance premiums, in displacement and all the stress that comes with that, in lives lost and significant health costs, and in the destruction of all the beautiful natural places that our community holds dear.

The Greens have some concerns with Victorians paying increasingly more to cover the costs of dealing with extreme weather events, which are exacerbated by increasing climate change, without the government doing more to mitigate them and prevent them from happening in the first place. We have some concerns with Victorians paying more to clean up climate disasters, while Labor continues to pour fuel on the fire by expanding gas drilling and continuing to burn coal and other fossil fuels. We have some concerns about these costs and the burden of administration falling on councils, which the Labor state government has rate capped and constrained their ability to fund the services their communities need, and all the while the state government loves to blame councils whenever something goes wrong. We have concerns with our emergency services not necessarily having the equipment they need to do their work, such as recent reports of ageing fire trucks not being replaced at the end of their life, but this fund may not necessarily go to fixing that.

It is vitally important that emergency services are properly funded to respond to extreme weather events, but it is also not just good enough to respond or clean up after disasters have happened. We need to also invest in preventing future climate disasters from getting worse, at the very least doing what we can to prepare community for the climate change that is already locked into the system. If Labor was serious about relieving the burden on emergency services and on our volunteers, they would be doing everything they could to wean us off coal and gas, not approving gas drilling.

Members interjecting.

Ellen SANDELL: The Labor members on the other side are saying they are, but they are literally approving new gas drilling and cutting climate programs, as I have announced in my speech. We do not just need ambulances at the bottom of the cliff. We need to do everything we can to prevent disasters from happening and give communities the support to prepare them and lessen the impact on them when it does happen.

These are all the factors that we will be considering when we consider our position on this bill. There is a lot to wade through here. There are a lot more discussions to be had and a lot more stakeholders to talk to. It is a very serious decision to make, and because of that and because of all these different factors that we need to consider, the Greens will be abstaining from this bill in the lower house while we consider our position in the upper house. We very much hope that Labor comes to the table in this upcoming budget in particular, with significantly more support for climate mitigation and preparedness to protect us and to protect all of our communities from the climate change that is already happening and the future climate disasters that are to come.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (16:25): I proudly rise today to speak on the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. This is a fundamentally important bill, and it is necessary for the safety of all Victorians in the face of a changing climate and the related disasters that are accompanying it. I know only too well the impact that changing climate has on my constituency in Monbulk. It is a beautiful place to live. But when that wind picks up it is terrifying, and on dry days when fires start it is beyond terrifying.

It is pleasing to hear that the Greens will be supporting this bill, and it is fundamentally disappointing that the opposition will not. I would like to pick up on the member for Melbourne’s point almost chastising us when it comes to our record on climate change. I feel obligated to defend our track record here, because no other jurisdiction in this country has done more than Victoria to address net zero. We actually brought forward net zero from 2050 to 2045 because we are tracking so well in this regard, and it would be really nice to one day have some acknowledgement from the Greens on this. I do appreciate their sincerity, though, in their concern at climate change. I have stated here categorically that I consider the most existential crisis that we are facing is a changing climate for each and every person in Victoria, in this country and on the planet. I sincerely want to make sure that our track record here is acknowledged as well as the incredible work done by the Minister for Climate Action.

Before I go into the bill in detail, I would like to acknowledge the incredible emergency services volunteers and employees from the CFA, Forest Fire Management Victoria and Fire Rescue Victoria along with Victoria Police who worked incredibly hard over the weekend to fight the fires that occurred in Montrose and Kilsyth. They are still putting out those fires. The fires are still burning. They are contained; it is considered safe. The latest emergency alert came out about 20 minutes ago assuring residents that it will not break the containment lines, and that is comfort for everyone. But the reason it will not break containment lines is because of the work of these people – of our volunteers, of the employees who are there, who turn out in the middle of the night, who are there every moment that we need them. I am so grateful to them, as I know the people of Monbulk are.

In terms of technicalities of where it started, it actually started in the electorate of Monbulk and jumped into the electorate of Evelyn, because it does not acknowledge electoral boundaries, funnily enough, a fire; it goes where it wants to. But there was a moment of sheer terror for people when they thought, ‘If this goes up the mountain, this will be terrible,’ because fire likes to burn uphill rapidly, and it was right at the base of Mount Dandenong. I cannot state again how incredibly grateful all of us are for the work that they did. There was property loss, and that is awful for those who are affected. I mentioned in my members statement the other day that my cousin’s backyard was burned to a crisp and the fire ‍– I have seen the footage – came to within a metre of the gas hot water system attached to the back of the house. That is terrifying for anyone. They were really lucky. The house in the end was left untouched. They got out there themselves working on it.

This fire right in a peri-urban area is a stark reminder to all of us who live anywhere in bushland to please have an emergency plan ready to go, be it for fire, be it for storms or if you live in flood areas. You should have an emergency plan knowing what to do. Having a plan is the best thing you can do to arm yourself with a pathway out that is safe for you and your family, and I really want to take this opportunity to stress that. It is a timely reminder to all of us.

The heat and the dry fuel on Saturday created really good conditions for that fire, I have to say, and we are so lucky that the rain came. But over 100 firefighters turned up. We had helicopters there. We had bulldozers there. I cannot even recall the number of trucks – I think it was 40 vehicles deployed to fight it. The swift response is testament to our agencies, and that is why this bill is fundamentally critical, because it is there to ensure that they are adequately funded and resourced.

Our firefighters in addition to the SES give up so much of their time – and now I will talk about our volunteers. I feel very passionate about our volunteers, and I did take a bit of umbrage with the member for Murray Plains chastising us once again. Of course we value them. I have 20 CFA brigades across Monbulk. I have the busiest SES in the state – 1820 call-outs in a year – and our unit controller there Ben Owen and our deputy unit controller Olinka Edwards are legends. They are absolute heroes. Every single person that dons that uniform there at the SES and every single fireperson – operational or non-operational, it does not matter – who turns up to support their community, they are the best of us, and so my sincere thanks goes to them.

That is why I find it galling that those opposite cannot back in this bill. How on earth can we fund the increasing number of call-outs across SES, across the CFA, with the changing climate, which many over there I suspect secretly continue to deny is anthropogenic? They will not say it out loud anymore now, because they know that they have lost the public on this one, but it seems to underpin some of the issues that emanate from them. With a changing climate we will need more resources. Every time a truck goes out parts wear out, so the more often it is put out the sooner it needs to be replaced. How do we magic that into existence without gathering more resources through funding to do so?

It is cuckoo fairytale la-la land to think that we do not need to raise more revenue in order to be able to fund the needs that are already very apparent. The term ‘unprecedented’ when it comes to storms is now gone. It is a historical term. Actually in terms of history, I have to give the member for Greenvale a shout-out for his treatise on fire safety and the evolution of universal fire coverage. It is a pity for the people in the LA fires that they do not have a system like we do in Victoria, because they were there trying to get private firefighters. And if you can pay for a private firefighter, they are not going to help your neighbour out. They are there employed to help out with your house and your house only. That is an appalling situation. Thank heavens we live here. Thank heavens we have a system here where the firies turn up irrespective of whether or not you can pay for them. And here is the beauty: we do not have to pay for them when they come for a call-out.

Do you know how often our volunteers are asked by people they go and attend to, ‘How much do I owe you?’ When the SES turn up and they chop down the trees that are blocking someone from being able to leave their driveway or they bring the tarps to stop the water pouring into their house they are often asked, ‘What do I owe you?’ And their response, proudly, is ‘Not a penny. We’re volunteers. We do this for you.’ But the funds come from somewhere; they come from all of us. That is the collective good of paying taxes. I know that is anathema sometimes to those opposite, but at the end of the day if we want to live in a society where we take care of each other – a thriving, healthy, functioning society – we all need to contribute to it, and that is why I really am so utterly, utterly disappointed and verging on furious with those opposite saying that we should not all somehow contribute to this.

Do you know what – the fact that volunteers will be exempt from paying this is a wonderful initiative, and I note it is not one that they came up with when they brought in the fire services levy. It was us who came up with that. So to be lectured by them that they seem to somehow know better about volunteers and that we cannot speak about them is beyond disingenuous. My blood is boiling at this point in time, as I am sure you can all see, because of the vulnerability of all of us across the state, but nowhere probably more so than in my area, which happens to have had the second-highest number of climate-related disasters since 2006 in the country, in the Yarra Ranges LGA, which covers the majority of the area of Monbulk electorate.

We are staring into the face of a world that is increasingly hostile to us. We cannot turn the wind off, we cannot stop the trees from falling but we can support every volunteer who turns out to help us when they do. I extend my sincerest thanks to them. It is because of them that I sleep better at night. It is because of them that all the people of Monbulk sleep better at night. And do we need to fund them better? Yes, we do. That is exactly what this bill does, and I commend it to the house.

Jess WILSON (Kew) (16:35): I rise to speak on the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. Another day, another big tax from the Allan Labor government. A day does not go by in this place when we are not debating some form of legislation on crime that does nothing to address crime in this state, we are not debating some piece of legislation that has something to do with housing, yet nothing to actually increase the supply of housing in this state or improve affordability, or we are not debating another tax on Victorians. The Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, the tax that this government is putting in place, is simply another big tax on Victorian taxpayers, because this government cannot manage money, and Victorians are paying the price.

This piece of legislation replaces the fire services property levy, which previously funded both the CFA and the FRV, and the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund will now fund a raft of organisations and emergency services, including the CFA and the FRV, Victorian State Emergency Service, Triple Zero Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria, the Secretary of the Department of Justice and Community Safety in relation to their emergency management and the Secretary of Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to fund forest fire management. Before this bill was introduced, all of these emergency services, other than the CFA and FRV, were funded through consolidated revenue in this state, through the taxes that were already being collected by this government from Victoria. But because this government has managed Victoria’s books so poorly, because debt is soaring towards $188 billion, with the interest repayments set to reach $1 million a day in the coming years, this government now has to slug Victorians with a big new tax to fund the very services that it should be, and has been, funding from consolidated revenue.

If we go back to the history of the fire services property levy and how it came about, I was speaking to the former Treasurer the member for Malvern about how it was put in place at the time. In what was a true piece of tax reform legislation, it did replace stamp duties that existed on insurance. It was a recommendation that came out of the royal commission to make sure that every Victorian was paying their fair share when it came to the management of our emergency services and our fire services here in Victoria. The then-Treasurer the member for Rowville did an exemplary job when it came to actually undertaking tax reform in this state, because when the former Treasurer put in place the fire services property levy, what did it do? It actually reduced the tax take by $100 million per year. It cost Victorians less when that levy was put in place and stamp duties were taken off insurance products. What did that mean in a real way? It meant that rural and regional Victorians paid $120 less on average a year and metropolitan homeowners paid $50 less per year. Contrast that to the bill we have before us today whereby commercial properties are seeing a 100 per cent increase on the rate put on them, industrial properties a 64 per cent increase, and for primary production a 189 per cent increase in the levy that is being put on those property owners. For households around the state, the households that are going to be slugged with this levy, it is $60 more.

Contrast that to the approach of the coalition under the former Treasurer, the member for Rowville, and the member for Malvern. They undertook tax reform that actually ensured that there would be less of a tax burden on Victorians – that there would be $100 million less in tax revenue collected, saving Victorians. Compare that to this government, which at every opportunity looks for a way to slug Victorians more in tax.

This is a tax that has had no consultation with the local councils that have been tapped on the shoulder by this government to say, ‘Well, we’re going to put in place a new tax, but we don’t really want to collect it. We don’t really want to be the bad guys in this situation, so we’re going to make local councils collect this tax. You can slog it on ratepayers.’ There was no consultation as to how that will happen, how that administrative burden will be placed on local councils, and that is why I support the reasoned amendment put in place by the member for Brighton to ensure that there is consultation undertaken.

We have heard a lot today about the incredible work of our volunteers when it comes to emergency services and of course those paid workers when it comes to emergency services. I think we all thank them for their incredible sacrifice and the work that they do, but what is not clear under this piece of legislation is how those volunteers will be given a rebate when it comes to this levy. The government has said that volunteers will be given a leave pass when it comes to this levy, but there is no detail. There is no detail as to what that means. From our understanding what it means is they are going to have to pay it, and then we will work out the detail later. Maybe you will have to fill in a form to try and claim it back. Our volunteers, who give up their time in many ways and many times sacrifice their lives, put on the line their own lives for their local communities, are going to be slugged with this big new tax, and there is no plan, there is no detail, as to how that can be claimed back. It is unacceptable that once again we are seeing this government rush in, tax first and work out the details later.

There is one reason and one reason alone why we are here debating this bill today. There is one reason why we are now seeing a big new tax put on Victorians – Victorians who already pay the highest taxes in the nation. They pay the highest property taxes in the nation. We have seen the Allan Labor government time and time again introduce new taxes – more than 60 new taxes, fees and charges over the course of the past decade under this government. If you ask Victorians, ‘Are you better off? Do you have access to better services?’ I promise you it will be a resounding no from Victorians. But the one reason why this tax has to be introduced today, why the services that were previously funded under consolidated revenue now need to come from a new levy on Victorians at a time Victorians can least afford it, is because this government cannot manage money – $188 billion of debt in the coming years and $1 million a day in interest repayments under this government’s watch. Why? Because we are seeing cost blowouts on major projects – over $50 billion of cost blowouts on major projects. Just today there was another example of the blatant waste and mismanagement of taxpayers money when it comes to the West Gate Tunnel – another billion dollars.

Why are these projects blowing out? Why are these major projects blowing out, with Victorians having to pay the price through new taxes like this? Because this government is more interested in cozying up to the CFMEU, these thugs on building sites – on government-run building sites – and funnelling money to the CFMEU, organised crime, bikies and thugs than it is in actually protecting the interests of Victorian taxpayers, actually making sure that Victorian taxpayers are getting value for their taxpayer money, getting value when it comes to funding these essential services, emergency services, through consolidated revenue, not by putting a big new tax on every single Victorian property owner because this government cannot manage money. It was Margaret Thatcher that said eventually you run out of other people’s money.

Members interjecting.

Jess WILSON: I knew they would love that, but this government is running out very, very quickly.

Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (16:45): I am delighted to rise to speak on the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025, and I am a little lost for words having to stand to follow a quote from Margaret Thatcher. I never thought I would see those days, but I think it really does speak to the problem that we are facing with this bill that the opposition seems fixated on their three-word catchphrases – ‘can’t manage money’, ‘big new tax’. I wish that they could get beyond three words; it is a really bad deal that none of us need to see. But what it speaks to, really, is their values. It speaks to their values: it is all about the money.

What this bill is about is not just for them to talk endlessly about blowouts of costs and so forth; this is about volunteers. It is about people who put their lives on the line to protect all of us, and I think that there is no amount of money that is enough to say thank you to those wonderful people. But in government, because we can manage money, we need to find ways to fund them, and we do know we have seen an absolute increase in the call-outs for particularly the SES but all of our emergency services. I can remember being on my farm in the early 2000s. A terrible drought came through, and we got one-in-100 funding for that drought. Sadly, our wonderful Minister for Agriculture has had to announce support packages for the south-west farms, which are of course again in drought, and it is certainly not a hundred years since I was there. These acts of nature, forces of nature, are without question recurring much more often than they did in the past.

This bill really came about as a consequence of a campaign that the SES volunteers got together and ran, and I remember meeting with local SES volunteers to talk about the importance of this campaign. So this bill really is about those people and all that they have done for us, and we need to fund them so that they can continue to be there for us in our hour of need. But of course I do want to point out that the SES do so much more than just deal with weather. One of the really wonderful SES branches in my electorate is the Bacchus Marsh SES, and I have met with them on many occasions. They are a great group – a really great group – growing and really supporting young people through their ranks. But sadly, a lot of the work that they do is around car accidents. They go out to what are pretty difficult situations and quite literally save people’s lives with some of the equipment that could get funded under this new levy – for example, I think they call them the jaws of life, a piece of machinery that can get people out of cars after they have had a car accident. So whilst definitely we are having many more weather incidents, I also want to acknowledge that they do so much more than that. I really do want to give a shout-out to the Bacchus Marsh SES for the extraordinary work they do.

I was really delighted – I think it was such a wonderful idea – that the Speaker, for International Women’s Day, invited our female first responders to come into Parliament. I had the wonderful Lauren Majewski and Erin Phillips, who are both with the Bacchus Marsh SES, come in. I do want to thank the Speaker for that, because it was lovely. They felt really acknowledged, and that was a great way to acknowledge them. But of course an incredibly important way to acknowledge them is to fund them, and this bill is so important in providing that funding.

As I said, those on the other side like to shout about taxes and so forth, but really what we are talking about here is people – both the people that volunteer, including making sure that they have the equipment they need, and also the people that they go out to help. I would be interested to know if those people that have been so happy to see the SES in their gorgeous orange outfits turn up in their hour of need would like to know that the member for Kew is more fixated with the CFMEU than she is about providing funding for those people. I certainly know my constituents really applaud the funding for the SES. They love them. We know how much they do for us, and this bill of course will really provide for them. It is not just to boost the funding for the SES but also for Triple Zero Victoria, Forest Fire Management Victoria, Emergency Recovery Victoria, the CFA and FRV. To all of those outfits, I would like to say thank you. I know quite a few people who worked in the forest fire group when we had some fires in Dereel. They came in afterwards and helped with the mop-up. The CFA captain in Dereel talked about what a great bloke the forest fire bloke was in terms of supporting them through those times. We have these extraordinary emergency services, and we need to make sure that they have the funding.

This bill amounts to nothing less than $250 million worth of funding for CFA and SES equipment. Every year one of the wonderful parts of this job is to go and celebrate with our local CFAs their most recent volunteer emergency services equipment grant. I know that I will be able to go out and celebrate with my SES brigades that they too now may have a new truck or a new piece of equipment, like those incredibly important jaws of life. I look forward to that day. I do want those on the other side to be really cognisant of the fact that they are standing here blocking that money. They are blocking that money on some sort of ideological rant about taxes.

The member for Monbulk gave an extraordinary contribution; it was really heartfelt. She obviously has a lot to do with her brigades. I think what I took away from her contribution as well is that we do pay taxes and we do pay levies for all of the things that we want in this world. If those on the other side want to cut that tax, then perhaps they should go off and live on a desert island on their own. For me, taxes are about funding all of the things that we as a community need. We pay those taxes for our education system and our health system, and we should absolutely be supporting our emergency services. Tax is not the ugly word that the Liberals imagine it to be. In fact it is about communities coming together and working together. We all like to hold up countries like Norway and Sweden as being wonders of social outcomes, and of course they have high tax rates because that is what it is about. It is putting into our community to get back. Those on the other side are just fixated with small government. God forbid they ever get into government, but they would certainly be small if they were, because they are small people that do not want to fund our essential services. They do not want to fund our –

Jess Wilson: Small people?

Michaela SETTLE: Absolutely, you are small people – that is right – who will not fund our SES. They are small people who are more interested in talking about tax and throwing around three-word slogans that they think might garner them a few tragic votes. We are much more interested in supporting the people who will benefit – those wonderful volunteers – from the funding from the levy in this bill and indeed the people that they go out to help. Perhaps those on the other side might sit back and wonder why they have been out of government for so long. I suggest that it is because people in Victoria know that they do not care about people in Victoria; they care about three-line slogans that they think will win votes and do not.

Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (16:55): I rise today to oppose the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. This will be an unfair tax burden, there has been a lack of consultation and it will be negative for Victoria. As the member for Benambra mentioned earlier, this is mutton dressed up as lamb. The government is renowned for taxes. The Allan Labor government has continued to engage in debt-fuelled spending, punishing Victorians with almost 60 new and increased taxes on employment, schools, rent, holidays and more to pay for their waste and their debt.

Let us look at this bill. Point one: there has been general condemnation of this levy increase. This bill seeks to replace the fire services property levy (FSPL) with the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund (ESVF), increasing the amount raised by $610.9 million in 2025–26 and $765 million more per year by 2026–27. This is a $2.1 billion tax hike over three years. It will nearly double the household levies by plus $60 per year and massively increase costs for farmers by plus 189 per cent. Landlords will face significant hikes, beyond the hikes they have already experienced, further and further driving up rental costs. As the Mansfield shire mayor Steve Rabie said, this is a tax plain and simple. How much more can Victorians put up with?

The second point is that local councils are not equipped to collect and administer the levy properly. Warnings from the Municipal Association of Victoria about the administrative complexity and potential for backlash from ratepayers have been profound. Local government should not be made to do the government’s dirty work, and this bill will just add to the cost shifting and burden shifting that has been going on from this state government to local councils.

Third, there is a flawed volunteer rebate scheme. With this, volunteers were promised exemptions but will actually have to pay up-front and claim a rebate. There is also a question as to how the rebate will work. Even the government could not explain it in their own bill briefing. There have been suggestions that there should be outright exemptions instead of forcing volunteers into bureaucratic red tape.

Fourthly, there is the impact on renters as well as rental providers. The government is planning to charge rental providers a higher rate than owner-occupiers. The Treasurer also commented that rental providers generally have a higher capacity to pay. These comments are disgraceful. It is an attack in particular on mum-and-dad investors, who often only own one property, and proves how much Labor hates investors as well as home owners. It is no wonder that rental providers are getting out of the market and that rent is going up with less supply. Victorian landlords are exiting the market in droves and Victoria is becoming more and more difficult to invest in. For example, the number of rentals fell from about 677,000 in September 2023 to 652,000 in 2024, a 3.6 per cent fall in total Victorian rentals. This means less houses for renters and increased housing insecurity. So it is clear that this bill will worsen the housing crisis.

Indeed we have also had comments from many local community groups – a couple in my electorate, one from the local CFA. A captain from the local CFA said that this levy will see communities left vulnerable. He said that instead of an unfair levy, the government should be prioritising structural reforms. The Victorian Farmers Federation Mornington Peninsula also is calling for urgent action to stop or amend this unfair levy before it financially cripples local farmers. They have even suggested alternatives, such as a universal levy, deducting site value from capital improved value before applying the levy, applying FSPL only to the house and curtilage or establishing a differential ESVF rate similar to Melbourne Water’s drainage levy.

In conclusion, the opposition cannot support this bill in its current form. I and we support the reasoned amendment put forth by the member for Brighton. The government needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with a fair and sustainable funding model instead of further punishing rental providers, farmers, CFA members and more.

The SPEAKER: The time set down for consideration of the remaining items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business. The house is considering the Fire Services Property Amendment (Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund) Bill 2025. The minister has moved that the bill be now read a second time. The member for Brighton has moved a reasoned amendment to this motion. He has proposed to omit all the words after ‘That’ and replace them with the words which have been circulated. The question is:

That the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Those supporting the reasoned amendment by the member for Brighton should vote no.

Assembly divided on question:

Ayes (50): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, John Lister, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson

Noes (25): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Annabelle Cleeland, Chris Crewther, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Rachel Westaway, Jess Wilson

Question agreed to.

Assembly divided on motion:

Ayes (50): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, John Lister, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson

Noes (25): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Annabelle Cleeland, Chris Crewther, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Rachel Westaway, Jess Wilson

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Third reading

The SPEAKER: As the required statement of intention has been made under section 85(5)(c) of the Constitution Act 1975, the third reading of the bill must be passed with an absolute majority.

Assembly divided on motion:

Ayes (50): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, John Lister, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson

Noes (25): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Annabelle Cleeland, Chris Crewther, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Rachel Westaway, Jess Wilson

Motion agreed to by absolute majority.

Read third time.

The SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.