The Allan Labor Government will this year cut budgets for the state’s emergency services, despite introducing a tax it promised would deliver them more funding.
Labor’s own budget papers show significant funding reductions across key emergency agencies, including those the government used to justify introducing its Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, which came into effect this month.
Parliament’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee has revealed Labor will collectively cut funding for the CFA, SES and Fire Rescue Victoria by more than $165 million this financial year.
This is despite the fact Labor will slug Victorians about $725 million more per year under the new emergency services tax compared with the previous Fire Services Property Levy.
Member for Lowan and Deputy Leader of the Nationals, Emma Kealy, said this proved the tax was never about improving emergency services.
“Labor misled Victorians when they said their great big new tax would mean more for our emergency services – the figures show this is simply not true,” she said.
“In Lowan alone this tax will rip an additional $30 million from people’s pockets, yet the hard-working emergency services who protect our communities will have less in their budgets.
“It doesn’t stack up and just proves that this unnecessary and unfair tax is nothing more than a callous cash-grab from a government with a massive budget black hole.
“Local people are sick to death of having their hard-earned funds taken away from them and being slugged with more taxes to pay for Labor’s financial incompetence.
“Labor has betrayed Victorians and consistently failed to manage money, and everyone – including the emergency services this new tax falsely claims to support – will pay the price.”
The Nationals and Liberals have committed to scrapping the tax if they win government in 2026 and returning to the simpler, fairer fire services levy, which funds fire services transparently without punishing communities.
Ms Kealy said people could show their support at scrapthetax.com.au.