I tell you what this emergency services tax bill is; it is about filling a big budget black hole. It is about the Allan Labor government failing to manage money, and it is every single Victorian that will pay the price. It does not matter if you own a home, it does not matter if you are a renter, it does not matter if you run a business and it certainly does not matter if you run a farm and you grow food to feed Victorians, feed Australians and feed the world: you are the people that will pay the price – and this is after Labor has treated emergency services so badly in Victoria. Last year there was a $400 million cut in the budget for emergency services. We have got short memories over here, don’t we? We forget the cuts. We forget the way that you have treated emergency services over the years, and I tell you what, there are a lot of concerns as well –
The SPEAKER: Member for Lowan, through the Chair.
Emma KEALY: There is also – and I acknowledge Peter Marshall, who I understand has written some correspondence today.
The SPEAKER: Member for Lowan, I would ask you not to acknowledge people in the gallery. It is against the standing orders.
Emma KEALY: This letter has been made public – a letter to the Greens. If you look at what has happened, it is not just the Allan Labor government who have sold out every single Victorian, who have sold out emergency services workers in this state, they have also been supported and aided and abetted by the Greens and those micro-parties and independents who were desperate to get this across the line because they have got no conscience and have sold their soul for the sake of a little bit of glory and maybe a secret deal that we will catch the consequences of somewhere down the track – a little secret backroom deal that none of us know about. None of us know anything about it, and we would like to know what it is. I can tell you one thing: it is not worth $2 billion extracted out of the pockets of Victorians who are struggling with cost-of-living pressures. They cannot afford to keep a roof over their head. We have got farmers in the midst of one of the worst droughts in decades, if not for a century, who are under so much pressure at the moment they cannot make ends meet. They cannot get fodder in Victoria to keep their stock alive. They cannot source water anywhere. Do you know where a lot of the water went? I will tell you where it went in western Victoria: it was put on the Grampians bushfire and the Little Desert fire. Any surface water that we had in western Victoria was used for putting a fire out, so we do not have any surface water.
Members interjecting.
Emma KEALY: A fabulous question. Who put the fires out? The volunteers. The emergency services workers and Forest Fire Management Victoria. We have to acknowledge all of them. They worked so hard. They gave up their Christmas, they gave up their New Year’s Eve, they gave up their public holiday on Australia Day, they gave up their summer holidays and they gave up their time on their farms to volunteer to be on the back of a fire truck. They paid for their staff to be on the back of a fire truck. They stopped and reduced their productivity on their farms because they were off their property trying to protect our natural assets and protect other farms. I think it is one of the most inflammatory things that has ever been said by the Premier or by any of the backbenchers, who have just gone on and followed the speaking notes today, that this is all about the problem we have got of having more fires. How hard do you think that is to hear when you are one of the 42 residents of Pomonal who lost their home to bushfire last year? ‘It’s your fault. You’ve had to process more fires.’
The SPEAKER: Member for Lowan, through the Chair. I would ask you not to use ‘you’. You are reflecting on the Chair.
Emma KEALY: I am referring to the people of Pomonal, Speaker. How are they supposed to feel when they have lost everything they own in their residential property? They have lost childhood memories. They have lost baby photos and wedding photos. They have lost everything, and now they have to pay more in taxes – so that they can do what? What do they get out of it? They get a great big tax bill because it is the Allan Labor government who cannot manage money, and it is Victorians that are paying the price. It happens time and time and time again. I want to refer back to a piece of correspondence that has come by my desk from the United Firefighters Union, written by Peter Marshall, and I will quote some of that, if I may: This evening, the Victorian Greens sold out Victorian firefighters and the Victorian community they protect. Sadly, every Victorian will suffer the consequences. There will no doubt be consequences for the Victorian Greens at the 2026 State Election, for acting as the artificial lung of a dying Labor Government. That is a reflection on the Victorian Greens, who are not fighting for this money to go into making sure we are better managing our forests out there. You are not fighting to make sure that we are doing more cool burns to reduce the fuel loads in our forests, so we do not have those dirty great big hot fires that take out our old-growth trees. You are not fighting for any of that. We are not seeing that from the Victorian Greens at all.
They are just selling their souls and they are happy, though I bet you what will happen at the next election is we are going to see the little love tryst come up again and reignite between Labor and the Greens. There are not many people over on the Labor benches who would not be here today if it was not for those preferences of the Greens. It is the little red and green love tryst, where they do not like each other until it comes to election time, and then they are bosom buddies. It is the most bizarre thing I have seen. It is so grossly unfair that just 0.5 per cent of the funding that is raised through this tax will go back into rolling stock. There is no change. How on earth can we think that it would be fair that only 0.5 per cent of the money that is raised through this dirty great big new tax is going to go back into rolling stock.
We have got so much money; this is $2 billion. There should not be a truck in all of Victoria that is not replaced in the next 12 months, and yet we have got this tiny, little, short list. I did not see any new stations in there. Henty needs a new station. That was not on the list. Charlton needs one. There we go. It is really strange, because we have seen some significant investment by the Labor government in some fire stations – like Bendigo. That is a pretty flash set-up, isn’t it? Yet it sits empty. There is nobody using it. There was money to throw out at that one, but nobody is even using it. What a perfect example of Premier Allan and the Labor government, who are happy to just throw money out. They cannot manage money. They have not been able to manage their infrastructure and their assets, including the rolling stock of the CFA and Fire Rescue Victoria, and it is Victorians that again will pay the price. If you could not manage the last budget, how on earth are you going to be trusted to spend $10 billion of Victorian taxpayer money? We are never going to see where it goes. We know what happens with any of the taxes that Labor bring in: ‘We promise we’re going to spend all the mental health tax on mental health. Oh, hang on, we’re going to throw it somewhere else and we’re not going to tell you where it goes.’
It is a disgrace that at the time that this bill is being debated CFA volunteers are standing down. We have got emergency services in Victoria stepping down and walking away. We have got a disastrous collapse of emergency services in Victoria, yet we have got a Labor government which is asleep at the wheel. They are deliberately ignoring the will of the Victorian people, particularly the will of farmers, particularly the will of CFA volunteers and particularly the will of people who work in emergency management, and that is an utter disgrace for every single member of the Labor government, of the Greens and of those independents who did a dirty deal to get this deal across the line.