Get set for your Fire Services Property Levy (FSPL) to double as the result of this hopeless State Labor Government not being able to manage money.

This is the warning from Gippsland East Nationals MP, Tim Bull, who said last week’s announcement the FSPL would double, was nothing more than a cash grab to pay for services that were previously funded out of general revenue in the annual State Budget.

“Homeowners, businesses and farmers will be paying at least double, and in some cases more, with the FSPL to be rebranded the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund (ESVF),” Mr Bull said.

“Victorian homeowners can now expect to pay 17.3 cents for every $1,000 in Capital Improved Value - up from 8.7 cents.

“Commercial, industrial and primary production landowners face increases of 100 per cent, 64 per cent and 189 per cent respectively.”

Mr Bull said what Premier Jacinta Allan and recently resigned Treasurer Tim Pallas won’t tell you, is these services (Triple Zero Victoria, the State Control Centre, Forest Fire Management Victoria, SES and Emergency Recovery Victoria) were all previously funded via general revenue.

“In that case, we should be seeing tax cuts to compensate given we are to pay for these agencies and services through a different process, but that has not and will not occur.

“The government recently cut tens of millions of dollars from Triple Zero Victoria, the CFA and SES and now wants to paint itself as a white knight for taxing you more to give the money back they cut from these critical services.

“These are all important agencies we need, and we need funded well, but the bottom line is if these two managed the budget properly there would be no need for these whopping increases. However, they have got themselves into a situation where they have a debt hitting $187 billion and $26 million a day in interest.

“That is where this comes from, it’s simply taxing your hip pocket more and attempting to sugarcoat it.

“The announcement came on the back of the mid-year budget review, which showed Victoria was $1.5 billion worse off than forecast by the former Treasurer six months ago.

“The excuse he gave was ‘additional funding was provided to hospitals’, which of course comes after the health budget was previously cut by $2 billion!”

Monday, 16 December 2024