Council’s Suggested Amendments
Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (00:24): I have just got one question for the member for Mordialloc. If this bill and these amendments are so much about supporting our emergency services workers, why are those that are supposedly benefiting from them downing tools tonight in protest at this legislation? The member for Brighton talked about 160. I had my own captains telling me that 160 brigades had parked up. The Herald Sun is now reporting that 200 brigades have parked up tonight and said, ‘We are unavailable because we are protesting against this new tax.’ If it is so good for emergency services, why are those volunteers that get up on the trucks and fight for our communities day in and day out parking up those trucks? They are doing it because they know this is a con job. They know this is not about emergency services. This is about fixing the budget black hole that the Allan Labor government has established.
It is absolutely clear, and yet the member for Mordialloc goes for 10 minutes and cannot even acknowledge that. This is not $2.1 billion of extra funding for emergency services. This is a big cost-shift. This is a tax pea-and-thimble trick. We are taking half-a-dozen agencies that are core government services and have always been funded by consolidated revenue, we are shifting them out of consolidated revenue and we are charging Victorian taxpayers for them again – $2.1 billion. When those in the other place asked the Treasurer how much it is saving consolidated revenue, she did not even have the decency to tell Victorians what it is. The government has at least been able to advise us that nearly $1 billion in costs for Triple Zero Victoria, Forest Fire Management Victoria and Emergency Management Victoria will now be taken out and put into this great big new tax that Victorians are going to have to pay. So do not tell me, member for Mordialloc, that this is about supporting our emergency services workers. This is just a budget cost-shift, and the member for Mordialloc would know it if he stopped just reading the government lines that he gets every time. He reckoned the member for Brighton gave the same speech for 30 minutes. We just heard the same 1-minute speech from the member for Mordialloc for 10 minutes, over and over and over again.
As for the deals with the Greens, those of us on this side are pretty sick of hearing those on that side say how bad the Greens are and then them going home every night and jumping back into bed with them. Whether it is preferences or it is deals like this, here we are. I am disappointed that the Minister for Finance is not here, because he loves to get outraged. Whenever there is an opportunity, they say, ‘We’ll cut a deal with the Greens,’ and here is the deal we have got today. Farmers are so rapt – I am hearing from them all around the state – they are no longer going to have to pay a 189 per cent increase in their fire services levy; thanks to the Greens they are only going to have to pay 150 per cent. They are dancing in the streets at how wonderful this deal is that the Greens have cut with the government. I might add that not one of the suggested amendments that we are talking about here actually reflects the deal that the Greens have supposedly done with the Labor Party, because all of it is on trust. Apparently we are going to have all sorts of other deals that the government is going to announce, and the Greens are expecting us to be happy about it. It is absolutely outrageous. They say, ‘We’re saving you something’ – as I said, golly gee, we are dancing in the street. It is now only a three times increase in our fire services levy instead of a four times increase. You cannot put lipstick on a pig and tell me it is pretty. This is just a joke.
It is not just about the farmers. Even after this deal we will still have every home owner in the state paying double for their emergency services levy, every commercial business owner in the state paying double and every industrial property owner in the state paying a 64 per cent increase – and every renter. The member for Brighton touched on this, but what he did not touch on was one of the answers given by the Treasurer in the other place, which was that the out years for the budget update show an increase next year of $610 million and then for the two out years after that another $765 million each year. The Treasurer just acknowledged that that $310 million over the last two years is a new tax, a new increase, a doubling of the rate and a doubling of the fixed charge on non-principal private residences. Now, what are they? They are predominantly places landlords provide for people to rent. Another $310 million is to be added to the rental bill at a time that this state is suffering a rental crisis of both availability and affordability. The geniuses on the Treasury benches over there think another $310 million is a good idea to add to that – what a disgrace.
Bridget Vallence interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: Exactly, member for Evelyn: the Greens also think that is a good idea. These are people who stand there and profess to be in favour of renters and supporting them, but instead they are going to whack another $310 million of tax on the rental sector. That is just ridiculous.
Every Victorian pays for this, because all of these charges get passed on. The member for Mordialloc should understand, as we do over here, that when you add taxes to Victorians, which they cannot pass on, it hurts. It hurts in a cost-of-living crisis. We know that our farmers are struggling at the moment. We know that as a result of drought, particularly in western Victoria, they are feeling the pinch, and the thanks that they get from this government is this new big tax – a 150 per cent increase on their taxes, which they will fight. You wonder why they turn up on the front steps of Parliament to protest. You wonder why they are downing tools tonight and parking up trucks at 200 brigades around the state. They are the ones who get on those trucks. They are the volunteers. When I spoke to them out the front the other day I said, ‘Put your hand up if you’re a farmer.’ Ninety per cent of the crowd did. I said, ‘Keep your hand up if you’re a volunteer.’ Ninety per cent of the crowd kept their hands up, because they are the people that actually get up and do it. Yet we have got this government putting a tax on them for the joy of volunteering their time to go out and look after our communities. It is all about this Labor government’s inability to manage money. It is all about trying to save money from consolidated revenue and add it to Victorians to pay another big tax.
We have been getting messages of support tonight to keep up the fight on this issue. Every one of us on this side has been hearing from people in our communities, telling us about the fire brigades that are shutting down tonight, telling us to keep going and telling us to keep the fight up against this great big new tax. We have a Treasurer over there who has made this deal with the Greens and has admitted in the other place that she does not know the cost of it. If I say Labor cannot manage money, there is your evidence for it. They make a deal and they make a change to the rates that people are going to be charged, and they cannot tell Victorians what that will cost. We know, though, that what the government has budgeted is $2.1 billion. We also know therefore, given the changes they have made today, that whatever they put out on Tuesday is irrelevant. It is not worth the paper it is written on because the government does not know what these changes impact. Mr Davis in the other place even tried to follow up. He asked if it was tens of millions of dollars or if it was hundreds of millions of dollars. The Treasurer could not tell him. This is a government that cannot manage money.
Sam Groth interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: He put it in as simple economic terms as he possibly could, but she could not answer the question. I say again to the government: if this bill is about supporting emergency services workers, why are they protesting on the front steps of Parliament? Why are they bringing their trucks – including their private trucks that they use regularly to support all their communities, including Crown land areas – and complaining on the front steps of Parliament? Why has this debate united a disparate group of organisations throughout the community? This slug is lumped on all Victorians because Labor cannot manage money, and all Victorians are paying the price.