Sunday, 1 November 2009

Last week’s announcement by the Brumby Government of a review of the Victorian Fire Services Levy (FSL) has been welcomed by Nationals Member for Benalla, Bill Sykes, albeit with doubts about the Brumby Government’s commitment to the review.

Dr Sykes, who has been calling for such a review for over five years, said that he suspects that Premier Brumby is simply playing politics with fire services funding.

“Given that the value of CFA volunteers’ time is estimated at around $600 million per year, and given that much of the fire fighting is being done on public land, the current FSL is clearly inequitable.”

Dr Sykes continued, “The FSL covers 77½ per cent of the costs of fire services, the other 22½ per cent is paid by State Government (and Local Government, in the case of the MFB).

“Weekly Times journalist Peter Hunt reviewed the FSL on 26 August 2009 and he noted

Dr Sykes said, “The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) and the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) and some local councils support a property based levy as occurs in Western Australia.

“Every property owner pays a levy which means the levy per owner is much less than the current Victorian system where two thirds of people who insure have to pay the costs for everyone including the one third who don’t insure.”

Dr Sykes said that he was intrigued by the timing of Mr Brumby’s announcement given that only one month ago he had ridiculed Peter Ryan, Leader of The Nationals, in Parliament about the Nationals call for a review of the FSL.

“I wonder if Mr Brumby has got a ‘heads up’ that the Federal Government’s Henry Review of Taxation (which includes a review of the FSL at the request of Mr Ryan) is going to come up with recommended changes to the funding of fire services.

“Equally, the Bushfire Royal Commission, due to make its final report in mid 2010, could well include recommendations on the funding of fire services.