'Obscene cash grab': firies slam emergency services tax

Australian Community Media

United Firefighters Union Victorian branch secretary Peter Marshall slams the Victorian government's legislation to replace the fire services levy. Video via AAP

Transcript

00:00What we're seeing here is a stunt, a stunt that is deplorable when you talk about the

00:06fire service having 40% of their trucks which are out of date, raising money that does nothing

00:12more than being deployed into other areas by robbing consolidated revenue on one hand,

00:18increasing the same amount of money if not more under the guise of a levy.

00:24Additional to that, the wording of the legislation results in a budget cut for Fire Rescue Victoria,

00:29it's 87.5% mandatory at the moment, and what we're seeing here is it's not exceeding 87.5%.

00:39Given the history of this government, given the lack of investment in the fire service,

00:43what we are going to see here is that each household will go from $190 fire levy to $254.

00:52At a time when Victoria's been labelled as the highest taxed state in the country, we're

00:58now seeing another increased tax on the households that does nothing for fire protection, will

01:04do nothing to make people in their house safer, but will be diverted into other areas.

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