Labor misleads public on fire services funding

This week in Parliament Nationals Member for Benalla, Bill Sykes, condemned the Brumby Labor Government for misleading the public by claiming a higher government investment in fire protection than they actually spend.

Dr Sykes said that in reality most of the funding for fire services is coming from the Fire Services Levy (FSL) and the associated taxes paid by the responsible people who elect to insure their properties. “We heard the Premier state in question time that expenditure on fire services has increased three-fold in the term of the State Labor government. “What we did not hear was the source of this increased funding. For that we only need to look at the front page of last week’s Weekly Times. Journalist Peter Hunt writes:

The Victorian government is earning more in stamp duty on farm business and household property insurance than it contributes to the state's fire budget. The government's 2009 budget papers show it expects to earn a whopping $677 million in stamp duty on all types of non-life (property, motor vehicle, mortgage and other) insurance this year. Analysis by the Weekly Times shows about a third of the stamp duty - $225 million – is collected for fire-related property insurance. Yet this financial year the state government will contribute just $88 million to the Country Fire Authority’s (CFA) budget and $34 million to the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) budget, while Treasury pockets the remaining $103 million in stamp duty revenue.

Dr Sykes said Labor was misrepresenting the facts.
“The Brumby Government is clearly not telling the truth by claiming increased investment in fire services funding and our fire volunteers deserve better treatment than this.”

He further called on the government to justify the huge leap in FSL, which is now a massive 84 per cent for farms and business insurance in country Victoria. “The people who pay this insurance are also the volunteers who, without question, jump on the fire truck and work for days, weeks or months to combat mega fires, much of them on public land.

“Meanwhile, those who do not insure contribute not one cent to the funding of fire services. This is grossly unjust.

“Labor cannot continue to ignore the inequity of the current FSL and I call on the government to provide a more efficient and transparent scheme.

“The Liberal Nationals Coalition, in government, would be committed to investigating options for funding fire services and delivering a more equitable arrangement than the current FSL.”