Dumping of fire levy welcomed

Victorian home owners will pay a new tax from July 2012 to fund most of the state's firefighting effort, in a move that has won widespread community support.

At present a fire service levy is charged on insurance premiums, raising almost $600 million a year - about three-quarters of the budgets of the Country Fire Authority and Metropolitan Fire Brigade.

Fire levy to go: Government adopts commission proposal

KAREN SWEENEY

27 Aug, 2010 10:15 PM

 

AFTER a decade of campaigning by rural Victorians, the controversial Fire Services Levy will be scrapped.

The state government announced yesterday that it would adopt a recommendation by the Black Saturday bushfires Royal Commission to replace the levy, which impacts on every Victorian property owner.

It was welcome news for the CFA and the Victorian Farmers Federation who have campaigned for a fairer system for all Victorians.

Opposition treasury spokesman Kim Wells said the government had been dragged kicking and screaming to replace the state’s inequitable insurance-based fire services levy with a fairer property-based system.

This had happened only after 18 months of intense pressure for reform from the state Coalition.

“Labor has known for years how unfair and inequitable the fire services levy has been.

“Everyone but John Lenders and John Brumby has acknowledged that the FSL was a tax that placed a heavy burden on many Victorians, yet Labor has done nothing until today.”