"This is war": Farmers and firefighters furious about new levy

The fury of Western Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) brigade volunteers and farmers over the new Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund is white hot, as brigades go offline and protests continue in Melbourne and the regions.

Fire brigades “go offline” and stop responding to callouts when there are insufficient volunteers available. As volunteers walk away from the CFA in disgust, these events are expected to increase.

The levy was passed in parliament last Thursday night, and will come into effect in July, replacing the Fire Services Property Levy.

According to the state government, the levy “ensures that Victorian property owners make an annual contribution to the State's fire services”, which include the CFA.

Prior to July 2020, different variable rates for the Fire Services Property Levy applied depending on whether your property was in an area serviced by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade or the CFA.

The ABC reported in December, when the State Government first proposed the new funding mechanism, that the rate - which is calculated by cents per $1,000 of capital improved value (CIV) - would be lifted from an average of 8.7 cents per $1,000 of CIV to 17.3 cents across the state.

This meant the new firefighting fund would raise an extra $2.1 billion yearly.

How will things change?

As with the Fire Services Property Levy, local councils will collect the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund on behalf of the state via rates.

Under the current system, primary production properties are levied at the highest rate, but under the new fund farmers will be footing an even larger bill.

Residential ratepayers will face an increase of about 35 percent, commercial ratepayers 70 percent and primary production properties 150 percent, down from the initially proposed 189 percent.

Let’s take, for example, a primary production property with a CIV of $5 million.

Under the current levy, the owner would pay $1,435 under the primary production rate of 28.7 cents per $1,000.

Under the new levy, with the 150 percent increase, that farmer would pay $3,587.50 yearly, an increase of $2,152.50.

Farmers fed up

The introduction of the fund has generated intense backlash from farmers across the state, who are typically the regional residents volunteering the most time to their local brigades.

More than 200 local brigades are now “offline”.

Rallies are planned for today (May 20), including a major protest in Melbourne, and regional protests such as the rally organised in Camperdown this morning. 

Myles Keith, a seventh generation farmer and CFA lieutenant with the Elmhurst brigade near Ararat, spoke to the Brolga after footage of his CB radio went viral for capturing nearby brigades announcing over radio their appliances [such as tankers and pumpers] would be offline indefinitely.

“I’ve got a big history in the CFA with my family, my father’s a CFA captain and then grandfathers on both sides were captains, and their fathers were captains,” Keith said.

“This whole fire service levy is destroying families, businesses, and livelihoods.”

Keith, 24, said the number of offline brigades across Western Victoria should “scare” the state’s leaders.

“The state should be pretty worried because there are hundreds, if not thousands - I think they’d be scared to realise how many CFA appliances are actually offline at the moment,” he said.

“This is the breaking point, this is the end; I’ve talked to a few people and they’ve said if this levy goes through, this is war, those are their words, and I just don’t think people understand the power that farmers have.”

In his time as a volunteer, Keith has battled fires in Gippsland, the High Country, as well as the bushfires at Little Desert and the Grampians.

“All these people are ready to walk away, if they haven’t walked away already,” he said.

“We're standing together and we're doing what’s right. If something goes on, we've got our own private tanker and we’ll help all our neighbours and all of our mates. I won't let my community down, but this is what it has come to.”

The State Government says from July 1, “eligible CFA and VICSES volunteers and life members will be entitled to a rebate on the ESVF on their principal place of residence or farm, which will be administered by the State Government through the Department of Government Services.”