Kudos to Council
AT a time when too many levels of government seem content to heap yet more costs onto the backs of everyday people, Mitchell Shire Council has done something increasingly rare: it has stood up, firmly, publicly and without apology.
By moving to repeal the Emergency Services and Volunteer Levy in its entirety, Council has drawn a line in the sand against a State Government that appears deaf to the realities of rural life. Jacinta Allan’s levy is not just a fee, not just another line item on a rate notice, it is a tax that targets the very people who can least afford it.
Let’s be clear: no one disputes the need to fund emergency services. Our CFA, SES and volunteers are the backbone of regional Victoria. They respond to fires, floods, car accidents and disasters of every kind. Rural communities know this better than anyone, we live on the front line of risk. But the Allan Government’s model shifts responsibility not to those with the capacity to pay, but to farmers, families and small businesses already grappling with cost-of-living pressures, soaring fuel and feed costs, and the ongoing strain of drought.
Under this unfair framework, residential ratepayers were staring down a 35 per cent increase, commercial properties a staggering 70 per cent, and primary producers a crippling 150 per cent. It is difficult to imagine a policy more tone-deaf to the economic and emotional pressures already bearing down on rural Victoria.
Council has been pushing back from day one, writing letters, joining protests, speaking out, and refusing to simply “cop it.” The unanimous vote was not just a bureaucratic formality. It was a message: We will not be the State’s tax collectors. We will not stand by while our communities are punished for where they live.
Cr Andrea Pace’s words cut right to the heart of the issue: “We are out there fighting for our community, for an unjust fund.” This is not political posturing, it’s community protection.
Cr Bob Cornish put it even more plainly: Victoria is the highest-taxed state in the country, and this levy is another hit delivered without transparency, fairness or justification.
Mayor John Dougall said it exactly as rural families have been saying it around kitchen tables for months: “This is a tax our community cannot afford.”
Mitchell Shire Council is doing what leadership is supposed to look like, advocating loudly, publicly and relentlessly for the people who elected them.
If the State Government thinks rural Victoria will quietly shoulder another burden, it has misread its people entirely.
Because thanks to councils like Mitchell, those voices are no longer just grumbling, they are organised, unified, and unwilling to be ignored.
And that’s just my opinion.