Council Stands Firm on New Tax

Published on 07 March 2025

The Fire Services Property Amendment Bill was read at parliament this week and is set to have widespread implications for Mansfield Shire residents.

Mayor Cr Steve Rabie said Council had taken a firm position against the Emergency Services Volunteer Fund, which would be introduced as part of the Bill.

“We do not agree with the proposed tax, which would see a massive increase in household costs to our community,” said Cr Rabie.

“It is our job to strongly advocate for our community and this one will hit hard.

“It’s unfair to everyone in the state – to all the people who will have the cost of food production passed down via their grocery bills. But it’s most unfair to the communities in regional rural areas,” said Cr Rabie.

“This Council has made every effort to reduce the financial burden being asked of households in our community.

“Mansfield Shire had one of the second lowest rate rises across Victoria, with an average 1.75% rate rise over the past four years.

“We carefully consider every rate rise, we don’t just apply the maximum set by the state, even though that doesn’t even match CPI increases. While the cost of doing business for local government is increasing, we have actively reduced our costs in every way we can to reduce costs for ratepayers.

“Council has brought services in-house to reduce the cost of consultants and contractors completing work that our team can be upskilled to do.

“We’re revising our Special Rates and Charges to make it fair for residents who want to contribute to special infrastructure projects to meet their localised needs.

“The decisions we have made operationally and at Council are always done with a view to making sure our community members get the best bang for their buck.

“But now, we’re going to have to be the ones to ask our community members to fork out to pay a tax we don’t agree with. It’s going to be on the rates notice.

“We don’t think it’s a fair tax and we are firm against our community members having to pay it. We don’t think it’s fair that we’re the ones being asked to put it on the rates notice – we should not be the tax collector for the state government,” said Cr Rabie.

“We unanimously voted against this tax at Council and we are not alone. Many rural councils are speaking up against this.

“This Council has unanimously said – we are taking this opportunity to advocate for our community members and asking the state to review the tax and to review how it asks local government to participate in its collection.”