Mr Pallas (Tarneit) —  I refer to part 2 of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee  (PAEC)  report  on  the  2013-14  budget estimates, specifically  the finding, outlined on page 44, that states:

  The 2013-14 budget  revenue estimate from the  fire services property levy  in  2013-14 has been revised upwards by $23.6 million.

I  refer  also to  today’s  Herald  Sun report  on  the Treasurer’s embarrassing capitulation on just one of the problems with his botched fire services property levy (FSPL). He has finally acknowledged that charging investment unit  owners a commercial rate on  their  property  is  both  ridiculous and unjust. He had the temerity to say the government was:

  … pleased to be able to deliver this relief …

But the pain  was of his own making in the first  place. This problem, which has been known about almost as long as  the  levy  has been in  place,  was  a result of  the  Treasurer’s  own legislation. People who  owned investment units were paying the commercial  rate on  each and every unit. This was causing  six-fold increases  and more  on what people were previously  paying.

These were people who had previously been paying their insurance, despite what the Treasurer would have us believe. The Treasurer is trying  to  sneak  the news through  in  the hope that this  error  will slip through unnoticed amid the chaos that is this Parliament.

This is emblematic of the arrogance this government and this Treasurer have been constantly  displaying  for  the  six months the levy has  been  in  place.  The Treasurer denied there was a problem with the scheme  despite the  fact that  he was hearing about it constantly  in the  media, in Parliament, in his own office and  in  correspondence  from  me and many members of this  Parliament  and  the community who have been aggrieved. At the PAEC hearings he stated:

… I am very confident that Victorians will react well to a reform which sees  their fire services put on a far better financial footing.

When he started hearing that  some  people  were  being hit ridiculously hard — self-funded retirees in regional Victoria were paying many times more  than they had  been  paying  under  their  insurance  —  his  spokesman  accused them  of free-riding on the  rest of  the community  for the  cost of  our fire services, saying that Labor is more interested in defending those who previously failed to pay  their fair share towards the funding of our fire services than the millions of Victorians who will pay less  each year  under these  fairer reforms.  It was arrogance, ignorance and indifference in equal measure.

On 30 May last year,  after  I had drawn his attention to  the  problem, he told this Parliament that he found it extraordinary that Labor — —

 Mr Clark — On  a point of order, Deputy Speaker, this portion of the business of the house is to deal with committee reports. While the honourable member made initial  reference  to  a  committee report, he is now straying far  beyond  the subject of a committee report and is canvassing entirely separate matters. I ask you to bring him back to the subject of the committee report that he is supposed to be addressing.

  The DEPUTY SPEAKER — Order! I ask the  member for Tarneit to come back to the report.

 Mr Pallas  — The  report, in  essence,  identifies that  there was  to be  an increase  in the  revenue that  the  state would  be picking  up under  the fire services levy. The government needs to make further changes to the fire services levy. It  needs to recognise that this  is a poorly constructed  tax that is not living up to its promise to make things fairer and simpler.

Given the surplus in revenue, there is finally capacity for  the  government  to listen  and  to  acknowledge  that  it botched this tax. The opposition has been clear that there has been a  disastrous  record  of  implementation  of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission recommendations. The Treasurer has tried to deny  there  is anything wrong. He needs to acknowledge that his  arrogance  and indifference to the concerns  of the  people are having a dramatic impact on the way this tax operates.

There  is a complete  lack of accountability  built  into this legislation.  The funds raised for the FSPL  are directed into consolidated  revenue. The minister has  absolute discretion, which is not reviewable, to set the rates of the levy. Finally, there is no provision for an agency to oversight its implementation.

We call  on the  Napthine government to expand the powers of  the fire  services levy monitor  to  be able to  review  the  operation of the  new  levy  and make recommendations on what changes could be made to make it live up to the ‘fairer’ label that the government  has inaccurately  tried to attach to it. So far there has been  no action. We introduced a private members bill, but it was  rejected. We repeat our call for the government to undertake a review of the fire services property levy rather than engaging in piecemeal backflips.