Bass Coast council fumes over $5.8 million emergency fund hit to ratepayers
Primary producers and owners of vacant land would be hit the hardest, CFO says.
Jacob Wallace
May 26, 2025
“Do your own dirty work.”
That was the message from all of Victoria’s 79 councils to the state government and its new Emergency Services and Volunteer Fund, according to Bass Coast Deputy Mayor, Brett Tessari.
Tessari and Bass Coast CEO, Greg Box, joined a meeting of the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) on Friday May 16 to discuss the new state levy.
The councils banded together to unanimously oppose the levy, which will replace the Fire Services Property Levy from July 1 this year.
At the Bass Coast council meeting last week Tessari said the collection of councils “pushed back incredibly strongly” against the new levy and told the state government to “do your own dirty work and don’t ask your local government to do your work for you”.
He described it as a “cowardly act” that would take "$16 million from the local economy". Tessari was not alone in slamming the new levy during the meeting.
Bass Coast Shire CFO, David Filmalter, said the levy “will result in significant increases in the charges council needs to collect on behalf of the state. Especially for primary producers and owners of vacant land. It will result in a 53 percent increase across the shire or $5.77 million extra”.
Councillor Meg Edwards said “my blood boils on this and it should for everyone in this chamber”.
