A levy that tripled what farmers pay was legislated, protested, and then frozen
What changed
From 1 July 2025 the old fire services levy on your rates notice was replaced by the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, covering the CFA, Fire Rescue Victoria, the SES and Triple Zero. For farmland, the rate was set to rise from 28.7 cents to 83 cents per $1,000 of property value — close to triple — arriving during a record drought. Councils were required to collect it for the state, so the bill arrives with a council logo on it.
Was this put to voters?
No. The last Victorian election was November 2022. This was legislated in 2025, mid-term. The next election is due November 2026.
How it’s going where you live
Pick your electorate and this will say what it would take for the number here to be bigger than the margin your seat was won by — which is the number your member can check for themselves.
Where do you stand on this decision?
Responses have closed.
The record below shows what happened.
Who has responded
Most responses counted here are simulated — nobody was asked for them. Yours would be real and counted.
Voting has closed.
This decision applies across 79 council areas. 24 of them have someone who has responded.
Where people have responded
No election margins are published for council areas here, so there is nothing to compare these numbers against yet.
- Alpine23 residents
- Ararat19 residents
- Ballarat17 residents
- Banyule16 residents
- Bass Coast14 residents
- Baw Baw13 residents
- Bayside (Vic.)13 residents
- Benalla10 residents
- Boroondara10 residents
- Buloke8 residents
- Brimbank7 residents
- Campaspe6 residents
Showing 12 of 79 council areas.
25, or half the number it would take to matter there, whichever is fewer. In a small area a handful of answers can identify who gave them. Only people enrolled to vote are counted against a margin; everyone who lives here is counted as a resident. Margins are from the last election and change at a redistribution.
What happened next
The decision was made, and then substantially unmade. The rate rise on farmland was cut to 71.8 cents under pressure in May 2025, returned to its original 28.7 cents in December 2025, and then frozen until mid-2030. Rebates were added for CFA and SES volunteers and for drought-affected farmers. The fund itself remains: the broadened purpose survived, the increase that paid for it did not. No court required this and no election intervened — sustained, organised, visible objection changed a government’s mind mid-term. That is what this site is for. The response came through rallies, council motions and rural media, which are channels available to farmers, who are organised, and much less available to, say, renters facing an equivalent charge. The argument is not that pressure works. It is that pressure currently only works for people who already know how to apply it.
Read the document itself →What you can do about this
Across 1 decision, 380 people in 59 electorates have answered this question.
Should a new tax or charge be allowed to take effect before voters have had a chance to vote on it?
This decision is one piece of evidence. The question stands on its own, and every decision like it adds to the same total. Your answer counts once per parliamentary term, not once per decision — and you do not have to answer the decision above to answer this.
Choose where you live, further up, before answering.
What would actually change this
Nothing in law stops a mid-term charge, and probably nothing should. What moved this one was organised, visible objection — rallies, council motions, rural media — applied by a group that already knew how. The argument is not that pressure works. It is that pressure currently only works for people who already know how to apply it.
Euthyna publishes what people say so the decision-makers who can act on it can see it. It does not tell anyone how to vote and does not run campaigns.