DANIEL Andrews knows how to spin a narrative, but even for him, this one was a bit rich.
The Premier this week wrongly blamed council rates for Victoria being named the highest-taxed state in a report by the independent budget watchdog.
“You’ve got a report that I think includes the council rates. We’ve capped council rates, for heaven’s sake,” Mr Andrews said when asked about the Parliament Budget Office report on Sunday.
“Fancy trying to be critical of the leader of a state government about taxes and charges that are levied by an independent level of government.”
Ummm, what?
Let’s pick those comments apart, Mr Premier.
For starters, the new analysis by the PBO did not include council rates in its calculations. So Mr Andrews was just plain wrong on that front.
But, even if rates were included in the data, to suggest they are not a tax on home owners in Victoria is frankly misleading.
What else could you describe them as? A charitable donation?
No, Mr Andrews, a tax is a tax, they are to pay for government services, and the numbers don’t lie.
The additional problem for country Victorians is that not only are we in the highest-taxed state in the country, Victoria also has a wildly unfair state rating system.
So if you live in an electorate like Mildura, you are getting hammered from all directions.
Rates in this state are calculated differently for every council, which is where regional and rural Victorians get stung.
The councils governing Melbourne suburbs like Box Hill or South Yarra generate a higher rate base given their high density populations, yet they have a far smaller area to govern. There are fewer parks, gardens and roads to maintain, their garbage trucks don’t have to travel too far, either, which means less time, fewer staff, less money. So these suburban councils win both ways, they have a high rate base to draw from and not much to spend those rates on.
In comparison, rural councils like Mildura have a low density rate base to draw from with a far, far greater area to maintain. It is a lose-lose situation for them.
The system is flawed, yet Mr Andrews and the Victorian Government have done nothing about rectifying it in all the time they have been in office.
When Ali Cupper was the Independent Member for Mildura, she took the fight to the state government to bring about change, constantly raising the alarming rates inequality.
“The current Victorian rate system makes a mockery of the general Australian tax principle that citizens should not be subjected to wildly different tax rates depending on where they live,” she told parliament.
“In my electorate, a farmer in Buloke is paying up to six times the rates of a resident of Toorak with a property of the same value.”
Ms Cupper’s problem, however, was getting any state or federal MP to join the fight.
She wrote to every rural and regional Victorian MP asking them to stand in solidarity with their rural and regional constituents across party lines.
But most did not even reply. Others gave a polite “no”.
So, Mr Andrews, any deflection about taxes falls pretty flat in these parts.
We pay a heavy price for living in a country Victorian electorate. There’s no other way to spin it.
