Allan’s dump of 162 annual reports exposes massive cuts to regions

The Victorian Government has dumped 162 annual reports in the past week. Inside we found huge cuts to the regions, showing just how bad the debt crisis is.

Municipal Association of Victoria president David Clark says the Allan Government has slashed regional development funding, leaving little for councils, business development and tourism.

The depths of Victoria’s debt crisis has been exposed with billions of dollars wiped off community, business and regional support.
The state government dumped 162 annual reports on parliament in the past week which revealed:

GRANTS paid out by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to private individuals, businesses and non-profit organisations more than halved, from $1 billion in 2022-23 to $479m in 2023-24, cutting grants to landcare, community development, agricultural show societies and innovative farmers.

DEPARTMENT of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions programs supporting regional jobs and infrastructure have also been cut, despite Bendigo East MP Jacinta Allan taking over as Premier in September last year.

GRANTS from DJSIR’s Regional Infrastructure Fund have plummeted from $6.54m to $110,000 over the past two financial years, while Regional Partnership funding slumped from $4.68m to $902,000, along with other cutbacks.

Municipal Association of Victoria president David Clark said when it came to regional development funding “there’s simply not anything there for us”.

Deputy Opposition leader Peter Walsh said “the cuts from regional Victoria take away from the people doing the real work, with less boots and more suits”.

Funding of public land and waterway management have also been cut over the same period, with Parks Victoria’s allocation cut by $95m and the state’s catchment management authorities’ grants wound back from $95m to $88.5m.

DEECA’s total revenue and income was cut by almost $800m last financial year, while DJSIR’s funding was crunched, from $4.136 billion in 2022-23 to $3.6 billion in 2023-24.

At the same time frontline staff are being made redundant, while overall staff numbers continued to climb across both DEECA and DJSIR.

More than 190 positions were stripped out of Agriculture Victoria over the past two years and DEECA is cutting 208 staff from its Bushfire and Forest Services Group across 99 regional sites.

Yet the latest annual reports show the number of full-time-equivalent DEECA staff has grown from 5632 last year to 5809 as of June 30 this year, pushing employee expenses from $756m to $876m.

Regional Development Minister Gayle Tierney has defended the government’s record, stating Labor had invested $45bn in regional Victoria since coming to power in 2014, “more than double what the Coalition managed when they were last in power”.

Regional Development Minister Gayle Tierney says Labor has spent $45 billion on regional Victoria since coming to power in 2014.

Meanwhile the government is refusing to release another 131 annual reports, including those produced by the state’s health services, Fire Services Implementation Monitor, CFA and Fire Rescue Victoria, despite the Financial Management Act demanding they be tabled within four months of June 30.

Opposition finance spokeswoman Jess Wilson said “with so many government agencies sinking further into debt and services continuing to deteriorate under Labor, Victorians deserve to know the exact financial position of their frontline health, emergency service, justice and environment authorities”.

However The Weekly Times was able to expose how the government is favouring the union-dominated FRV by digging into the Department of Justice and Community Safety annual report, which was published last week.

The DoJCS report shows its 2023-24 allocation to the CFA barely kept pace with inflation, rising 2.7 per cent to $341.7m, while it pumped an extra $200m into FRV, lifting the government’s allocation from $870m in 2022-23 to $1.07 billion in 2023-24.

Yet farmers, many of who are CFA volunteers, are being slugged twice as much to fund the state’s fire services.

Treasurer Tim Pallas’ May budget raised the fire services property levy on primary producers from 16.9c per $1000 of a property’s capital improved value in 2023-24 to 28.7c/$1000 of CIV for 2024-25.

Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria chief executive Adam Barnett said: “With fire service levy funding increases being diverted to cover metropolitan FRV’s out of control costs, under funding of CFA is handicapping Victoria’s volunteer firefighters.”

“Rather than getting their fair share of the funding, volunteers are having have to beg, borrow and fundraise for the very equipment that keeps Victorians safe every summer.

“The Victorian government is playing Russian roulette with fire trucks that are now more than 34 years old, with no replacement plan even in sight. This chronic underfunding affects how well Victoria is prepared for this upcoming fire season, with volunteers worried that when disaster hits – it will be their communities that pay the ultimate cost.”