The streets outside the Victorian parliament in Melbourne were packed with regional Victorian protesting the Emergency Services Volunteer Fund.
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In the early hours of May 20, before the city began to stir, a convoy of CFA vehicles rolled out of regional Victoria, their crews bound for Parliament House.
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They weren’t answering an emergency call — they were delivering one.
Their message was clear: the state’s new Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund is a crisis in the making.
“I’m disheartened — not in the CFA, but in the government,” said Peter Shields, a 30-year veteran of the Currawa Fire Brigade, near Dookie.
“They don’t accommodate the farmers or rural folk in general.”
In protest, Mr Shields and his brigade have made the difficult decision to stop actively fighting fires on government land.
“In summertime, when the largest fires come from national parks, there won’t be a sufficient force to fight them,” he said.
At the heart of the outrage is a sense of betrayal.
Rural firefighters, the backbone of emergency response across Victoria, feel left behind.
Kialla and District Fire Brigade community co-ordinator Gina Sozzi was among the 40-plus CFA members who rallied in Melbourne.
“An ex-member from our brigade, a dairy farmer, posted online about the protest,” she said. “We knew we had to go.”
Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell, CFA member Peter Shields and state Member for Shepparton Kim O’Keeffe at the protest in Melbourne.
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Their convoy left District 22 at 6am, meeting with crews from the north-east and Western District at Wallan.
Ms Sozzi remembers an elderly man at the protest holding a sign that read, ‘60 years of service — this is it for me, thanks for nothing’.
Another firefighter shared a story about a mother and two children trapped in a bushfire and how they were rescued by the CFA.
“At the end of the story, he said, ‘I was the boy’,” Ms Sozzi said.
“That hit hard. It reminded us why we do this.”
But that sense of purpose is under threat.
Many volunteers are standing down, unwilling to serve a system that they believe is punishing their communities.
Arcadia CFA captain Ray McManus doesn’t mince words.
“They should leave the tax as it is for farmers and charge the city people this new levy.”
Emergency service volunteers joined thousands of community members on the steps of parliament to protest the ESVF. Photo: Catherine McLean.
In Mooroopna, brigade captain Lyle Sinclair has turned protest into symbolism — flying the CFA flag upside down, a universal sign of distress.
“This tax will raise food prices, increase rent and push farmers off the land,” he said.
“And when that happens, we lose the very people who make up our fire brigades.”
Replacing the Fire Services Levy, the ESVF will be collected through council rates and charges property owners based on land type and value.
For regional landholders, particularly farmers who own multiple parcels of land, the cost is overwhelming.
Only primary residences are eligible for rebates — sheds, farm buildings and other critical infrastructure are not.
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