The Allan Government’s bid to triple the emergency services tax on farmers triggered an explosion of anger across Victoria in 2025.
Rupanyup grain grower Andrew Weidemann said the tax “lit the fuse” that united 27 farmer groups already fighting off mining companies wanting to dig up their land, and renewable corporations seeking to industrialise rural landscapes with large-scale developments and transmission lines.
“They realised there’s strength in unity,” Mr Weidemann said.
In response, the groups formed the Across Victoria Alliance, taking their “Scrap the Tax” message to the wider public through rallies and marches in regional towns and on the steps of Parliament.
On May 20, more than 4000 farmers, CFA volunteers, families and members of the United Firefighters Union packed Spring Street to tell Premier Jacinta Allan and Treasurer Jaclyn Symes that the tax was nothing more than a money grab by a debt-ridden government — not a genuine investment in emergency services.
The rally, and the Alliance’s ongoing determination to “maintain the rage,” forced the Premier to delay the tax hike on farmers until after the 2026 state election.
But Mr Weidemann has vowed to continue the campaign, including the weekly Zoom meetings that have brought 86 Alliance leaders and advisers together every Wednesday night since March 6.
One of those leaders, Wallaloo Gre Gre District Alliance member Ben Duxson, said farmers had been fighting the government’s push to carve up their land with the proposed 240km VNI West powerline ever since he saw the “pink blob” of the corridor in a March 2022 Weekly Times edition.
Alliance members up and down the proposed route have repeatedly shut down VicGrid’s attempts to enter their farms.
“You can’t let them get away with it,” Mr Duxson said. “You have to fight.”
The Alliance is widely credited with reviving farmer advocacy during a period of declining Victorian Farmers Federation membership and internal division.
Meanwhile, as farmers defended their land rights, hunters, fishers, climbers and prospectors partnered with unions to fight for continued public access to Victoria’s forests.
The Electrical Trades Union convened the Outdoor Recreation Advocacy Group — supported by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and various outdoor groups — to oppose plans to turn 300,000 hectares of Central Highlands state forest into the proposed Great Forest National Park.
Despite pressure from the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) and Labor’s internal green factions, the Outdoor group met the proposal head-on with full-page ads, petitions, rallies and direct lobbying. The result: an eventual government backdown.
Last week, the government went even further, promising to abolish VEAC in a bid to shed its “green skin.”
But while the Allan Government works overtime to extinguish political spot fires ahead of the 2026 election, a massive fuel load has built up in the state’s forests — the result of 10 years of neglect.
CFA volunteers, farmers, foresters and vulnerable communities have repeatedly warned that Victoria is ill-prepared for a catastrophic fire day.
Most of Forest Fire Management Victoria’s fleet is unusable due to chassis failures, while CFA volunteers continue to operate with the oldest firefighting fleet in the country.
Yet almost all of this year’s extra emergency services tax revenue will go towards paying down government debt and covering cost blowouts on Melbourne’s major road and rail projects — not into resourcing the emergency services that keep Victorians safe.
Why farmers, firefighters and rural families are rising up — read the story that lit the fuse in The Weekly Times CLICK HERE
