ESVF 12 months on: Our small businesses have been through enough

Published on 13 February 2026

Twelve months has now passed since Mansfield Shire Council began its advocacy against the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund (ESVF).

Twelve months on, and Mansfield Shire Council remains firmly, and vocally, opposed to the controversial tax.

While a lot has happened since the ESVF was first announced, a lot remains the same.

In June of 2025, the state government caved under the pressure of dissent and granted primary producers a 12-month reprieve from the new tax which, at the time, was set to hit them the hardest.

When the state government extended the reprieve for primary producers by a further 12 months in December of 2025, Mayor Cr Steve Rabie called the ESVF a debacle.

“It has been a debacle from the beginning,” he said.

“I understand a not-for-profit retailer in our town has been hit by a 100% increase in the figure they pay. A reprieve kicks the can down the road. We need them to scrap the unfair tax altogether.”

There was an uncomfortable truth amongst Mayor Cr Rabie’s words, made all the more uncomfortable by recent events in north east Victoria.

While it was the ESVF’s impact on primary producers that dominated the conversation after its announcement and it was primary producers who were granted a reprieve, it is commercial businesses who are now carrying the weight of the tax.

Mansfield Shire Council was forced to collect $618,568 in ESVF funds from Commercial/Industrial businesses in 25/26. This represents a 64 per cent increase from the $377,001 collected under the Fire Services Levy in 24/25.

The average commercial property in Mansfield Shire has seen the amount they pay rise from $864 to $1,472, a 70 per cent increase.

Mayor Cr Steve Rabie has now declared that Mansfield’s small businesses have been through enough.

“Along with our farmers, our small businesses are the lifeblood of our community and the backbone of our local economy,” Mayor Cr Rabie said.

“70 per cent increases to what they pay is wrong, especially when you consider what they have been through recently.”

As Mansfield Shire closed to tourists to focus on the emergency relief efforts, the shire's small businesses suffered diminished productivity in what is traditionally their busiest time of year.

In a business impact survey undertaken by Mansfield Shire Council in the aftermath of the Longwood fire, 59 percent of respondents claimed they had suffered a loss of 50 percent or more of their expected revenue due to road closures and lower than normal tourism numbers in Mansfield Shire.

“We value our small businesses in Mansfield Shire,” Mayor Cr Rabie said.

“They keep life in our little shire moving in the absence of larger companies. Many of them were integral in the emergency relief and recovery efforts following the Longwood fire.”

“They need our support and our protection in the same way our primary producers did 12 months ago, we call upon the state government to rethink the burden they have placed upon commercial and industrial business operators with the ESVF.”

“We call upon the state government to scrap the unfair tax.”