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State budget fails Latrobe Valley with cuts, no industry investment amid rising debt and emergency service tax increase

The 2025-26 State Budget ignores Latrobe Valley, cuts emergency services funding, slashes road repairs, and fails to plan for job losses from Yallourn Power Station closure.

By news@gippsland - 28th May 2025 - Back to News

Last week's State Budget confirmed regional Victorians will continue to face more pain under Labor, while calls for investment in the Latrobe Valley have been ignored. The Nationals' Member for Morwell, Martin Cameron, said the 2025-26 budget proved yet again that Victorians were paying the price for Labor's financial incompetence, with the state heading towards debt of $192 billion and interest repayments of close to $30 million a day.

Martin Cameron criticises Labor's 2025-26 budget for rising debt, emergency service cuts, and ignoring Hazelwood North CFA volunteers' urgent funding needs

Taxed, but underserved

Mr Cameron said, "Budget papers show the new emergency services tax will raise an additional $600 million in the next financial year, but money to our emergency services is actually being cut. If Labor was serious about ensuring this revenue goes towards our emergency services, it would have listened to the cries of volunteers and funded a new station for the Hazelwood North CFA, which is not fit-for-purpose."

"Road maintenance funding has been cut again, and the road repair target has been slashed from more than 1 million square metres to just 70,000 square metres - all at a time when our roads network is crumbling. The closure of the Yallourn Power Station is just three years away, yet this budget offers nothing in terms of investment in existing or new industries to replace the hundreds of jobs that will be lost in 2028," Mr Cameron said.

Valley betrayed again

Mr Cameron added, "The sham that is the SEC is reduced to a single line item in the budget, being a big battery in Horsham. Labor used the SEC as a dangling carrot for the Valley by promising it was "coming back to Morwell", but there has not been one single investment in the region under the SEC banner."

"The industrial heart of the Valley is in coal-fired power stations, and they're being shut without a reliable plan to keep the lights on and without a single thought about what this will mean for our local economy. The Allan Labor government cannot continue to ignore the urgency to establish new industries for our highly skilled workforce in which to transition. Labor can't manage money, and Victorians are paying the price," Mr Cameron said.

Pictures from Martin Cameron MP Facebook page.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com