Like all South Australians, I am inspired by and congratulate the CFS volunteers who worked so hard and well to control the fires which have torn through the Adelaide Hills and other parts of our state. I am also encouraged by the willingness of so many other community members to put themselves forward to give their time to help, to make donations of food and clothing, and to give money to assist in short and long term recovery efforts.
However, the question of whether any of us who volunteer in roles like these should be exempt from the Emergency Services Levy (ESL) is a complex one.
Certainly there is a case that the CFS volunteer efforts should be taken into account as a contribution to keeping our emergency service costs down, but where do we draw the line? Do we include SES volunteers, the people who have made sandwiches and kept emergency services personnel fed and watered, the people that looked after others at emergency evacuation centres, the people who moved livestock, or indeed the many other community members who have registered and will volunteer during the short and long term recovery effort? And what about those hills residents who were just being good community members informally helping their neighbours fight the fires or with fire recovery?
While we recognise the danger and huge physical effort involved in fighting fires, is this the only volunteer community service that should be granted exemption from taxes when every day of the week huge numbers of people make volunteer contributions to our community in a range of fields (and thus help keep the cost to our government of delivering many vital community services down)?
Moreover, most people volunteer because they want to make a contribution or are seeking a way of developing new skills and making new social connections. Would exempting some –like our CFS volunteers - from certain taxes change the very essence of their volunteer efforts and over time lead to expectations that anyone who fight fires should be reimbursed somehow? Will recognition, thanks, and the personal satisfaction of knowing you’ve made a contribution to the community you’ve chosen to live in, no longer be motivation enough?
And beyond the issue of where to draw these lines, there is the broader question around our taxes. Let’s face it – in many ways the Emergency Services Levy is a de facto land tax so any question of exemptions need to be seen in the context of a broader debate about the fairness and efficiency of our tax system.
As a community we need to ensure that our governments (of whatever political flavour) have access to the revenue to pay for the vital services the community needs and want. This includes the professional firefighters and all the firefighting appliances we saw utilised so effectively in the last week, as well as the emergency relief programs which will now be so important. The taxes to pay for these services need to come from somewhere – because the ESL alone is not the answer. In fact, as a de facto land tax, the ESL masks the fact that the current land tax and stamp duty arrangements are inefficient and unfair.
So maybe it is time we worked to fix the tax system – which might include changing things like land taxes, stamp duties and making the Emergency Services Levy genuinely about emergency services.
First published in The Advertiser, 15 January 2015.