In January and February 2026 major fires impacted significant areas of Victoria. More than 400,000 hectares of bushland and farmland have burned. Hundreds of homes were destroyed or damaged across the state, there was massive loss of farm animals and countless numbers of wildlife died. These fires led to many thousands of claims being made to insurers. Every time there is a costly natural disaster, like a flood or bushfire, the financial burden on insurance companies increases and in turn it is the consumers who are impacted by higher insurance premiums.
Across the state we can see the impacts of cumulative disasters - roads are damaged and councils struggle to fix them. Farms require clean up and re-fencing, often relying on the many good people who volunteer their time and labour and bring in feed. Firefighters need a huge support network to be able to sustain their efforts on the fire grounds. All of this costs money and ultimately it is the community who pays.
We invite you to add your views to this survey.
We want to understand community sentiment towards who should pay for the economic costs of more frequent bushfires.
Fire impacts - who should pay?
In Victoria the state government has created the Emergency Services and Volunteers Levy, which is intended to contribute funds for emergency services like the SES, CFA, Triple Zero Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria, Forest Fire Management Victoria, the State Control Centre and Emergency Recovery Victoria. It is an annual property levy collected via council rates, and replaced the Fire Services Property Levy.
The levy stirred controversy after many farmers faced increases of tens of thousands of dollars a year in what they pay. And in response, the government introduced a two-year rate freeze to the Levy for farmers. However we believe that while all landowners benefit from emergency services and therefore should be expected to pay a fair contribution towards the Levy, in its current form it does represent an unfair burden on rural and especially farming communities.
As the state government considers its future options on what form the levy will take, we continue to call for a federal disaster levy to be put on all fossil fuel exports from Australia. Such a levy could raise billions of dollars every year to pay the costs of climate change, without raising prices in Australia. These funds could be allocated to states and territories to be directed towards emergency services, building community resilience, disaster response and recovery. This would greatly relieve the burden being carried by average Australians.
We believe that ratepayers shouldn't be expected to pay for the damage caused by coal, gas and oil companies. A levy would force them to contribute to the problems they are causing.
In this survey we want to test community support for such a levy.
Whether you were impacted by the fires or not, we would welcome your views on whether fire seasons are getting worse (and if so, who is to blame), and whether you support the proposal for a federal disaster levy being put on all fossil fuel exports, with funds raised to be distributed to state and territory governments for emergency response, recovery and resilience.
You can fill out the survey here (it only take a few minutes to complete).
You can read more about the federal disaster levy proposed by The Australia Institute here.