WINDING up the year in Hamilton ahead of Christmas were Deputy Leader of The Nationals and Lowan MP Emma Kealy and her colleague, Leader of the Nationals and Shadow Minister for Roads and Road Safety, Danny O’Brien, on Tuesday.

While inspecting some of the worst sections of roads in the area, the pair took the opportunity to take aim at their opposition, the Victorian Government, specifically on the back of the resignation of treasurer, Tim Pallas.

“It’s an ugly checklist,” Mr O’Brien said.

“Treasurer Tim Pallas departs the job with a terrible record of failure as the Allan Labor Government continues to snub regional Victorians.

“The brutal reality is Mr Pallas leaves a legacy of debt, deficit and disaster for Victorians.

“We have the highest property taxes, we have the highest debt and we have the highest debt to Gross State Product ratio – significantly higher than that of the John Cain/Joan Kirner Labor Government.

“What that means is worse services, higher cost-of-living, an inability to get housing due to the taxes on property and reduced access to the health services and ambulances we need.

“Under Mr Pallas and Premier Allan we’ve seen $41 billion cost overruns on mega-projects in the city.

“While these projects in Melbourne blow out, we in regional Victoria are driving around on goat tracks.”

He said the year had been spent responding to and fighting against the continuing mismanagement of the government.

“The continuing neglect of regional Victoria from our perspective, (is) no better exemplified than what we’re seeing here (pointing to the broken road on the Hamilton Highway),” Mr O’Brien said.

“Not just that, but we’ve got cost of living issues from a state government perspective caused by increased taxes which impact on rental and housing affordability, our health services are really under stress, the difficulty in getting an ambulance and the like and numerous other issues whether it’s the debacle over the VCE and just this last week the increase in the fire services levy - which is a big hit on regional Victorians in particular - they’re many of the issues we’ve  focused on.

“We’re holding the government to account … but also we’re focused on providing an alternative government in 2026.”

Mr O’Brien strongly criticised the treasurer particularly what he called a “parting gift”, the doubling of a re-branded Fire Services Property Levy, which he said summed up Mr Pallas’ time at the helm.

“It’s a desperately unfair tax, with primary producers forced to pay a 89 per cent increase in fire taxes.”

“The government will need to define how it’s going to manage the exemptions.

 “For the first time ever, the government will be using this fire services levy to pay for services which have always been core government services, like Triple Zero, Emergency Management Victoria, the State Control Centre and Forest Fire Management Victoria - that’s just wrong.

“That’s just financial mismanagement. 

“We already pay our taxes to cover those sorts of things and now we’ve got this new levy.”

Ms Kealy said Victorians have been endlessly paying the price for Labor’s financial recklessness and incompetence with 57 new and increased taxes introduced since 2014.

 “Each new tax is an attack on aspiration, investment and choice,” she said.

 “You can only squeeze so much blood out of a stone and the Allan Labor Government has bled us all dry. But that’s what Labor does best - taxing you more so you pay the price for Labor’s mismanagement of the state.”

“Treasurer Tim Pallas has abandoned the sinking ship that is Victoria under a Labor government, just like his equally complicit former boss Daniel Andrews, before the whole state economy hits the fan.”

Ms Kealy said the writing was clearly on the wall – “they’ve got the numbers so wrong none of them want to be around when their house of cards collapses”.

 “Andrews cut and run, just as you would expect, before handing the power to his co-conspirator Jacinta Allan.

“Now Tim Pallas, the man who stood idly by as Labor added almost $17 billion a year – every year – to the Victorian government’s debt is bolting before his day of reckoning arrives,” Ms Kealy said.

 “When Labor was elected in 2014 the Liberals Nationals government was managing a very conservative $22 billion state debt.

“After ten years of Labor, this debt now stands at almost $190 billion and climbing, and it’s Victorians that will pay the price for generations to come.”