THE emergency services tax will never come down, only go up: that’s the fear of young Loddon farmers after being given a temporary reprieve last week.
Oscar Holt joined other volunteer firefighters at the Fentons Creek brigade shed on Sunday morning.
They had been among protesters in Melbourne calling for the controversial tax to be scrapped.
“We have to keep this tax on people’s mind and not roll over,” said Oscar.
His brigade captain Brett Collins said: “The election is just over 12 months away and people will not forget.”
Joe Lockhart said it was easy for the Government to tax country people “when they are not going to get any votes from us”.
They said while the 12-month reprieve was a start, the tax remained an unfair hit on country communities and the rural councils forced to collect the fee for the Government.
The message to the Government from young farmers Isaac Holt and Ingrid Gould was direct.
“Stop splashing cash,” said Isaac. 
“Free train travel ... it’s only buying votes and they made it cheaper last year anyway,” said Ingrid.
More than a dozen members of the Fentons Creek and Berrimal brigades were in unison in continuing to oppose the emergency services tax.
They said the challenge was to convince Melbourne people that they would also pay more through the new tax.
“We’re young farmers trying to make a go, trying to do the figures on crops and then they want to tax us more, taxing volunteers fighting fires,” said Oscar.
Victorian Farmers’ Federation president Brett Hosking said that 12 month pause to the controversial tax was welcomed and allowed more time to talk with the government.
“Pausing the ESL increases for 12 months is the right call, but it doesn’t change the underlying problem: this levy is an unfair cost shift onto farmers.”
“We’ll use this extra time to continue making the case that it needs to be scrapped altogether, not simply paused,” Mr Hosking said.