Rushed job – VFF calls on Bass Coast to defer rates review
By Michael Giles
THE Victorian Farmers Federation wants the Bass Coast Shire Council to defer consideration of its new rating strategy.
But, so far, the call appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
They say the shire could not have launched the review at a worse time, while everyone is “flat out doing hay” in the run up to the Christmas period.
And the last thing farmers want to be doing, according to retired Bass VFF branch treasurer and retired farmer Faye Tuchtan, is sitting down in front of a computer and filling out a survey.
“I went to the Newhaven drop-in information session last week but there were only two other people there. We got a good hearing from Cr Tim O’Brien and Cr Tracey Bell, as well as the officers who were there, but it’s a busy time of the year for farmers,” said Faye.
“Most of them are out doing hay.”
But she says farmers in the district are still very concerned about the rate increases, especially where they are jacked up by speculative increases in farm values.
“There’s a 100-acre bare-land farm on Phillip Island for sale at the moment, with no house, for $2.4 million, which if it sells for that, will bump up the values of other farms in the vicinity and they’ll pay more in rates, but without a corresponding increase in income,” said Ms Tuchtan.
“You see that happening right along the coast from Phillip Island to Inverloch.”
So far the shire has held two of three drop-in sessions on its rates review, at the Wonthaggi Town Hall on Thursday, November 27, which the VFF says members of the shire’s own Rural Engagement Group were not advised about beforehand, and another at the Phillip Island Visitor Information Centre at Newhaven on Tuesday, December 2.
Neither session was well attended.
Twenty-nine online surveys have so far been completed.
The final drop-in submission and information session will be held at the Corinella and District Community Centre on Tuesday, December 9 (today) between 11:30am-1pm.
Bass Coast Mayor Cr Rochelle Halstead plans to attend the event.
She has deflected criticism that the rates review, initiated at the November 19, 2025 council meeting, has been a rushed job or that the three options put forward don’t respond to what is effectively a general rate review.
“The review has a focus on the level of farm rates because it came out of a submission to the budget by former Bass VFF President Bill Cleeland calling for a lower share of the rates to be shouldered by farmers, but ultimately, if you change one thing it impacts everyone else,” said Cr Halstead.
“If you don’t like any of those options you can say so in the comments,” she said while urging everyone with an interest in rates to go on to the shire’s Engage Bass Coast website and fill out a survey about the rating review.
It’s interesting to note that while the amount of money levied from farmers in the 2023-24 budget went up by 18.6% as against an increase for householders of 4.1% that year, rates paid by farmers went down 4.8% the previous year while residential ratepayers still paid 2.9% more.
In the 10 years since the 2016-17 budget when farmers paid an average of $3000 in rates, and homeowners paid $1365, their rates have gone up by 32.3% (farm) and 23.7% (residential) in that time to an average of $3969 for farmers and $1689 for homeowners in 2025-26, not including the $618 residential waste levy or an average of $600 paid to farmers in Land Management Rebates.
The VFF have called for the rate differential to be increased to 65% of the general rate while retaining the Land Management Rebate which they say provides a major environmental benefit to the shire’s rural hinterland.
Council is scheduled to make its decision at its February 2026 council meeting.
