The NSW Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee is due to hand down its report at the end of this week on whether an insurance-based fire services levy (FSL) funding model for the NSW Fire Brigades and the Rural Fire Service should be changed.

After initial expressions of confidence, sources have suggested over the past week that the report will recommend no changes to the current system, at least until the 2005/06 year. It is also understood that the committee has bowed to pressure from the Property Council, which argued that a levy based on the value of a property would result in an unfair burden on owners of large commercial properties.

insurance Council of Australia (ICA) Corporate Affairs Manager Rod Frail declined to comment on the speculation, noting only that the process has been extremely difficult because there “was no uniformity in views on the matter” among the committee members.

The ICA-led Alliance for the Equitable Funding of Fire Services has been lobbying the NSW Government to abolish FSL since last September. The fire services levy system operates in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.

During its deliberations the NSW parliamentary committee has appeared to be upbeat about the prospect of change, releasing a model indicating that a non-insurance system would also save rural businesses substantial sums of money. Under the best case scenario, 97% of insured home owners living outside Sydney (including farmers) would be better off, with 75% of Sydney’s domestic policyholders also paying less.