There’s plenty of pressure being exerted to keep a NSW parliamentary committee examining fire services levy (FSL) issue on its toes. With just a few weeks to go until it makes its report, the Mayor of regional centre Dubbo says a reformed FSL “would remove the funding burden not only from insurance policyholders but also from councils across the state. This means Dubbo City Council would have more money available to invest in improved community facilities and services.”

Cr Allan Smith says a shift from funding through policies to a property rates-based system would cut up to 13% from councils’ fire services budgets and shift the burden on to all property-owners.

The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee has produced a model indicating that a non-insurance system would also save rural businesses substantial sums of money.

Under the current arrangements, businesses in rural NSW pay 24% more than their metropolitan counterparts in FSL on top of their insurance premium.

Dubbo’s largest employer, Fletcher International Export, participated in the modeling project, which examined four replacement system scenarios based on property value. In the worst-case scenario, the company would have paid around $30,000 last year. Under the best-case scenario it would have paid just $1500, and saved $195,000 of its 2004 FSL payment.

The committee is due to hand down its recommendations by the end of May.