{"id":33777,"date":"2025-07-19T18:26:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T08:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=33777"},"modified":"2025-07-19T18:26:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T08:26:36","slug":"greens-tell-treasurer-drop-wwvp-charge-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/07\/19\/greens-tell-treasurer-drop-wwvp-charge-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens tell Treasurer: Drop WWVP charge now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The ACT Greens will use their votes in the balance of power to disallow ACT Labor\u2019s planned $11 fee on volunteers seeking Working With Vulnerable People Cards, urging Treasurer Chris Steel to give the community certainty and abandon the idea now.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s over. The Greens are closing the door on this unconstructive and unhelpful new fee,\u201d said Greens MLA Laura Nuttall, who wrote to the Treasurer this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLabor shouldn\u2019t wait for the fee to be defeated by the parliament in September. It\u2019s time to accept defeat and reassure volunteers now that they won\u2019t face this new fee, because we actually value the work they do in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSince the Budget was handed down, well over 1,000 people have signed the petition I sponsored against this new fee,\u201d Miss Nuttall said. \u201cMany people have made it very clear that the cost will turn them off volunteering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLike Labor\u2019s health levy, this direct charge is such a blunt, careless way to address a legitimate concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe want a good WWVP scheme, properly administered. So, if too many people are applying for a card when they don\u2019t need one, let\u2019s explore how to best educate volunteers and organisations, instead of just making the whole thing less appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis fee raises so little revenue for the government that it\u2019s clearly not about the money. It\u2019s just a lazy, unpopular stopgap that will make it even harder for the government to properly look after people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cUltimately, the government relies on volunteers to deliver many important services they\u2019ve outsourced to community organisations. It\u2019s wrong to treat local volunteers like a pain in the side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ACT Greens will use their votes in the balance of power to disallow ACT Labor\u2019s planned $11 fee on volunteers seeking Working With Vulnerable People Cards, urging Treasurer Chris Steel to give the community certainty and abandon the idea now. \u201cIt\u2019s over. The Greens are closing the door on this unconstructive and unhelpful new &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/07\/19\/greens-tell-treasurer-drop-wwvp-charge-now\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Greens tell Treasurer: Drop WWVP charge now&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33778,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33777\/revisions\/33778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}