A BEVERIDGE couple has become the public face of a statewide campaign to can the controversial new land tax proposed by the State Government.

Vince and Mary D’Aspromonte are the focus of a new television advertisement that premiered on Channel 7 last week, and condemns the Growth Areas Infrastructure Charge (GAIC).

In the advertisement, Vince says: “I’ve always been a Labor man, but Mr Brumby and Mr Madden want $358,000 in tax if we sell up.”

Mary adds: “As if someone is going to pay that on top of what this place is worth.”

Speaking about his family’s agreement to be in the advertisement, Vince said: “If we didn’t speak up, who’s going to speak up for us?”

Vince and Mary live with their four daughters on a 3.8ha property in Beveridge.

Vince is a butcher and Mary is a stay-at-home mother and carer for her youngest daughter, who has cerebral palsy. The family’s property is in the new urban growth boundary and would be directly affected by the land tax.

The couple came to be the subject of the advert through their friendship with fellow Beveridge resident Jeanette Laffan, who is spearheading anti-GAIC organisation Taxed Out’s plight in the north.

“You’d be surprised how many people have seen the ad and texted me,” Mary said.

Mary said she and her husband decided to be in the ad to demonstrate that it was not just major farming operators who were affected by the tax.

“We only have a small acreage and we moved here as a lifestyle choice,” she said.

The GAIC draft legislation, which is being put before parliament, would impose a $95,000-per-hectare fee on buyers for all properties larger than 0.4ha in the rezoned urban growth boundary. Vince said the tax would be a huge burden on several small property owners.

“I’m quite happy to pay capital gains tax, that’s fair enough, but this is an unfair tax,” he said. “Victoria is the only state to introduce the tax. No other state has ever had the tax. Why do we have to pay a tax that in 200 years has never had to be paid before?

“We’ve got no roads, no drain, the grass isn’t cut by council, and the government wants to tax us more.”

Taxed Out chairman Michael Hocking co-ordinated a rally on the steps of Parliament House last Tuesday.

Mitchell Shire Council moved, at its monthly meeting on 23 November, to support Taxed Out’s position that the GAIC should be charged at the point of development.