Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Hunter for moving this amendment. I've now been the member for Gilmore for one year. I have been exceedingly proud to represent my community in this place for that year. I again thank my community for giving me the honour of being their member for Gilmore, but what a year we have had. My community on the New South Wales South Coast has had nothing short of a harrowing time. We had been suffering through a drought for years only to be hit with the most devastating bushfires we have ever seen, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Any one of these crises would have had devastating consequences, but I can tell you the triple threat has been indescribable. What we have needed is strong leadership and strong action from the top that is fast, effective and appropriate for local conditions. But what we have seen is failure after failure from this government to provide the help we so desperately need from one crisis to another.

The truth is I feel like I am in a time warp in this place, because here I am again going on about drought and bushfires and funding not going to where it is needed. My community is still dealing with the drought and trying to recover from the fires and the floods, except now we can throw coronavirus on top of that. But after all this time, the money is still not getting through. People are still struggling to get by and the government is still ignoring us.

We are proud of our agriculture industry. I come from a local dairy farming family and so it is no surprise that agriculture is close to my heart, so it has been difficult for me to watch the government fail to act. For years they have failed to act on the drought. In my short year as the member for Gilmore, I have risen to talk about the impact of the drought on our farmers many times. I have told the stories of local farmers like Rob, Daniel, Tim, Vince and more on many occasions, hoping that something would move the government into action.

You see, while our farmers have been suffering, the government has continued to deny we were even in a drought. Local farmers were unable to access drought loans, our council areas were excluded from the Drought Communities Program extension and the government kept insisting that farmers didn't need this support. This is evidenced perhaps by the so-called special drought round of the Building Better Regions Fund where, announced last week, only one project in my electorate received funding. It is no doubt a great project for Eurobodalla Shire Council to develop a green infrastructure and biodiversity strategy, but only $30,000 was given to the Gilmore electorate in a program targeted towards drought areas. It is absolutely appalling. Apparently the statistics told them we were not in drought—drought maps that were 18 months old; definitions that didn't consider local conditions; percentages, numbers and excuses, not people.

I have always been there for people in my electorate, like farmer Daniel, who earlier this year tried to access a drought loan through the Regional Investment Corporation. He was rejected because his property was only partially listed on the desertification maps. How one farm can partially be in drought and partially not is a mystery to me, but he was rejected. Farmers are a proud lot, and it is hard for them to reach out for help. It is even harder when they are told that they don't deserve it, but this is what the government put people through—sifting through website after website, program after program, promise after promise with no real help.

After months and months of me raising this issue with the government—speaking in parliament, writing letters and even meeting with the minister to raise these issues in person—and after years of farmers suffering in the drought and getting no help, the government finally stood up and said, 'We were wrong.' It took until March this year before that happened, but they conceded one small step. They removed the desertification ruling on the drought loans so that all local farmers could access the drought loans—a relief for many, but too little, too late. We are going to need more than words to recover from the drought, fires and COVID-19. We need the government to show us the money, but still, every day, local people tell me they aren't seeing it. They aren't getting help.

When I met farmer Gerry from Conjola in the weeks following the New Year's Eve fire that destroyed his wildflower farm, his words were powerful. I have told Gerry's story in this place before, but his words are as relevant now as they were then. Gerry said he felt he was being retraumatised by his government. Volunteers and the community had stepped in where the government should be. These were Gerry's words months ago, and that is still the case today.

Every day I have local people telling me that they have been abandoned—people like Katrina, who lost her home in Conjola. This was devastating for the family, who were underinsured and are not sure how they will rebuild. And then came COVID-19. Like many local people, Katrina worked locally, reliant on the tourism industry. So much of the South Coast economy relies on this industry. So you can imagine how devastating it was for our community when, after first telling the tourists to leave due to the fires, we were again forced to turn them away due to coronavirus. The impact of this double hit was too much for many, and Katrina was let go. The business could not afford to keep her on, and, with the time lag until the JobKeeper payment would start, Katrina was left with no income and no help from the government.

Katrina has teenage children. Before the fires, two of her daughters were due to be fitted with braces. With their thoughts and finances consumed with rebuilding, sadly, this had to be put off. An amount of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child is hardly enough when you have lost everything. Instead, what does this government do? They give $25,000 to their city friends to help them renovate their houses. How out of touch can a government be? We have people still living in caravans who couldn't even imagine having a lazy $150,000 to renovate, but there is nothing specifically targeted to them and nothing to help people impacted by the fires to get back on their feet.

This is not to mention the impact on our businesses. In the immediate wake of the fires, I spent every day out in my community talking with people about the impact of the bushfires. So many people shared their heartbreaking stories with me: their struggles to stay afloat and come to terms with what had happened. In January, I was the first to sound the alarm about the unfolding economic crisis on the New South Wales South Coast. I spoke with businesses from Kangaroo Valley to Burrill Lake, Malua Bay and beyond. I heard the same story: without a direct cash injection, they would fold, thousands of jobs would be lost and our economy would falter. This was in January—well before coronavirus and well before the government was paying attention.

So I came to this place and I told the story of people like Rob from Burrill Lake, Katrina from Kangaroo Valley, Simon from Ulladulla and Joe from Batehaven. I called for a direct cash injection to businesses suffering from the economic impact of the lost tourism season, but the government kept ignoring the problem, just as they always do when it comes to the plight of country areas. They don't understand us, and so they won't help. But I refuse to give up.

Finally, just as with the drought loans, the government eventually decided that it had better sit up and take notice. Thanks to our community and their bravery and strength in telling their stories, we pressured the government to provide that cash injection that businesses so desperately needed. It took until March. It took businesses closing and even more that struggled and felt absolute desperation and hopelessness. Even now, I still have businesses contacting me who didn't know there was help available. They have been struggling in silence, trying to get by on their own. These are just small tokens: signs that the government knows it must do more. But they are not willing to really stump up the cash. Instead, they have left businesses struggling to cope in the aftermath of what happened, including businesses like Burdett Real Estate in Batehaven who have been struggling with unreliable NBN since the fires, as well as dropouts, signal failures and slow speeds. Joe told me how, each month, he doesn't know which landlords will receive their statements, because the internet drops out halfway through processing the letters. Months after the fire, this is what they are still dealing with.

Then there's the government's much-hyped Bushfire Recovery Fund. In January, $2 billion in funding was announced to help respond to the bushfire crisis. Since then, I have been asking: where is the money? Our tourism operators haven't seen it. Our environmental organisations haven't seen it. Our local businesses haven't seen it. Only this weekend, I was in Huskisson and Bendalong talking with fire impacted businesses. They told me how, even now, nearly six months after the bushfires, they are still waiting for their disaster recovery loans. They told me about the hoops they have jumped through and the anguish and struggle they have felt. This government has left them begging for help for six months and told them money is coming, but where is it? Families who have lost everything and are living in temporary accommodation haven't seen it either. Instead, they are forced to watch the government prioritise other people's homes before theirs.

I wrote to the minister asking for additional funding for local events like the South Coast Food and Wine Festival and our local agricultural shows. I pleaded with the minister to continue funding vital mental health services in Ulladulla and Nowra through the Shoalhaven Women's Health Centre. With hundreds of burnt timber bridges, damaged local roads and other local infrastructure to rebuild, I asked the government to help our local councils with this mammoth task. Each time the answer was the same: 'No. We have provided $2 billion, and there is no more.' So why haven't we seen it? Perhaps it is like the AgShows fund, which provided $70,000 to my electorate of Gilmore—where show societies felt the full brunt of the bushfires, not to mention the drought—and $3.4 million to the minister's electorate of Maranoa—shocking.

The Bushfire Recovery Fund is nothing more than a phantom fund, a mirage that serves to make the government look like they care and are working to help our community, when the reality is that they have already forgotten us. The New South Wales South coast does not need flashy announcements. We don't need big dollar signs and endless promises. We need boots on the ground. We need a government that will truly listen to us, instead of one more focused on election funds and flashy announcements.

Our community had already experienced some of the worst this year. It brought out the best in us. That is absolutely clear. Our true community spirit was on display time and time again, but more blows were still to come. COVID-19 has impacted the whole country. I congratulate the government for taking up Labor's idea of a wage subsidy, another essential program that the government fought against until—as with the drought loans and the cash injection for businesses—they decided that perhaps we were right.

The wage subsidy has helped thousands of Australians. There is no doubt about that. But, in an economy reliant on tourism, casuals and short-term work, it is not enough. Before the impact of the bushfires and COVID-19, Nowra, Ulladulla and Batemans Bay unemployment rates were 17.5 per cent, 9.3 per cent and 9.9 per cent respectively. That was before the bushfires.

Country areas like ours are getting a raw deal. The Treasurer has the power to change that. At any moment, he could decide to help casuals who move between seasonal employment. He could decide to help businesses who have been losing income from the triple threat of drought, bushfires and COVID-19 and are falling through the cracks of the government's economic rescue package. But he chooses not to. People and businesses in bushfire impacted areas will suffer from the impacts of coronavirus more than those across the rest of the country. There is no doubt about that.

There is one common thread here: the Liberals and the Nationals don't care about country areas. We should be the economic powerhouse of the country, but our government is letting us down. We have the best businesses and workers, people with hearts of gold who would do anything to help their community. But what does this government do time and time again? It ignores country areas.

We've lost over half a billion dollars from the South Coast economy during the bushfires. We need specialised, targeted assistance that recognises the ongoing economic challenges. We need more mental health and financial counselling assistance for local people and businesses. We need focused economic stimulus that will create jobs—road projects like the Currarong Road and the Princes Highway; local infrastructure projects like the Mogo Adventure Trail Hub and the Kiama Arts Precinct; affordable housing projects like those in Bomaderry and East Nowra; and support for our councils to retain their employees and rebuild lost infrastructure. Kiama council alone estimates a $6.8 million loss in revenue. This is monumental for a small council, and, without urgent and targeted assistance, our community will be left behind. We don't want more promises, phantom funds and flashy announcements. We shouldn't have to come begging for help. The government needs to step up and take country areas like the New South Wales South Coast seriously. The government must take action, and they must take action now.

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