Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Keneally for her question. Obviously, we have been through a particularly devastating time over recent months with the bushfires and the impact that it's had on the communities that have been absolutely devastated. Part of the response from the federal government—an unprecedented response, I might add—for the kind of natural disaster that we have seen over recent months has been to make sure that we are quickly able to respond to people who are in need.

Obviously, as the senator would be well aware, I'm not in a position to comment on individual cases but, as I have always said in this place, if there is ever a particular situation or an individual case where they would like the matter taken up, I'm more than happy to take that matter up and I'm also more than happy to make sure that the minister responsible for government services is also made aware of it. However, this is not the forum in which we should be debating individual cases. But I would say that the response that we have seen to the devastating impacts of the bushfires by Services Australia, through the Australian government disaster recovery fund, has been unprecedented. We have seen hundreds of millions of dollars made available to people who are in need. In my own portfolio area, as an example, we made $50 million available for emergency relief so that we could get money immediately to people who may have needed some—may have needed accommodation, may have needed to get clothing, to get food.

Subsequent to this response, the time of the response, the ability for the payments to be able to be made quickly has been something that has been acknowledged by the broader bushfire community. Of course, there will always be situations where sometimes things are not as perfect as we would like and that is why we always come into this place and say, 'If you have a particular situation you would like us to deal with, we're more than happy to do so.' But hundreds of thousands of Australians who have been impacted by the bushfires have received a timely response from this government.