Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance and I'd like to thank Labor. Senator Watt has said that Labor felt they had to remind our government of the bushfire victims. Well, I can assure Labor and I can assure the community that we need no reminding of the people who suffered the tragedy that was the summer just gone. This is a clear example of Labor trying to politicise something that should never be politicised. Over summer we saw what we now call the 'black summer', but, as Senator Watt quite rightly said, it started before summer. We saw 18.6 million hectares burnt, not just in Eden-Monaro, as some people have alluded to today, but right from Queensland to Victoria, along the entire New South Wales seaboard in my state, and across to South Australia. Nearly 6,000 buildings were destroyed, 34 lives tragically were lost and an estimated one billion animals were killed.

Senator Watt was quite right that it was indeed the National Bushfire Recovery Agency deputy coordinator, Major General Andrew Hocking, who told a Senate committee that about five per cent of bushfire-hit communities had received government aid. However, if you read further, beyond the headline of that article, he explains the mathematics, which is overly simple when you are talking about a complex recovery scenario. He explains that an estimated 7.1 million people live in the local government areas that were impacted directly or indirectly by the fires. By doing the simple mathematics of division, you can then extrapolate that five per cent received government aid. It is not effective maths and it does not clearly show what this government has done.

This government's support was immediate. Firstly, we put in place immediately two major forms of financial support, through the disaster recovery payment, which made available $1,000 for each adult and $400 for each child where they were adversely impacted by the bushfires. We also identified the need to help families with upcoming school expenses and provided a further $400 for each eligible child. Then we made the disaster recovery allowance available to those who have lost income as a direct result of bushfires. This was just our immediate support. Through those programs, a total of 281,000 Australians had received direct financial support from the Australian government.

But support is not limited to a chequebook. Our government got out immediate support for mental health. We provided $100 million committed to the mental health of bushfires victims. Free counselling and Medicare rebated psychological support, including via telehealth, was quickly made available. That is why our government continues to support the mental health of Australians, and 24 per cent of a $53.4 million program has a ready been spent. Another form of immediate support came through the distribution of facemasks during the bushfires. This is immediate and practical support that people needed. We got 3.5 million masks out the door over the course of summer that saved many lives because it addressed issues such as asthma and quality of air.

We also had the Defence Force out on the ground immediately. That is support. At Mallacoota we saw the biggest-ever maritime evacuation of Australian citizens. That is support. We had an immediate rollout of communications with Sky Muster mobile trucks going into impacted communities—immediate support. And we continue support for our bushfire affected communities through the ongoing clean-up and the ongoing rollout of financial counselling, small business grants and low-interest loans. So I refute the claim that our government has failed to support our communities. We will not turn our back on them. We stand with them now and into the future.