Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A letter has been received from Senator Walsh:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The Morrison Government's failure to deliver for bushfire victims, who were promised immediate support but months later only four per cent have received any help.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bushfires that swept through much of the Australian continent over the course of the last half of 2019 and the first months of 2020 were unprecedented but not unpredictable. The bushfires caused immense damage, and Australians in bushfire affected regions are looking to the Morrison government, wanting it to keep the promises that it made.

There will be an opportunity over the course of the coming months to examine in some detail the level of preparedness and the capacity of the federal government and state governments to do their work in terms of bushfire mitigation, hazard reduction and dealing with the impact of dangerous climate change. But right now what Australians want to see is a government that keeps to its word. And the evidence is that what we're seeing in Australia from this Commonwealth government has all the hallmarks of the Morrison adman—all spin and no substance, the big announcement and zero follow-through every single time. No doubt we'll see advertising about bushfire recovery, but what we don't see is the government spending what it said it would spend. We don't see boots on the ground doing the work that needs to happen in terms of recovery.

I can tell you that, in the area that I come from, in the north-west of New South Wales, on the bushfire recovery effort, six months after those fires swept through some of those towns, the promised clean-up only recently commenced. It took even longer for the promised clean-up to commence on the South Coast of New South Wales. That is unforgivable. That shows a wanton lack of care, a lack of commitment and a lack of understanding of the role of the Commonwealth government at this point. I heard one of the senators opposite bellowing out across the chamber recently that this is all a state responsibility. Bushfires don't know state boundaries. This is absolutely squarely the role of the Commonwealth government.

Recently, Services Australia Deputy Chief Executive Officer Michelle Lees told the royal commission that one in 10 people who applied for one-off disaster recovery payments were unsuccessful. One in three who sought recovery allowances were rejected. When she was interrogated about why, Ms Lees said that applicants may have lived outside an eligible local government area or the damage to their property was considered insufficient. Tell that to the people on the South Coast of New South Wales.

The royal commission has heard that some people struggled to apply because their identity documents had been destroyed. The head of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency, Andrew Colvin, told the commission that many victims had been treated differently because of jurisdictional issues associated with disaster recovery efforts. What people need is a government that sweeps all this aside, that steps in and makes sure that the promises it made—belatedly, not before Christmas and not after Christmas, as it scrambled in its response to realise what the real responsibilities of federal government, of Commonwealth leadership, actually are—are kept.

People who lost their homes in the Clear Range fire at Bumbalong have been forced to start their own heartbreaking clear-up. They've decided they can't wait for the Commonwealth government. They're going to do it themselves. According to Kim Templeton, Secretary of the Bumbalong Valley Progress Association, people in that community feel abandoned. 'After losing a third of the valley's homes in the space of an hour, it took three weeks for official records to reflect the loss,' he said. He went on to say:

It took us about five weeks to convince the Department … that our postcode was fire affected.

So what is the government doing about it? The Liberal candidate for Eden-Monaro says that bushfire recovery has been hampered by poor coordination between the groups offering aid. She's right. 'They're not coordinated enough,' she went on to say. What an indictment of the government that she wants to join! Coordination during and after national disasters is what governments do. It took Minister Littleproud until two weeks ago to announce a review of disaster recovery payments. A review? What's actually required is to get the payments out the door, to do the job that the government is entrusted by the people of Australia to do.

In the meantime, the government have blamed everyone they could point the finger at. It's been a concerted effort, led by Senator Molan and some of the characters who are involved in the Eden-Monaro by-election, to point the finger at charities, at councils, at state governments—at anybody else but Scott Morrison and the Commonwealth government. Well, the buck stops with you. Through you, Madam Acting Deputy President: the buck stops with the Prime Minister. The Liberal candidate for Eden-Monaro wants to join a government that is chaotic, incompetent and obsessed with itself, until it comes to launching an advertising campaign. It's very focused on the press release and very focused on the announcement of big dollars, with breathtaking figures and justifications, but there's zero delivery.

When you look at the National Bushfire Recovery Agency organisational chart, the one thing that the government has been good at doing is filling all of the communications and engagement positions in the agency. There's a big tick for the communications officers, a big tick for the people who designed the memes and a big tick for getting the message out there, but zero for delivery in terms of policy substance and the things that matter for bushfire communities.

The government's rhetoric isn't matched by what's happening on the ground. Businesses in those communities can't access the services that they need to access. People who lost their homes can't get their ruined houses cleaned. Businesspeople who've lost their businesses in many cases are still waiting for demolition. And people are still living in substandard accommodation, particularly as winter on the South Coast of New South Wales sets in. We've got a government that's obsessed by spin, obsessed by marketing and obsessed by sloganeering but has just not been able to deliver, particularly for the people of South Coast New South Wales. It should not have taken a by-election to wake up this hopeless rabble of a government to its real responsibilities.

We are going to do the work here in the Senate. We're going to do the work to hold this government to account. We're going to do the work in the Finance and Public Administration References Committee inquiry into bushfires and the bushfire recovery. We're going to make sure that this government is dragged kicking and screaming to do the job that it's responsible for, that it should be delivering upon and that it has manifestly failed so far to do.

Jim Molan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to address the matter of public importance submitted, I think, in the name of Senator Walsh—Senator Ayres has now spoken on it—which claims, as to bushfire victims who were promised immediate support, 'months later only four per cent have received any help'. The ALP are politicising bushfire recovery in an apparent attempt to score cheap political points, with the Eden-Monaro by-election in full swing, and that is patently obvious.

Senator Walsh—and possibly Senator Ayres—has not once requested a briefing from the National Bushfire Recovery Agency. If Senator Walsh were truly concerned with the plight of bushfire victims, one would have thought that the senator might have requested a briefing on the work of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency. That agency and government have worked to be as transparent as possible with the opposition and members of the crossbench. And it's not just Senator Walsh. The National Bushfire Recovery Agency has given a whole-of-opposition-shadow-cabinet briefing. It has given one-on-one briefings to Senator Murray Watt and also Catherine King MP, Fiona Phillips MP and Susan Templeman MP and, by my count, 16 other briefings. So for the Labor Party to say that it's going to hold us to account in this house is a travesty. If you're going to hold anyone to account, start by understanding the facts and understanding what's going on.

Additionally, the National Bushfire Recovery Agency sent an email to all opposition and crossbench members in bushfire affected electorates, in May 2020, asking them to advise if they wished to participate in a virtual briefing on bushfire recovery, and not one member of the opposition or the Greens even responded. If the ALP and the Greens were truly concerned about bushfire recovery, one would think all impacted MPs and senators would have taken the opportunity to receive a briefing, and not one did. Instead of working constructively with the government to support bushfire victims, the opposition are taking advantage of the government's effort to keep them informed of their constituents' recovery, and they should be linking in with us on every possible opportunity.

What about this four per cent figure? Senator Ayres didn't mention the four per cent figure. I suspect it's because he is so deeply embarrassed about it. The Labor Party figure of only four per cent of those impacted by the bushfires as having received assistance is just fantasy. I can only surmise that this figure is a form of calculation derived by taking the entire population of the local government areas that had fires occur in them and cross-referencing that with the number of people who have been supported by Australian governments. And just because it's in some publication, Senator Watt, doesn't mean it's correct. At best, this is poor understanding of the reality of the situation. At worst, it is a mischievous and an irresponsible use of arithmetic to politicise the plight of bushfire victims.

While approximately 7.1 million people live in local government areas that have been activated for bushfire recovery assistance, clearly not all of these were impacted in the same way or, indeed, at all. Some of these local government areas include large, heavily populated areas. A smaller proportion of Australians were resident within the burn scar and were directly impacted through the loss of loved ones and property. For instance, if we were to take the figure being used by the ALP, one would assume that the entire Gold Coast was directly impacted by flame, and that is ridiculous. The ALP are putting those in high-rises who were untouched on a par with those whose properties in our rural and regional areas were destroyed, and that's bizarre. Another proportion were also indirectly impacted in a severe way through loss of income, trade and crops. The most meaningful measure of the number of Australians that were directly and indirectly impacted is through the take-up of support measures being delivered by all levels of government, which continues to rise.

I want to make a number of additional points and then get down to some real facts. Firstly, the government's policy is about helping Australians recover from the recent bushfires—and that is a national priority, despite the impact of COVID. Just as we do not forget the scourge of drought or the scourge of flood, we are working and will continue to work on providing support to those impacted by the bushfires. Secondly, to get the money out fast, the Commonwealth uses state and territory governments and local councils to deliver the programs. Thirdly, we have enlisted charities to distribute a proportion of the funds as emergency relief, which is managed separately to public donations. Generally, this has worked, but where it has been less than perfect, where systems and processes can be better, the National Bushfire Recovery Agency is working with partners to make improvements.

Two billion dollars has been allocated to the national bushfire recovery fund, and the Prime Minister has said that more is available if required. Funding is being rolled out over a two-year period. At mid-May, half of that money had been distributed. So, when you add in the $417 million more that has been allocated through disaster recovery payments and disaster recovery allowances, you find that over this period $1.4 billion is out there working for the victims of bushfires. The reason it's rolled out over two years is so people in the community can think about their recovery needs and seek support at their own pace. Let me remind you that, in a two-year $2 billion program, we have spent $1.4 billion. I've sat with fire victims at evacuation centres, with smoke in the air, when they were assisted by officials to apply for and receive the bushfire recovery payment and the allowance. On occasions, approval has been given on the phone and money has been within their account within 30 minutes—and often much faster.

Let me speak about what we have actually done in Eden-Monaro—as the Labor Party raised Eden-Monaro. In the five local government areas included in the Eden-Monaro electorate, 502 primary producer grants have been approved, providing almost $32.4 million in support. There have been 130 concessional loans approved, providing over $7.6 million on the ground. There have been 4,429 small business support grants of $10,000 in Eden-Monaro, amounting to over $44.2 million in support. There have been 601 small business grants of $50,000 approved, amounting to over $16.7 million, and over $37 million in Commonwealth payments have been made to individuals under the disaster recovery payment and the disaster recovery allowance.

There will always be people who fall between the cracks. But everyone who has been brought to my attention has been dealt with; they've received aid from the federal level, from the state level or from charities. We can always do it better, but the accusation of four per cent is plain mischievous. Despite the fires coming on top of the drought and being followed by COVID, and despite the fact that individuals may slip through the cracks, the government and its agencies have effectively supported the victims of bushfires across this nation and will continue to do so.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. The devastating bushfires of last summer ripped through communities across the country. Lives were lost, livelihoods were lost, acres upon acres of bush was lost in flames, and more than a billion animals were killed. I travelled up and down my state of New South Wales and heard tragic heartbreaking stories from people who have lost loved ones, lost homes and lost businesses they have built from scratch. Many talk about the intensity of the fires and how climate change is at the forefront of their minds, about how the climate crisis has fuelled the bushfires and about how angry they are at the Morrison government for not taking action.

It's been six months since the height of the fires, and people are not getting the support they need and they are not getting it fast enough. And now they are dealing with the devastation left by the bushfires and the pandemic all rolled into one. And yet this government is trying to lead us backwards. The government and the COVID commission talk about a gas led recovery. While it might be exactly what the Liberal Party's donors are after, doubling down on fossil fuels would be no recovery at all. It would take us further away from the targets that we desperately must meet to avoid the worst of the climate catastrophe. It is criminally irresponsible. Not only is the government planning to double down on carbon emissions, but they haven't even had the decency or the ability to follow through on the promise of support for bushfire victims. We watched the apocalyptic scenes unfold in real time this summer. It is now an entirely unavoidable truth, even for Prime Minister Scott Morrison, that the climate crisis is already here. Catastrophes like these fires, the drought, the floods, the extinction events and the water shortages will keep happening as the climate crisis intensifies—more frequently and more ferociously.

On the weekend, I met with people in the electorate of Eden-Monaro, which bore the brunt of so much damage during the bushfires. In February, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service reported that the fires had burnt 365,000 hectares in the Bega Valley and 270,000 hectares in Eurobodalla. That is 58 per cent of the Bega Valley's land mass and 79 per cent of Eurobodalla. People are trying their best, of course, to rebuild. They are showing real courage and resilience, but they need support.

There is soon to be a by-election in Eden-Monaro, and the bushfires and climate are at the top of the minds of people in that electorate. They want investment in their communities because they know that we can recover from the COVID-19 crisis, we can rebuild after the bushfires and we can tackle the climate crisis. While we are doing that, we can also create thousands of much-needed jobs in our communities. We could choose an investment-led recovery plan, where we rebuild an economy that actually helps people by constructing public housing, by providing caring roles in the community in the public sector, by vital post-bushfire environmental restoration jobs and by jobs in renewable energy. We have the means to do this; we just need the political will.

The psychological trauma and devastating economic and environmental impacts of these fires won't be forgotten in Eden-Monaro or, in fact, across the country. But in Eden-Monaro people have a real opportunity to send a strong message to the Morrison government on 4 July and to reset the political agenda to one that actually works for people, not for the fossil fuel vested interests that have so influenced this government. I hope that they use their democratic right to do exactly that. It is simply unacceptable and cruel that the government is sitting on resources so needed by bushfire affected communities. People need support now. Victims of the bushfires can't wait, and neither can our climate or our planet.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance, which has a very important topic that affects so many people who have gone through so much across our country. It has become customary to talk about the 'black summer' bushfires. We saw horrific scenes across much of the country through summer but it is worth remembering that these bushfires started well before summer. They started in my home state, Queensland, back in July, and we saw them in parts of New South Wales as early as September and October, which reflects again the unprecedented nature of these bushfires and the damage they inflicted across such a wide part of the country over such a long period of time.

It is for all of those bushfire victims, whether they are on the New South Wales South Coast, in the Blue Mountains, in the Snowy Valley area or as far north as Central Queensland, that we speak up today again about this government's, and in particular this Prime Minister's, failure to deliver on the promises they have made to bushfire victims. Everyone will remember the Prime Minister scurrying back from his overseas holiday in Hawaii, caught out trying to pretend he wasn't away initially and then finally having to admit that he was. What did he do when he came back to the country? Well, in early January this year, he called one of his hurried press conferences and pledged immediate support to bushfire victims. That was in the first week of January. Immediate support is what this Prime Minister promised to bushfire victims, and yet here we are, months down the track, in the middle of winter in some of the coldest parts of this country, where people continue to live in caravans, and in some cases in tents, in other forms of temporary accommodation or in sheds, and in many cases are still waiting for debris to be removed so that they can just begin the rebuilding process.

I know this government and this Prime Minister don't like Labor, community groups, journalists and a whole range of other people continuing to speak up on behalf of these bushfire victims, but we will continue to do so. We are not going to let this government forget these bushfire victims. We are not going to sit by and let them continue to suffer in their caravans, tents or other temporary accommodation in winter while this government fails to deliver on promises that it has made. It's deeply unfortunate that, in relation to these bushfires, we see a continuation of a pattern from this Prime Minister which is that he's all about marketing. He's all about the headline and he's all about the press conference, and he actually doesn't really care, once he gets that run in the media, whether the promises that he makes are delivered and whether the people he's made promises to receive the support that they very much need.

I have listened to Senator Molan object to Labor pointing out that only four per cent of bushfire victims in bushfire-hit communities have received the support that they have been promised. Last week when I asked Senator Ruston, as the minister representing the emergency services minister, about this, she also took umbrage and accused me of being loose with the truth by using the four per cent figure. I am happy to table, for Senator Ruston's benefit, the article in The Canberra Times from 3 June this year from which that four per cent figure is drawn. It actually comes from evidence that the National Bushfire Recovery Agency gave to a committee of this parliament. So, before the government accuse people of being loose with the truth with figures that we cite, they might want to do their research and make sure they have got the correct figures themselves. As I say, I am happy to table that article for the benefit of the minister and the benefit of the Senate more broadly. I seek leave to table that document.

Leave not granted.

You don't want to know, do you? The government don't want to know. They want to come in here and accuse people who are speaking the truth about bushfire victims of making it up. But, when they're actually offered the opportunity to read the document that proves the point, they don't want to see it. Again, that is symptomatic of this government's approach to the bushfires. They don't want to believe the truth. They want to get out there and make these marketing slogans and tell us that it is all going brilliantly and everyone is being looked after, but the minute the truth is revealed—whether that be about an individual in Cobargo or someone outside Taree who's still waiting for their property to be cleared—they just don't want to know about it. As I say, that is very symptomatic of this government's approach to the bushfires. This article in The Canberra Times of 3 June, which the government doesn't want tabled, states that only four per cent of bushfire victims living in bushfire affected regions have managed to get access to government support. So 96 per cent of those people have not received the support that this government has promised.

This is not the only time that the government have tried to cover up figures in relation to their support for bushfire victims. If you go back about a month ago, we were asking questions of the government about their bushfire recovery efforts. We made the point that the government's own answer to a question on notice—their own documents and their own figures—showed that, of the $2 billion national bushfire recovery fund that they announced in January, only $250 million had been spent. The government responded: 'No, no, it's not true. It's not true.' It came from their own documents, their own figures. They then hurriedly released some new figures, which showed that the number had increased, and I acknowledge that. It's now $529 million. If you look at the documents the government have released to prove that point, they're very keen to throw in all sorts of other figures to try to make out that they're spending more than they actually are.

I could give you more and more figures, statistics, data, such as that one in 10 bushfire victims who've applied for the government's disaster recovery payment has been rejected, and one in three bushfire victims who've applied for the disaster recovery allowance has been rejected. I could give you figure after figure, number after number. But it's important that we don't think about this as numbers. This is about people. This is about people I have met, everywhere from Cobargo to Central Queensland to the Blue Mountains to the Hawkesbury and everywhere in between. It's people Senator Molan has also met, to his credit, and they are the people who are still waiting for this government to get its act together and actually deliver the support that has been promised. These are people who have suffered unimaginable loss—of life, of property, of belonging. They're now having to navigate a complicated system of bureaucracy and red tape, and, sadly, many have just given up because it's too hard.

My office has spoken to many families who've been waiting months for loans and grant approvals. One was recently knocked back because of a mistake on a form, and they are now waiting through an even more complicated appeals process to get back on their feet. Why do these people have to continue suffering through this government's ridiculous processes and this government's obsession with marketing over delivery, when they've already been through so much? For months we have been pointing out the need for case managers to help people navigate the grants process, but unfortunately the government has still not taken up this suggestion, and it's bushfire victims who are the poorer for it.

To his credit, Mr Andrew Colvin, the Coordinator of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency, in his evidence to the royal commission only a couple of weeks ago acknowledged that the government's requirement for bushfire victims to keep retelling their stories over and over again to different government officials was retraumatising individuals. My simple question is, if the government knows that its processes are retraumatising individuals, why doesn't it fix them? You're the government. You've been in power for seven years. By now surely you can work this stuff out and actually treat bushfire victims with some respect. I really hope that this government can get its act together and support bushfire victims and just deliver what it has promised. Is it really so much to ask this Prime Minister to think about more than just getting the headline, to think about delivering on what he promises, to keep faith with bushfire victims? (Time expired)

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind all senators that interjections are always disorderly.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From Bega on the South Coast up to Rappville up in the Northern Rivers, Australians impacted by the summer bushfires are being failed by the federal government. It's been six months since the unprecedented fires, but only four per cent of those impacted have received support. It has been estimated that 7.1 million Australians were impacted directly or indirectly by the fires, yet only 291,000 people have been supported through disaster recovery payments. It doesn't matter how people seek to quibble with those statistics. It's a pretty poor record and it's borne out by the stories on the ground. It's borne out by the stories about the fact that only 288 businesses have been approved for a concessional loan as part of the government's bushfire recovery package. It's borne out by the further information that only $219 million of the $362 million allocated to demand-driven bushfire recovery programs has been spent. Survivors of these fires need support and they need it urgently. The government's lack of action and their lack of ambition for these communities is completely shameful. It reflects an overall complacency and laziness about their role—a focus on themselves and their own jobs at the expense of the communities that they have promised to protect and support.

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the problems that people are facing in regional areas. In Eden-Monaro, people who watched their houses burn just months ago are now facing serious challenges with unemployment and facing the closure of small businesses. In the region 7½ per cent of jobs have been lost during COVID-19, the 11th-highest electorate in the country, and when you talk to people from the area they express their disappointment in the federal government's response. Many are still struggling to get back on their feet from the fires, and now they face this. My office has heard from a man who lived just one kilometre from the fire in Toowoomba, and this man defended his property. He watched while many of his neighbours' houses burnt. Social-distancing measures have made it difficult for him to access the supplies he needs, but he has persevered and he's repaired his property. These are strong and resilient communities, but they need significantly more support to recover from these very difficult times. It says something about the motivations of those opposite that much-needed temporary housing was only made available once a by-election was announced. It was a media opportunity. This electorate needs strong local representation. It needs a person like Kristy McBain, who was a fierce advocate for locals through the fires and is someone who will take this fight to Canberra.

The thing is that the immediate crisis may have passed but it hasn't passed for the people who have endured so much. For many people there is not going to be a return to normal for a very long time. As Amanda Gearing, a researcher in this area, has written, the effects of a serious natural disaster last for many years. Five years after the floods in Queensland, people are still struggling, and the journey has been longer and more difficult for people who lost family members during or after the disaster, who were traumatised by a near-death experience, who could no longer work in their old job, who had significant health problems or who had insurance claims that were slow, difficult or rejected. These people don't cease to require support just because the fires have been put out. We are talking about a long journey to recovery, and these are communities who know how to manage and advocate for their own interests. It was the community that led the response to the bushfires and it's now the community that is leading the response to COVID-19.

The government needs to provide support to these communities to give them the tools and resources that they need. They don't ask for much, but they do ask, at a minimum, for governments to take an interest in their lives. They ask for governments to think about the fire seasons that may lie ahead, to take seriously the warnings from professionals and to actually start to tackle the issues with climate change that have provided an accelerant to an already dangerous climate. We cannot afford to be complacent. Our lives depend on it. (Time expired)

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People suffered so much from last summer's fires, and our government has failed far too many of them. Despite the unprecedented tragedy of the bushfire season, the news cameras have now largely gone. But for so many people, particularly in my home state of Victoria, the impact is still ongoing. People in East Gippsland are still living in sheds and caravans, even in tents. They haven't been given a time line for when the rubble remains of their homes will be cleared away. Recent media reports tell us that Rotary volunteers supplied about 34 shipping containers to be used as temporary homes, but another hundred were needed. I'd like to read the words of one survivor who's faced trauma: 'Your memory and thoughts are all muddled. I go to counselling every week to try to process my emotions and to understand it. I am a very capable person, but there have been times I have struggled to even make a phone call.'

But it's not just the tangible help directly after the fires where the failure has occurred. In late May, the Finance and Public Administration References Committee heard from Greg Mullins. He was representing Emergency Leaders for Climate Action, a group of 33 former fire and emergency service chiefs and deputy chiefs, covering every fire service in Australia. His words were powerful:

It's settled science; there's no question. The atmosphere is warming due to the burning of oil, coal and gas. Just a 1.1-degree increase has led to weather conditions that have never been experienced before … in just under 50 years of fighting fires … we haven't seen fires of this magnitude before.

Even more scary, he told us that, when he spoke about the climate emergency, 'I was spoken to by my minister at the time and by some senior officials.' What kind of pathetic excuse for a liberal democracy are we living in? We should be listening to the science and to our independent officials, but, instead, the government gagged them. In that same hearing we heard that before the Prime Minister went off on holiday to Hawaii he knew of the unprecedented nature of the fire season that we faced and he went anyway. The Prime Minister buggered off during last season's bushfires, but he has the chance to do the right thing now.

The coalition can and must support people who have survived these fires, to treat them with respect, treat them as if they were family, and they must do it soon. People should not still be living in tents. The government can do a lot more to invest in and rejuvenate local communities and create jobs in environmental rehabilitation, to restore damaged landscapes: employ people working in the bush to tackle weeds and pest animals; fence off rivers and streams; build tourism infrastructure, like walking and cycling trails. They could start protecting our forests, employing local people, including First Nations peoples, in doing that, and stop native forest logging, which is doing more damage to our forests, on top of the fires, killing more wildlife—on top of the billon animals killed in the fires.

In East Gippsland, where people have been suffering so much, there's a proposal for the Emerald Link. It's a proposal for forest protection and tourism and recreation infrastructure, from the mountains to the coast, that would rejuvenate local economies and be an icon project, something to be really proud of, and would reflect what an extraordinary part of the country East Gippsland truly is. These projects are good for people, and good for our economy and our environment, and they can be undertaken quickly and efficiently compared with the massive mining and development projects that the government announced today—which they want to fast-track, trashing and slashing our environment protections and our precious wildlife.

Finally, the Morrison government must do more on the climate emergency. We know climate change makes fires more intense and more frequent. People suffered so much from last summer's firestorms that were so intense, because of the one degree of heating that we have already experienced. Just think what three to four degrees of global heating will do! That's what the Morrison government have us on track for. On top of the Morrison government's failure to look after bushfire victims, failure to plan and deliver sustainable economic initiatives, Morrison's inaction on the climate crisis is risking Australian lives—last summer, the coming summer and all summers to come.

David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today about this important matter. While I thank Senator Walsh for the opportunity to highlight the great work that the federal government is doing to support communities hit by last summer's bushfires, I also understand that she has not once sought a briefing from federal authorities on the recovery's progress. This may explain some of the misperceptions that we heard earlier.

There is no doubt that the extensive nature of these fires has impacted our communities, including those in Victoria, such as Mallacoota, Cann River and Orbost. Whilst I have said in this place previously that these fires are not unprecedented, nevertheless this level of damage requires huge amounts of effort and time to recover. If Senators Walsh and Rice were truly concerned about the plight of Victorian bushfire victims, one would have thought they might have requested a briefing on the work of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency, especially in those communities. As a government we recognise that, due to the scale of the destruction, the recovery effort needed is going to be enormous and long-lasting. That is why the government established the National Bushfire Recovery Agency: to lead the work to drive a strong economic recovery.

This is the first time that a federal government has recognised the need for a permanent national body to work in partnership with the states and territories, to aid their efforts in recovering from bushfires. The National Bushfire Recovery Agency and the government have worked to be as transparent as possible with the opposition and members of the crossbench. This has included a whole-of-opposition shadow cabinet briefing and one-on-one briefings with other Labor colleagues, including Senator Watt and local MPs such as Catherine King, Fiona Phillips and Susan Templeman.

This government has established a $2 billion Regional Bushfire Recovery Development Program. So far, over $1.3 billion from that program has been spent. It draws on local voices and local governments to develop the right sort of recovery plan for communities in the most severely impacted regions. Funding is rolling out over a two-year period. This means people in communities have time to think about their recovery needs and seek the right support at the right time for them.

Already, over 281,000 Australians have received direct financial support from the Australian government through the disaster recovery and allowance payments. Approximately 23,000 businesses have received direct financial assistance. Fortuitously, today's sacking of Victoria's small business minister, following allegations of political branch stacking, may possibly even speed up the recovery of small businesses. It sounds like he was more focused on politicking than his portfolio, but that is an oft-heard observation of Labor. This money either has already been paid or is being reimbursed to state and territory governments for help they deliver on our behalf, including the Labor government in my home state of Victoria, so perhaps Senator Walsh's concerns might be better directed to her state Labor colleagues.

Communities are recovering from the combined impacts of drought, fire and the coronavirus. But make no mistake: the challenge is immense. What is required is a focused partnership between governments and the people on the ground, and that helps them recover in a way that suits their individual needs. Thank you.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Leader of the Nationals in the Senate and a proud regional Victorian, I'm very pleased to be able to participate on behalf of those communities and contribute to this matter of public importance raised by the Labor Party, which is quite ironic. It's nothing more than a stunt, but I guess we shouldn't be surprised—a really cheap and tawdry attempt to politicise the bushfire recovery.

Our regional communities have been hit by a triple whammy—the drought, bushfire and COVID-19—and we're doing everything we can as a federal government to support them through that. Labor is not interested in bushfire recovery. They're interested in any single distraction to take the spotlight away from their grubby ALP branch wheeling and dealing. If Labor were actually interested in the people of Victoria, you'd think the senator that put this matter forward would actually have shown some interest.

I think, Senator Van, you raised a very valid point: when the government offered a briefing so it could get across the detail to all senators—because we know that, when we work together across political parties and across jurisdictions, we achieve great things; we've done it in flattening the curve with COVID-19, and we can do it with bushfire recovery—no-one showed up. No-one showed up from the Labor Party. And guess what? No-one showed up from the Greens. But those of us who live out in these communities are actually not surprised by this fickle and offensive politicisation of something that is very real and is impacting people's daily lives.

We've just heard in the debate tonight—Senator Rice gets on her high horse—the typical Green talking points rolled out yet again. You know what? The royal commission into the bushfires in our home state, Senator Van—those horrific bushfires that occurred on 7 February 2009 and killed 173 people—said our volunteer and professional firies need to work better together. Do you know what makes a difference to fires? An ignition point, a fuel load, access to tracks and access to the national parks and the state parks et cetera to actually manage the fire. Fuel burns also make a difference. That was over a decade ago, and here we are.

I want to also put on the record: thank you to our CFA volunteers, the RFS and the South Australian volunteer firefighters who spent day and night. I remember going out into Cudgewa and Corryong and Tallangatta and talking with the CFA volunteers after New Year. They were exhausted. They'd be out defending their neighbours' property and they would get home to find their own backyard burnt.

So that is a bit disappointing, but you know, here we are, batting it away. At the end of the day, I know my Senate colleagues on this side of the chamber have gone through the significant support that our government has put on the ground and into regional communities to support those bushfire affected communities: an initial $2 billion for those recovery efforts; for financial counselling, we've already paid out $1 million; we've already paid out $18.2 million in small business grants; there are the $10,000 small business grants already paid out; $173 million—I could go on and on and on.

The reality is: we all know in this place that, while we come with bags of money and good intent, it is state governments that are responsible for the frontline rolling out of these programs. And to come in, particularly in Victoria, with young Daniel—young Daniel Andrews had a big day; I hope he watched 60 Minutes; I know I really enjoyed it last night. Not a lot of surprise there for me—

Senator McGrath interjecting—

I don't know where the cameras were, Senator McGrath! But it is time for state governments of all colours to get serious about supporting regional communities.

I just want to put on the record: Natalie O'Connell, former mayor of East Gippsland and an Omeo resident, and David Wortmann, Towong mayor: thank you for your leadership in our communities over summer.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, your time has expired and the time for the discussion has also expired.