The Nationals Member for Euroa, Annabelle Cleeland MP, has written to the Prime Minister and the Governor-General declaring Victoria’s bushfire recovery one of the most dysfunctional responses the state has seen, amid allegations the Allan Labor Government has politicised disaster recovery.
The letter marks six months since the January bushfires tore through Longwood, Ruffy, Creightons Creek and the wider Strathbogie region, and sets out 15 areas of neglect and incompetence Ms Cleeland said had paralysed the recovery.
Among the failures raised are a discriminatory, two-tiered clean-up program that took four months to begin, modular homes that sat in storage for months before the first was erected in the Strathbogie Shire only a fortnight ago, and the collapse of the single ‘one door’ policy that has left recovery data fractured across agencies.
“If we do not provide three years of rate relief and exemption from the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund levy, we will have localities that cannot rebuild and businesses that never reopen,” Ms Cleeland said.
“This is the precedent set by previous disasters.”
Ms Cleeland said she had spoken this week to a farmer whose business was destroyed in the fires.
“The mental health impact on that family is severe – they are at breaking point,” she said.
“This recovery is long, lonely and exhausting. If government said, we see you, and we will help you, that would give people the breathing space to rebuild.”
Ms Cleeland said the letter follows revelations that, for the first five months of the recovery, she was refused direct access to the public servants responsible for delivering it, and was instead encouraged to raise issues through Labor staff.
“Public servants do not work for the government of the day. They work for the Victorian people,” Ms Cleeland said. “When communities are trying to rebuild after one of the worst disasters in our region’s history, the last thing they need is political gatekeeping.”
Last month, Ms Cleeland met with Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner to discuss recovery issues across the region. The meeting was attended by a staff member from a Labor MP’s office.
Ms Cleeland said her request for the Commissioner’s contact details was refused, and she was told any future contact should be made through the Labor MP’s office instead.
“That is simply unacceptable,” Ms Cleeland said.
“My constituents elected me to represent them, not to seek permission from the Labor Party every time I need to raise an issue with the public service.
“I will continue standing up for my communities and demanding the access needed to ensure bushfire recovery is driven by the needs of local people, not by political considerations.”
