The Nationals Member for Euroa, Annabelle Cleeland MP, says a new parliamentary research report has exposed the scale of the Allan Labor Government’s failures in supporting communities recovering from the January 2026 bushfires – with government officials themselves admitting the system is reactive, poorly explained, and starved of resources.
The report, Enabling Community-Led Bushfire Recovery, was researched by University of Melbourne student Saskia Heng through the Victorian Parliamentary Internship Program under Ms Cleeland’s supervision, drawing on interviews with 13 community recovery leaders, government officials and disaster recovery researchers.
One community recovery leader told researchers they faced an “absolute absence of response” from the Incident Control Centre and Emergency Recovery Victoria when trying to help their own community. Another resident was reportedly still waiting 15 weeks after the fires for a promised clean-up, left returning to a block “full of twisted metal.”
“This shouldn’t just be uncomfortable reading for the Allan Labor Government – it should be a wake-up call,” Ms Cleeland said.
“This isn’t just frustrated residents saying recovery was botched. It’s the government’s own officials, on the record, admitting they are reactive rather than prepared, and that political pressure gets in the way of doing this properly.”
The report also found local councils, positioned as the frontline of recovery, were left so under-resourced that one struggled to fund even a single recovery worker – described in the research as leaving “a lame duck local government”.
“You cannot call something community-led when you starve the very organisations meant to deliver it,” Ms Cleeland said.
Perhaps most tellingly, one government official admitted the state’s approach amounts to a “safety net” that activates only once disaster strikes, conceding: “you’re not investing in what good recovery could look like”.
“That is Labor, in its own words, confirming this is about the bare minimum, not genuine investment,” Ms Cleeland said.
“It’s the same story we’ve seen play out in Longwood and across Strathbogie Shire since January – communities mobilising within hours while government struggles to respond within months.
“Our communities know how to recover. What they need is a government that resources them properly, communicates honestly, and gets out of the way instead of steamrolling local efforts to look good for the cameras.”
Ms Cleeland said she would use the findings to press the government in Parliament and through the upcoming inquiry into the January bushfires.
“Every fire teaches us something. Right now, Labor isn’t listening – and regional communities are paying the price.”
