4.1
The Royal Commission’s report observed that the 2019-20 fires “did not respect state borders or local government boundaries”. It also emphasised the fact that every state and territory of Australia was impacted by fire to some extent.
Over 24 million hectares were burnt. Many Australians were impacted, directly or indirectly by the fires. Tragically, 33 people died and extensive smoke coverage across much of eastern Australia may have caused many more deaths. Over 3,000 homes were destroyed. Estimates of the national financial impacts are over $10 billion. Nearly three billion animals were killed or displaced and many threatened species and other ecological communities were extensively harmed.
4.2
The fires resulted in massive loss: of wildlife, land and environment, housing and community. This devastating level of loss has since been further exacerbated by severe weather events including hailstorms and floods. These disasters were closely followed by the impacts of COVID-19. There has been little respite for Australians since the 2019-20 bushfire season.
4.3
The impact bushfires have on the physical, emotional and mental health of communities is always significant. As noted in the committee’s interim report, in addition to the immediate and short-term stressors, the psychological trauma from losses suffered during bushfires can also have long-lasting effects. The severity of the 2019-20 bushfire season exacerbated all of these impacts. This chapter considers the evidence received from local communities and the issues they are continuing to face in the recovery effort.
Evidence of the slow progress of recovery
4.4
Following the tabling of its interim report, the committee held hearings and took evidence from individuals and representatives of organisations working within impacted communities.
4.5
Mr John Feint, President of the St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra-Goulburn, stated at the committee’s March 2021 hearing that he would be providing the committee with information about the progress that had been made “one year on”. In reflecting on the length of the recovery process, Mr Feint noted:
I think we’ve achieved a lot, but there’s a lot to be done. We see it as a long-term recovery process, which will probably take three years at best.
4.6
The description provided by Mrs Christine Walters, a Co-Coordinator at the Cobargo Bushfire Relief Centre, regarding her role at the Centre, is indicative of the descriptions provided by any number of individuals working to support their communities. Mrs Walters told the committee that in representing the Cobargo Bushfire Relief Centre, she is:
…not trained in disaster recovery, trauma counselling, financial counselling, grant application writing, nor do I have any experience or expertise in bushfires, council regulations or state or federal legislation in regard to building permits, primary producers or any of the myriad subjects that bushfire affected people need help with every day. What I do have is the time, energy, skills developed during a lifetime in business and project management and a deep love of my community. These attributes have meant that I've been able to help bushfire affected, highly traumatised people in their time of dire need. Recognising that I didn't have a number of skills and background knowledge that were vital for me to do this work, I took it upon myself to train with Lifeline and Red Cross in their mental health first-aid courses. I've also read numerous reports about the recovery process after the Black Saturday fires in Victoria and have made contact and discussed recovery with people who worked and are still working, 10 years on, in these communities.
4.7
The Cobargo Bushfire Relief Centre grew out of the need for community members to seek refuge at the Cobargo Showground during the New Year’s Eve fires. A group of highly organised volunteers, who had been responsible for running the Cobargo Show and the Cobargo Folk Festival, came together and created a small village within the showground where people were able to get something to eat and have access to showers and toilets. From there, the relief centre grew to a central hub for the distribution of donated goods, which had been provided by people from all over the country.
4.8
When it became apparent that the relief centre itself needed some coordination, community members stepped into those roles. The Centre has since moved from the showground to a small cottage in the village of Cobargo, where bushfire affected people are still able to come together and source donated goods, seek assistance with grant applications, ask for help in advocacy and general bushfire-related relief and recovery. The Centre also hosts community gatherings and refers people to mental health and legal practitioners.
4.9
The committee was told that, at the beginning of the bushfire emergency, people were particularly traumatised, they were unsure where to seek assistance, and they did not have adequate housing. The committee was also told that, while across Australia these types of relief centres have been performing a vital function, and have continued to provide great support to their communities, people are still in need of assistance:
People still don't know where to go to seek assistance. There is not enough publicity and communication around how to seek help. People are still living on properties with dangerous trees that could call fall and kill them or a family member at any time. People are still living in caravans, with a tarp for shelter, half a shed or a Minderoo pod—now, that's luxury. With the exception of the Minderoo pods, these dwellings have been cobbled together by themselves, their neighbours or a handful of good souls who've sourced donated caravans and cobbled together some building materials for a makeshift dwelling—hardly the stuff for a First World country.
4.10
Community representatives and organisations, and individuals expressed appreciation for the relief measures and assistance that has been provided by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments and charitable organisations. At the same time, however, the committee was provided with examples of the types of problems people have been experiencing, some of the daily frustrations, and some of the issues that are slowing recovery across communities.
4.11
Mr Michael Brosnan, Chair of the Social Justice Advocates of the Sapphire Coast, told the committee that his organisation had become involved in the recovery process through its homeless program, because all “of a sudden in our shire we had 460-plus additional homeless people”.
4.12
Mr Brosnan explained that the organisation had “moved into supporting people to get back on to properties with caravans” that were either donated or purchased, to provide very short-term relief during the crisis. One of the issues Mr Brosnan wanted to stress to the committee, however, was that a large number of people were still living in temporary accommodation – some in caravans without a shelter, some in shipping containers, and some without tanks and sanitation – “14 months down the track”.
4.13
The other point Mr Brosnan was keen to make was that the localities across the shire are very diverse, and very far apart. He noted that the charity relies on the four Bega Valley Shire caseworkers and the four Service NSW caseworkers to share information regarding those who require assistance. Mr Brosnan told the committee, for example that:
If you move from Pericoe in the south west to Wandello to Cobargo to Bemboka or to Bermagui, there are vast distances and very, very separate issues exist in those areas. The communication in the community does not exist in many of those localities as exists in Cobargo—and that's been mentioned. So we are dealing with very, very different situations throughout our shire. It is not the same.
People are far more on their own outside of the main towns like Wyndham, Cobargo and Bemboka. Those townships have a little bit of organisation happening. The people who are my concern and our charity's concern are those who are really still very isolated. It doesn't matter the background of these people. I've been helping an architect who was burnt out in Rocky Hall. I naively assumed that he would have the human resources and the background to be able to pull things together. He and his wife and their two daughters were as totally impacted psychologically as they were physically as all others. He was still lost with COVID. His work had gone and he's still trying to piece together work and property and mental health and those of his daughters, who are studying in higher secondary schools. So the keys to the fires in our shire, I think, are the diversity of the localities and the needs of the people living way out in our properties in these localities. How do we support them? That's a conundrum but it certainly takes the three levels of government. The council doesn't have the human resources, because it is the human resource that's needed in this recovery. Physical resources will come, but human resources are the main issue.
Bega Valley
4.14
To support community recovery from the 2019-20 bushfire season, the NSW Government made a number of amendments to its planning framework. One of the amended measures in response to the bushfires was to allow for the temporary occupation of land in “a moveable dwelling” such as a tent or a caravan, for up to two years. With the two-year time frame due to expire for those occupying land under this provision following the fires, the Bega Shire Council has recently agreed to extend the time frame for a further two years, to allow residents more time to rebuild.
4.15
In extending the timeframe, the Council has acknowledged that many households affected by the fires continue to live on their land in temporary accommodation. Many have limited financial, physical, psychological and emotional means to progress redevelopment.
4.16
In recent newspaper reports, the Bega Shire Council indicated that out of the 467 dwellings lost in the region during the 2019-20 bushfires, to date, only 34 have been rebuilt. The council also noted that there have been a total of 117 development applications for dwelling rebuilds, of which council has raised 112 development consents.
4.17
The signs of a slow recovery process detailed in the reports also included:
many homeless residents are living in tents and cars;
the COVID-19 pandemic, rain and roadworks have caused delays across the board;
a shortage of building materials have meant prices have skyrocketed;
people are waiting months to get a builder;
there are the delays in the delivery of prebuilt homes;
some people who have been working the entire time are only now, two years on, beginning the grieving process; and
the Minderoo Foundation have granted those who have been provided a Minderoo pod as a temporary home, a twelve month extension of time for their use.
Impact of COVID-19
4.18
The impact of COVID-19 – particularly COVID-19 restrictions - on bushfire recovery has been considerable.
4.19
A representative from the Blue Mountains City Council, told the committee that what made the process of recovery from the 2019-20 bushfire season different was the fact that:
…COVID followed very close on the heels. In terms of business activity, council undertook some economic modelling after the fires, but not long after, COVID became established in Australia and we had the lockdowns and restrictions that occurred as a result of that. It was very difficult to actually distinguish what was a COVID or bushfire influence. In actual fact, it’s a single event as far as the industry is concerned. What we determined is that over 80 per cent of small businesses in the Blue Mountains were affected and we’ve lost somewhere in the vicinity of $135 million in economic output as a result of it. COVID has certainly had an influence.
4.20
Ms Therese Kearney, a Grief Counsellor with CatholicCare Victoria, told the committee of the difficulties encountered while working toward recovery. Ms Kearney noted that distance had “been a horrific thing” – “driving along dirt roads for three hours, driving through burnt-out areas to try to get to a supermarket. Then COVID came”:
In Victoria it was horrendous. I was in a position where I wasn’t able to physically be in all areas. The internet and wi-fi in those areas is horrendous, so even Zoom sessions were really hard. I was working on the telephone with people, and when silences happened on the other end I had to say, ‘Are you thinking or are you crying?’. They’re the kinds of methods and reactions that were happening all the time and are still happening.
4.21
Mr William Jeremy also indicated that a “very significant proportion of the Alpine Shire community are still within the recovery process” and that this has been “very much compounded by the COVID impact”. Mr Jeremy told the committee:
We didn't really get the opportunity after the bushfires to properly move into the recovery process. We were locked down, which prevented our communities getting together and really effectively going through a recovery process, and there really hasn't been the opportunity for that to take place fully since the bushfires. So, 18 months on from the bushfires, I think the key point here is that we are still recovering. We're not at the end of the journey and our communities are still suffering—and more so because of the combined impact of the COVID pandemic on our communities.
Community-led recovery
4.22
Increasingly, it is the expectation of communities that recovery from bushfires (and other natural disasters) should genuinely be community-led, and stakeholders have consistently provided evidence in this regard. It was stressed that for recovery to be truly community-led, the community needs to owns its own solutions. If agencies try to impose solutions on communities, and if the community doesn’t own them, the solutions simply will not work.
4.23
In emphasising the importance of a community-led recovery, stakeholders – particularly those representing community groups and bushfire recovery centres – also stressed that community-led recovery also needs to be adequately resourced.
4.24
The committee was told, for example, that a large part of the Cobargo community had been engaged in a community-led recovery approach, which had been designed to be as inclusive as possible. Within the Cobargo community, individuals and families lost their homes, their properties and in some cases their livelihoods. In the Cobargo Village itself, approximately a third of the buildings – including retail buildings – were lost.
4.25
The community has produced a joint statement of intent and submitted high-quality, professionally produced, competitive infrastructure proposals, both for the rebuilding project and the economic recovery projects. The costs associated with the proposals came in at approximately $25 million. Community representatives stressed that the only reason they have been able to put together such professional proposals is because the community itself has been able to:
…buy in professional expertise, drawing on the Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund, which we set up in January and which has raised around $700,000 from donations not only from Australians but also from people across the world. There have been very few government resources to help communities to undertake a community-led recovery, even though we're been exhorted to do this. We know of other equally affected communities who've not been able to pursue bushfire local economic recovery funding because they haven't been able to access the expertise athey need to conduct all the planning work, to navigate this complex grant process and to actually develop the proposals to a standard that we know that the New South Wales government is requiring.
4.26
Councillor David Wortmann, representing the Toowong Shire Council, told the committee that the Council very much supports a robust model of community led recovery, and argued that the “community led model empowers communities to pursue their recovery priorities and facilitate information sharing”. He also noted, however, that the Toowong Shire Council had participated in community recovery meetings and listened to the community’s innovative ideas and requests “but many of these projects and ideas are beyond our current financial capabilities”.
4.27
Councillor Wortmann indicated that a one per cent rate increase in Towong shire would produce approximately $75,000 in additional revenue. It was noted that the Council was adhering to the Victorian Government’s rate cap – a situation that a number of Victorian councils were in. Councillor Wortmann went on to advocate for all small rural councils across Australia, especially those impacted by the bushfires:
…that the federal government urgently review the distribution of financial assistance grants. Commonwealth legislation requires that 30 per cent of the grant pool be distributed based on councils' populations. As a result, councils with large own-source revenue also receive financial assistance, even though they would be able to achieve horizontal equalisation without the grants. Large chunks of federal assistance grants go to areas that are sustainable and have the capacity to pay, whereas smaller rural councils are really struggling for revenue. If there were one thing the federal government could do to assist rural and regional councils in Australia, it would be to look at the horizontal distribution of financial assistance grants. The population requirement should be eliminated or reduced so that the larger portion of the grant pool is distributed based on need.
4.28
In evidence, representatives from the Bilpin community described the stress the community – particularly volunteers – had been put under during the 2019-20 bushfire season. In her opening statement, Ms Penny McInlay, a member of the Bilpin Rural Fire Service whose “real job is in the post office in Bilpin”, made the following statement:
When the next fire even rolls around in five to seven years, as it will, we can take a punt on what will take us out first: bushfires that roar out of an unmanaged national park, again, or the complete failure of an outdated communication system – all this only one hour and 20 minutes out from Australia’s biggest city. Yes, we are a resilient bunch, but I for one am not sure I’ll be here for the next big one. The physical and mental toll was huge. A fractured brigade, friendships broken, families and relationships stretched to crazy lengths and a bureaucracy that just doesn’t seem to care enough to work with the volunteers to fix it: all this is a recipe for disaster in a few summers time.
So no more reports, commissions, talkfests, meetings, thankyou morning teas, parades or face-to-faces – I think you have all of the facts and the technology that you need to crack on and resolve these issues. It was said during the fires, ‘Our volunteers just love what they do.’ I’m not so sure that the volunteers do anymore.
4.29
Ms Graziella Obeid, Secretary of the Bilpin Region Advancement Group, indicated that she was sure that lives would have been lost without the work that volunteers and individuals such as Ms Penny McInlay had put into the community. Ms Obeid noted that Ms McInlay’s statement “really tells us how much pressure there is on people in communities” and argued that communities are the ones who have the solutions:
They are the firefighters. They are the ones trying to protect their own homes and the homes of their friends and relatives. They are totally and completely relied upon. If that is going to continue, then it is 100 per cent necessary that communities are listened to when it comes to finding out, knowing and understanding what the solutions are. We know what is going on in our communities. We know what our needs are. But we are pushed from pillar to post by various different government agencies whenever we try to get a resolution on something. There really needs to be a whole-of-government approach.
4.30
Ms Obeid explained that the Bilpin Region Advancement Group, of which she is the Secretary, had come together as a result of the fires to provide a voice for more than 300 residences within their community and to advocate for the changes that are required. The group has worked hard to consult with community members, and to identify, prioritise and resolve the issues that have arisen as a result of the fires.
Social wellbeing
4.31
It was argued that ensuring community wellbeing is an important aspect of raising community resilience to disasters. Further, it was argued that raising community resilience is the responsibility of all levels of government.
4.32
Mr Matthew Chambers, representing the Blue Mountains City Council, told the committee that it is both community wellbeing and physical infrastructure that can support community resilience. While there are various examples of how infrastructure can improve community safety and community confidence, it was argued that:
The social wellbeing side of resilience is equally important. That’s one where Council has a very important role in enabling community members to engage with and receive the appropriate levels of support that are being delivered and resourced by other tiers of government. Often, for local government, we’re the first port of call for the community for services. Even with services known not to be supplied by council, their first port of call as to how to access those facilities or those services is through council, and council has a very clear role in the recovery and resilience process of developing the networks and the structures to enable the community to engage with those support programs. It’s quite critical that the state government is funding the programs and that local government is funded to enable to community to network and engage with those programs.
4.33
Representatives from the National Bushfire Recovery Agency (NBRA) stressed the importance of building community resilience, and argued that from a resilience-building perspective, if “we only come around to supporting communities in their cohesion and their capacity, every five or 10 years when there’s a disaster, we are only going to keep taking three steps back and two steps forward [or the opposite way around]”.
4.34
Further, it was noted that the Agency’s preference was to move toward an approach where, year on year, communities are supported to build capacity and cohesion. Deputy Coordinator, Major General Andrew Hocking argued that, this approach was in many ways an investment in the next recovery:
The science and the academic literature on this is profoundly clear, and that is that a dollar spent in resilience-building saves you $10 in recovery, in an economic sense. But, in a human sense, it protects people in making sure they enter what are going to be disasters that this country will face going forward in a better way because we have invested in them and helped them to build their capacity and expertise between disasters.
Mental health support
4.35
Mr Tony Jennings’ submission focused on the mental health impacts of the 2019-20 fires on volunteer firefighters in the Bega Valley. Mr Jennings, a member of a rural fire brigade in the Bega Valley for more than 45 years, reported that Bega volunteers had experienced heightened anxiety and anger because a number of operational problems and issues arising from the 2019-20 bushfires had not been reviewed or resolved.
4.36
Mr Jennings suggested that there were insufficient staff in the Bega and Moruya offices of the RFS to support brigades, and argued that, as a result, following the fires, counselling services had not been instigated for the Bega volunteers. In evidence, Mr Jennings described his experience of trying to get counselling for himself, and his fellow volunteers:
I heard volunteers on the radio, because they were crying out for help. I decided to try and get help for them but I ran into a brick wall, virtually. I contacted two counsellors. They were willing to come or bring a team, but their superiors wouldn't allow them because of the COVID problem. That was on two occasions. On the third occasion, I pushed it and all they could come up with was a phone counselling session. I had two of those. I didn't realise that I needed counselling. It wasn't because of the fires; it was because we lost two very good staff—conscientious staff, paid staff at the fire control centre in Bega. Because of the operational problems they have, they left, and that really angered me and upset me. That's why I tried to get help for the other volunteers, but I didn't realise I needed help. I had two counselling sessions. That seems to have done the job, but, unfortunately, I couldn't arrange it for other people. I did arrange for a phone hook-up to every captain within the Bega Valley, but generally I think it failed. When they rang my brigade, the Candelo brigade, they rang the captain but failed to ask whether, in his opinion, any volunteers needed help. I believe one crew really needed help and that was the crew that took over from me on 1 January. They ended up at Quaama and they were at Nardy House—it's a respite for disabled people from their carers—and they saved Nardy House, along with another couple of crews. They told me that they thought they weren't going to get out alive because of the way the fire hit. But they survived. They saved Nardy House, but they should have had automatic counselling. There was a young guy, who was about 17 and had not long ago joined the brigade. I don't know what's going to happen to him in the future—whether he's going to have some mental issues. Hopefully he won't. He still turns up to brigade meetings and functions, so hopefully he's okay, but we won't know. He might have issues.
4.37
Mr Jennings concluded his evidence by saying that while the Rural Fire Service has counsellors, unfortunately they are volunteer counsellors, and there are not enough of them. He also noted that the time when counsellors are really needed is when the fires are over. It is then “when people get back to normality and reality strikes, especially for the volunteers who lost their houses, that’s the time they need counselling”.
Grant funding
4.38
The committee was made aware of a number of difficulties associated with applying for grant funding. The grant application process was described as complicated, it was argued that it places a considerable burden on volunteers and also creates an unnecessary level of competition – not only amongst applicants, but within local government areas in particular.
4.39
Ms Zena Armstrong told the committee that it is “definitely the case with every grant funding model that you are going to be competing”. Ms Armstrong noted that communities will find that they are competing against other communities, and stated that, in fact, the Cobargo community had found that it was competing against its own local council, which had put up its own set of proposals for bushfire economic recovery funding. Further, small communities are also competing for funding with industry groups and other NSW Government agencies, which are also eligible to bid for specific grant funding.
4.40
In evidence, Professor Roberta Ryan, a Professor of Local Government at the University of Newcastle, told the committee that she was aware of the work being done by Ms Zena Armstrong and others in Cobargo. Professor Ryan told the committee that she had been involved in several research projects to assess elements of post-disaster community building and community resilience.
4.41
Given her specific expertise, the committee asked Professor Ryan to provide her views regarding any deficiencies in the current grants funding model. Professor Ryan indicated that communities were very interested in:
… any funding coming in on the basis of need and also being supported and driven by that particular community's priorities. Local government is one way in which those priorities are expressed, but, of course, communities express those priorities specifically and directly themselves. There's obviously been a broader concern about whether this has been done based on need or done based on some sort of a political priority, but in any grants system, if the funding is not reflected around community need and aspirations, the funding isn't going to be most usefully or efficiently provided.
There's a ton of evidence around this and the work that's being done by Zena Armstrong and others … They shared some very important lessons with the Bellingen Shire community, for example, about what happened in Cobargo. But they're communities that had significant impact from bushfires and had pretty well-developed community processes to support those and didn't probably attract the kind of funding that you might have expected—and, likewise, other areas. There might have been a more tenuous connection between the name and the purpose of the funding and then what it was actually applied to. So local councils are pretty good on the whole at mediating this space, but the community element of this is extremely important in terms of making the spend of that money efficient and effective.
4.42
Ms Sandi Grieve, the Chief Executive Officer and Nurse Practitioner from the Walwa Bush Nursing Centre, also told the committee that there “have been large amounts of support into our community by way of grant moneys and services coming into the district”. She also noted, however, that in itself carries a degree of stress with it:
Having to make grant applications, potentially missing out on those grant applications, having to change expectations and planning around what you get and what you don’t get and then having to actually project manage[r] the building and whatever it happens to be that comes out of grant processes all carries with it a significant degree of stress for a farming population who are already attempting to undertake three jobs.
4.43
It was noted that community groups are frequently small (similar in size to those working in the Cobargo community) and are largely volunteer-run. These volunteers usually have jobs as well as pre-existing volunteer commitments. However, the expectation is that communities are somehow going to be able to pull together professional, competitive grants for infrastructure or for other recovery proposals, whilst competing against a number of other organisations that have clearly got quite a lot of resources available to them, such as councils and government.
4.44
In evidence, Ms Graziella Obeid, Secretary of the Bilpin Region Advancement Group indicated that she is also employed by the NSW Government in a grants administration program. Ms Obeid told the committee that in her opinion, the “criteria and program guidelines are way, way too onerous for a traumatised community, many of whom are just trying to get things repaired or fixed or up to a better standard so that the community can have places to be together”.
4.45
Ms Obeid noted that there are a number of groups in the community – particularly those run by volunteers – for whom the administrative and bureaucratic red tape is so onerous, the group makes the decision not to pursue an application for what are, at the end of the day, public funds. Ms Obeid gave the example of one group – the local bowling club – which had put the effort into a grant application, only to experience the frustration of missing out:
This was like 20 people working for days and weeks on an application. They didn’t even get to an assessment stage because they filed a document in the wrong spot. It’s not fair. There’s so much money that should be coming to our community to support us and we can’t even access it.
Applications for assistance
4.46
Stakeholders told the committee about the lack of understanding and empowerment shown by staff in government departments in their dealings with people who apply for assistance.
4.47
An example provided by the Cobargo Bushfire Relief Centre related to one woman who missed out on the rebuild program assistance being offered by Resilience NSW. It was reported that the woman had missed out due to the fact that her previous year’s income exceeded the cut-off point by $27, which represents just one hour of her employment. The committee was told that the impact of this level of inflexibility is at times “so debilitating for some that they simply give up and do not apply for assistance because it’s beyond them”.
Information sharing and availability
4.48
Gaining access to specific information and the sharing of information was identified as particularly problematic, and described as a “gaping hole in the disaster recovery process” by those working within communities. It was argued that there is no sharing of information, even between the three levels of government, and certainly not with those working within communities and trying to help.
4.49
Stakeholders told the committee that given the circumstances, charitable organisations, relief centres and volunteer groups are mindful of the fact that they are only able to help those who come forward. Frequently these groups have no way of knowing who needs help, and who may have fallen through the cracks.
4.50
Representatives of the Cobargo Bushfire Relief Centre related the problems associated with trying to obtain accurate figures regarding the numbers of people who may still need assistance, and those who may still be living in compromised housing situations. Noting that requests for statistics had been made on numerous occasions to both to the local shire council and to Services NSW, Centre staff told the committee that:
It’s not the first time I’ve asked for this information, as it’s vital to know if we’re missing out on helping people. I only wanted statistics, not names or addresses; however, I was informed, as I’ve been on previous occasions, that this information was not able to be passed on to me or my colleagues. Why not? We’re the people working on the front line and in many cases the only service that some people are comfortable dealing with. We are operating in a fog of not knowing whether we’ve helped everyone who needs it – I suspect that we haven’t helped everyone – and we are not able to seek out those people who may still need help. We don’t know what we don’t know.
Re-telling the story
4.51
The committee received consistent evidence about the harmful effect having to repeat your story over and over again – for the purpose of gaining access to relief and assistance – can have on people. When people are traumatised by natural disasters such as bushfire, they are frequently unable to make decisions. Filling in a seemingly endless number of forms, for any number of different services and types of assistance can involve people telling their stories numerous times, and reliving their trauma over and over again.
4.52
In his submission, Mr Graeme Freedman, a small rural property holder, reported that he and his family had lost their home and their business premises along with “virtually all in ground and above ground infrastructure”. Mr Freedman described the problem of providing identification to receive assistance and services as ‘bureaucratic induced trauma’ and submitted:
…We are sick and tired of re-identifying ourselves as “Bushfire Impacted”. Every program across all of Government loses us half a day of our time and induces further trauma (re-telling our story) in the re-identification processes. This also applies to commercial discounts and charities (who all break punters mentally in trying to help) – in some cases (I will not name the charity) charities have used this as a tactic to not support the people who need the support the most.
4.53
In evidence, Mr Graeme Freedman told the committee that the re-identification process “virtually takes you to tears every time it occurs”. He argued, however, that it is a problem that can be solved, and noted that he had in fact written to Resilience NSW with a proposed solution.
4.54
Mr Freedman’s solution involved the cross-matching of Services NSW’s databases with NSW councils and those of the Rural Fire Service. Ultimately, those impacted would be provided an individual ‘Recovery Card’. It was suggested the card could also discriminate between ‘Total Loss’, ‘Partial Loss’, ‘Contents Loss’, and ‘Rental Loss’ or ‘Impacted’(T, P, C, R, and I).
4.55
Many stakeholders argued that if there were a centralised database of people’s details, and if other records, for example the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), could be accessed easily and assist with grant applications, that would be a good start.
Accessing services
4.56
The problems associated with ‘red tape’ were raised a number of times during the inquiry. Submitters raised their frustrations with the various bureaucratic layers that those impacted by bushfires have to work through in order to access much-needed services.
4.57
Those working for and with communities were cognisant of the need to have a sound regulatory framework in place, to ensure that funding and charitable donations are spent wisely and appropriately. There was also an awareness that over-regulating the process can lead to a situation where charities find themselves spending unnecessary time and money administering the act of providing assistance.
4.58
In the case of larger charities, such as St Vincent de Paul, it was noted that while reporting to funders was an issue that challenged the organisation, they have a structure that includes a national council office which takes the reporting responsibility away from those working at the local level.
4.59
Mr John Feint, President of St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra-Goulburn, did acknowledge, however that there was frequently demand for information – often at short notice – from government agencies. While Mr Feint noted that the need for information was possibly because agencies need to be kept up-to-date, he did acknowledge that does put another layer of pressure to provide information on the organisation. He also told the committee that the organisation “try to shield, as much as possible, our local conferences from that reporting work, so they could get on with the job of helping people”.
4.60
Mr Feint acknowledged earlier evidence to the committee about the need for better coordination of data, and agreed with calls for a common system – one that everyone can work with – for dealing with disaster response. Mr Feint explained his views on this issue during the committee’s March 2021 hearing, at the same time noting that improvements in the collection and coordination of data could also lessen the trauma around having to repeatedly provide the same information:
Mr Feint: A common platform that we both work with and a common language. You'll appreciate that, from the earlier fires, we came to a common language around a fire situation—whether it's an alert or whatever. That language was common. We are now at a stage where we need to have common language around how we respond to emergencies, emergency recovery and rebuilding. Then we need to move to common language about how we handle the detail of that response. I think it would help everyone to coordinate better across our services if we could work that way.
Senator CHANDLER: Do you have some practical examples of what that misalignment looks like?
Mr Feint: A practical example would be how we collect information for people who are affected. If one organisation collects that data, if they don't get permission that the data can be shared with others who are working with them—
Senator CHANDLER: We spoke about that earlier.
Mr Feint: then people have to tell their story again and again and again, and that's traumatic. It delays the process of a coordinated response. I saw that. We were trying to work out where we needed to respond most urgently and needed to get that information. It flows through to understanding the impact on the ground, who is collecting the data on the properties that have been affected, the systems that it lies in, et cetera. You find there are multiple systems to coordinate to find out what's happening on the ground and to respond most effectively.
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In response to a similar question from the committee, regarding ways to simplify the process for already traumatised people to access services, the Co-Coordinator of the Cobargo Bushfire Relief Centre indicated that:
Mrs Walters: I think it comes back to having in place a framework of how these things would work, communication and the sharing of information between the various layers of government and between the departments. Also, this keeps getting thrown to me all the time: ‘I can’t give you that information because of privacy regulations’. I fully respect the privacy regulations that we have in place in this country. However – and this is probably a really radical thing to say – maybe when an emergency occurs or when an emergency is declared and someone goes into a recovery centre and says that their house has burnt down, or they’ve been in a flood or whatever happened and they say, ‘These are my details’, they could tick a box to say, ‘My information is open – easy.
Senator CHANDLER: As in at the first port of call, so to speak?
Mrs Walters: Yes. And then they don't have to tell their story over and over and over again, and the information can be shared between departments. For example, when someone is filling out a form for a grant application, primary producers have to say what their last year's or three years or whatever tax returns were. If they've ticked that box to say, 'Yes, you can access my information,' we can just go to whichever department of primary industry is assessing their application and go to the ATO and say, 'Can I have a look at this person's records, please?'
CHAIR: So a disaster recovery passport, basically?
Mrs Walters: Yes. Then the person doesn't have to go through all that over and over and over again and it releases the information but it also releases them from the trauma.
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At its April 2021 hearing, Mr Stephen Brown, the immediate past president of the Macdonald Valley Association, told the committee that in consulting with community members during a recent flood event, a large number of people made it clear that they were still feeling the effects of the 2019-20 bushfires. Mr Brown observed that “the lack of connectedness of service providers, agencies, local government and state interests appear to impact on the success of programs of recovery”. Mr Brown argued that:
Without [that] investment and building of relationships, any of these programs of recovery are operating from a standing start. That’s what we saw with the fires. This is opposed to an investment over time that could have been built on and drawn on. So, relationships with service providers, non-government agencies and the like were all new relationships, and that took time.
Access to donations
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While the generosity of Australians (and people overseas) was shown both during and after the 2019-20 bushfires, evidence to the inquiry did point to some issues with the processing of both physical and financial donations.
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For example, GIVIT told the committee that:
In the absence of a national coordinated approach to the management of physical donations following the 2019-2020 Australian bushfires, donated goods quickly became a burden to front line services in affected communities - receiving large quantities of unsolicited, unwanted and often poor quality donations that required valuable resources to sort, store and ultimately dispose of.
Without a central platform to list immediate need, material donations were not getting through to the people who desperately needed them in a timely manner. There was growing cynicism among corporate and individual donors as to how their donations were being distributed.
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GIVIT noted that ‘well-meaning, unsolicited donations can often cause more problems than they resolve’. Further, GIVIT suggested that those wishing to donate funds wanted confidence in knowing that ‘all funds donated go to purchasing essential items required by vulnerable members of the community as identified by thousands of charities and support organisations across the country’.
Impact on children
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The committee received considerable evidence regarding the effects the 2019‑20 bushfire season has had on children.
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Mr Michael Brosnan, Chair of the Social Justice Advocates of the Sapphire Coast group, told the committee that one of the Headspace workers in the Shire had been talking more and more about the need to support children in primary schools. He noted that these children had been showing “a huge difference in their ability to cope both at home and at school”, and:
Their anxiety levels are very high and that’s been noticed by their teachers. So we are talking children maybe at Rocky Hall Preschool or at Towamba Primary School—these outer-lying public schools that were impacted directly. I rely on her information more than my own experience, but she thinks that one of the most significant changes that's happened in our shire is the impact on primary school children.
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CatholicCare Grief Counsellor, Ms Therese Kearney, described the work she had done with communities. More specifically she described the experience of walking into schools following the fires:
Last February I went into the primary schools around Orbost, Bairnsdale, Mallacoota – that East Gippsland area – and the feel that I got from entering the school was quite eerie. The children were very repressed and depressed. There was no children's noise in the playground. There was no joy there. Even in the play, it wasn't play. With the staff and the principals, I tried to work out how we could best help these children. My solution was to try to allow the teachers to understand what was physically and psychologically happening in the children so that they could help them to lower their adrenaline levels, to bring them down, to let them try to hang on to their anxiety and not allow it to run wild, and to allow them to see that horrible things had happened but that help had come so that they weren't left with the trauma of having to deal with things themselves—that people did come to help.
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Ms Kearney worked with principals and staff over the period of a year, and helped them program into every school day – including during lessons – ways to build in resilience. She also helped schools identify physical ways of eliminating or lowering the children’s adrenaline levels. Multiple times during the day, teachers incorporated exercises: including star jumps, shadow boxing and running, with a view to lessening children’s heightened adrenaline levels. Ms Kearney explained:
These children had such heightened levels of adrenaline that they didn't know if they were afraid, if they were angry, if they were just wanting to go away and hide or curl up in a ball, or all of those things. The anger was the thing that came out a lot. It is not coming out as much now. The fear that was showing itself as walking around walls and fences, not in the centre of the playground—that kind of thing—has disappeared. That has shown that it's working. We tried to give them a level of safety, of knowing that, yes, this is what did happen but that people are now helping you and that you're not on your own, in the many and varied ways of doing that, and it appears to have worked in 12 months.
Save the Children Australia
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In its submission, Save the Children Australia presented a perspective on the 2019-20 bushfires which reflected the experiences and the needs of children. The submission drew on the organisation’s experience of delivering emergency response and recovery support to children impacted by the bushfires, as well as what they had heard directly from children and their families.
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Save the Children Australia argued that in the response to the 2019-20 bushfires, the needs of children were systematically misunderstood and overlooked:
Children are uniquely vulnerable in bushfires, as they are in other emergencies. Children also experience and process traumatic events differently from adults. Yet services for children were not regarded as essential services in the 2019-20 bushfire response. No systematic effort was made to ensure that ‘Child Friendly Spaces’ were available to support children and families where they were needed in bushfire-affected communities. This was an enormous missed opportunity to prevent potential trauma and harm to children’s wellbeing during the crucial early window for such support.
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During the 2019-20 bushfire season, Save the Children Australia established ‘Child Friendly Spaces’ in evacuation and relief and recovery centres across NSW, South Australia and Victoria. These spaces were designed to meet children’s unique needs during the emergency and in the hours and days after families’ evacuations from their homes and communities. Throughout 2019-20, ‘Child Friendly Spaces’ supported approximately 800 children through a total of over 1000 child visits.
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At the request of local authorities, Save the Children Australia also mobilised to provide outreach psychosocial support in those communities across both NSW and Victoria which were hardest hit. This support was provided after relief centres closed, until longer-term recovery programs commenced and local support systems returned to capacity or were rebuilt. Between January and March 2020, these outreach services reached approximately 750 individual children.
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In evidence, Mr Howard Choo, a social policy adviser with Save the Children Australia, told the committee that in relation to recovery, the organisation was:
…seeing and hearing firsthand the desperate need for specialist support for children's wellbeing and recovery from the trauma of the bushfires, a need which COVID-19 has only heightened. We're working with communities right now to offer this support wherever it's requested. This is about helping children to process their experiences, build resilience and contribute to community recovery and rebuilding. It should be a priority.
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In order to provide the required support, following the bushfires, Save the Children Australia began working with impacted communities, government and other service providers to understand how the organisation could best support the slow process of recovery. In NSW and Victoria, the organisation began offering access to its in-school post-disaster recovery program Journey of Hope. The Journey of Hope program was first developed and implemented following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and has since been delivered worldwide – including an adaptation of the program that was delivered in Christchurch in 2011, following the earthquake.
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A recently completed evaluation of the Journey of Hope program indicated that since July 2020, the program had been delivered to approximately 5000 children in schools in fire affected communities in NSW and Victoria. While the organisation noted that further evaluation trials and additional follow-up measures are required, initial indications are that the program has been very successful:
Program participation was associated with statistically significant improvements in students’ reports of difficulties in their daily lives, in their attitudes to and relationships with others, and in their use of positive coping strategies, which were greater than natural improvements over time. All of these outcomes are likely to contribute to individual recovery and to more positive classroom and home environments, which was reflected in student, teachers and parent reports. Based on wider evidence, these psychosocial improvements are also likely to support children’s capacity to learn.
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Based on its experience of providing assistance to children impacted by bushfires, Save the Children Australia made the following recommendations:
Recommendation 1: Responses to future bushfires should include establishing Child Friendly Spaces as an essential service in every evacuation, relief and recovery centre. Planning and preparation for future bushfire seasons should:
enable rapid and effective deployment of Child Friendly Spaces upon establishment of every evacuation, relief or recovery centre;
include allocation of appropriate funding for those spaces to be delivered alongside other critical services in all centres;
include planning for how those spaces form part of an integrated and coordinated response and transition to recovery;
provide for nationally consistent and high quality Child Friendly Spaces, which could be achieved by consistent deployment of Save the Children's extensively tested model; and
involve children's perspectives about their needs and priorities for such spaces.
All Australian governments should adopt a coordinated approach to ensuring children's rights and needs are recognised in future bushfires and other disasters, and addressed as part of a systemic and integrated response to such disasters, including through all relevant COAG processes and streams of work.
Recommendation 2: Recovery efforts should be long-term, community-led and have children at their centre. They should include multi-year school support planning, including funding for specialised school based post-disaster recovery interventions that complement other activities.
Recommendation 3: A disaster risk reduction and resilience education strategy should be developed, with a focus on school education, and informed by an expert review of bushfire education.
Recommendation 4: Minimum standards for child participation in disaster risk reduction and resilience practice and decision-making should be developed and adopted, including a focus on bushfires. The standards should:
provide for children's active involvement in decision-making at all stages of the emergency management cycle, from planning and preparedness to response and recovery, including activities in their own communities; and
specifically require government to genuinely consult and engage with children when developing policies and laws, and making decisions, relating to climate change adaptation and management of the natural environment, including publication of how children's views were sought and taken into account.
Recommendation 5: In line with recommendations from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and requirements under the Paris Agreement, Australia should promptly take significant measures to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases, establish targets and deadlines to phase out the domestic use of coal and its export, and accelerate the transition to renewable energy, including by committing to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Committee view
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The committee appreciates the effort made by those who provided submissions and those who provided evidence to the inquiry. The committee thanks all submitters and witnesses for their very moving testimony and notes the strong community spirit and resilience that has shone through. The committee appreciates how difficult it was to provide this evidence, particularly as it involved telling the story yet again.
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The committee received submissions and oral evidence from only a small fraction of the many thousands of people and organisations who have assisted communities in bushfire recovery, whose lived experience of the fires have contributed to the committee’s understanding of their impact.
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While the committee cannot possibly name or acknowledge them all, the evidence received during the course of this inquiry is that without them, the response and ongoing recovery from the Black Summer bushfires, difficult as it has been, would not have been possible at all.
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It is not often that senators have the opportunity to express their gratitude to so many people in a report such as this, so we do so on this occasion.
The role of donations
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The Black Summer fires brought out the best of the Australian spirit of generosity, through the donation of a significant amount of goods and financial support. But it is apparent that there is a lack of clarity as to where these donations are going, and whether they are addressing the needs of those communities and areas most in need.
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In addition, the allocation of donated support, whether financial or otherwise, should not create a further burden on those communities already trying to recover.
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The committee therefore sees benefit in the Government exploring options for donation management platforms, to improve and streamline the coordination, transparency and distribution of donations, following natural disasters.
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The committee recommends the Australian Government consider ongoing partnerships with donation management platforms, so that donations given in the wake of natural disasters are distributed in a way that is coordinated, transparent and meeting genuine need.
The impact on children
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The committee was moved by the evidence around the impact of the bushfires on children. It is clear that children are continuing to suffer the mental and physical impacts of the fires, and as noted by Save the Children, “children’s rights, needs and views were systemically misunderstood and overlooked in the response to the 2019-20 bushfires”.
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In order to address this in future, the committee sees benefit in the establishment of Child Friendly Spaces in every evacuation, relief and recovery centre, as recommended by Save the Children. Such Spaces should be nationally consistent and evidence‑based and should be developed in consultation with children. The Spaces should aim to provide the right opportunities to support the resilience, wellbeing and recovery for children both during and following natural disasters.
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The committee recommends that the Australian Government work with government and non-government organisations that provide evacuation, relief and recovery centres both during and after natural disasters, to ensure the implementation of nationally consistent Child Friendly Spaces. The Australian Government should also consider the appropriate funding required for the development and rapid deployment of these Spaces.
The need for action
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The extent and ferocity of the Black Summer bushfires were beyond the experience of most Australians, and so the response and recovery effort required was always likely to result in the types of problems arising as outlined in this chapter. The committee notes that the issues raised in evidence by community leaders and individuals are directly related to the way in which the coordination and management of response and recovery efforts has been handled.
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It is important that all levels of government address the issues raised by individuals and community representatives. Failing to support communities due to a lack of understanding of the issues, a lack of training, a lack of appropriate information, or a lack of appropriate communication can only result in the continued deterioration of people’s physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. This in turn will have a negative impact on the health and economic viability of communities and regions.
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In this regard, the committee is of the view that many of the more adverse and harmful impacts that fire-affected communities and individual households have described in this chapter, could potentially be minimised through the application of a clear set of operating principles for the provision of humanitarian aid (in a domestic setting). This would provide a much-needed basis for future disaster recovery assistance.
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In the next chapter, the committee examines the response to the fires by various Commonwealth Government agencies and draws some conclusions about the shortcomings of the response in terms of operating principles, which should be improved to shape future responses. Having a set of operating principles guided by those which underpin Australia’s Humanitarian Action Policy are clearly needed.
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In the following chapter the committee also puts forward a recommendation as to what those operating principles should include, in order to avoid what are often the very serious human impacts which arise from the absence of universal, people‑centred, trauma-informed principles of disaster response, aid and recovery.