Shoalhaven councillor’s letter labelled ‘insensitive’ by bushfire victims
A regional councillor has been labelled ‘insensitive’ after writing to bushfire victims who have submitted DAs to rebuild their homes.
The South Coast News
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A Shoalhaven Councillor has come under fire, called “insensitive” by an “incredibly offended” bushfire victim after he sent letters to people submitting development applications, including those rebuilding their lives and charred homes.
Using a letterhead calling himself ‘emeritus mayor’, Councillor Greg Watson compliments residents for proceeding with the development application, “despite the difficult economic conditions prevailing just now”.
One of the letters landed in the mailbox of Conjola Park’s Lisa Lander this week.
She said she’s “truly disgusted” an elected member of council would send campaign material of this nature to bushfire victims in the lead up to an election.
“I am incredibly offended that it has been sent to us, and anyone else who lost their property in the recent fire storm,” Mrs Lander said.
“It’s outdated and it‘s insensitive and I’m just appalled that they’ve allowed this type of letter to go out to people who are rebuilding after a fire.
“How dare he use personal information obtained from the council to promote himself to traumatised fire victims from our local community.”
However, Cr Watson said it was “nonsense” people were offended by the letter, which he would continue to send out, as he has for more than 40 years.
“Out of the many thousands of letters I have sent, the response has been overwhelmingly positive,” he said.
“I send them to everyone, I don’t discriminate. That’s clearly coming from someone who doesn’t support me and they just want to pick a fight.”
The ‘nightmare’ process to rebuild their lives, and home
Mrs Lander’s home on Bowness Close was burnt to the ground on New Year’s Eve in 2019. Her and her husband stayed back to protect the property they’ve called home for 20 years, but when the fire started to close in on three sides, they fled to the lake for their lives.
“We had no water, no help and no warning and we just had to run for our lives,” she said.
“I seriously thought I was going to die that day.”
Now rebuilding, she says the process has been a nightmare.
With a delay on supply and trades, it will be more than two years on from the horrific blaze until they’re back on the property in a new home.
But, the council‘s application process has not helped the process.
“We had to go into this new portal that they have and navigate a terribly difficult system to submit all the documents they require,” Mrs Lander said.
“That could not be done without someone from council on the phone guiding me through every step of the way.
“How do the elderly people in the community who lost their homes get through this? They would have to employ someone to submit their plans on this portal.
“After all the trauma we have been through after losing our house, having to deal with this and having to do this yourself through this stupid portal has been a literal nightmare. It’s just been hell.”
Shoalhaven City Council has however discounted rates and waived sewerage availability fee for bushfire affected residents.
Mrs Lander will not be contacting Cr Watson for advice on her build.
Despite not having any qualifications, Cr Watson doesn’t hesitate to give people advice on what they should or shouldn’t include in their designs.
“If they need to change their designs, I tell them,” he said.
“I have helped many people, and in some cases they would have walked away and given up in frustration and not done the development.“
“I’ve had enough experience now to point them in the right direction.”
The local government elections were due to be held next month, but were moved to December 4 because of the evolving health crisis in the state.
Cr Watson said he “gets a buzz” out of helping the community, and despite battling cancer and other health issues recently, he would continue to do so.
“I just want to see a better community and if you say you have a problem and I can solve it, I get a buzz out of helping people,” he said.
Government’s clean-up efforts in bushfire ravaged communities “ridiculous”
From the beginning of the clean up effort, Mrs Lander said the hoops they’ve been made to jump through to replace their home and memories has been “ridiculous”.
While she says the government did remove most of their burnt home, they wouldn’t touch the shed or fences also burnt to a crisp.
“They wouldn’t even take the dangerous trees. They made themselves look really fantastic by saying they’ll do the clean up, but their clean up was pathetic,” Mrs Lander said.
“The first thing we had to do was pay $27,000 to have the trees removed. We had to clean up after their clean up, and that had to come out of our insurance money, which means our build has had to be less than we would have liked it to be.”
A community feeling forgotten about in the wake of a pandemic
She still walks onto the property and finds a piece of their history coming to the surface.
“Half of our life is in rubble underneath us. We’ll be finding bits and pieces of our life in broken, burnt bits for years and years,” Mrs Lander said.
Mrs Lander says while some Conjola Park residents have rebuilt, others are still struggling.
Still in a temporary rental, she says they feel forgotten about.
“People have forgotten a lot about it. Covid has happened and everyone is focusing on that. We’re still struggling,” Mrs Lander said.
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