Bushfires: fire survivors feel like pawns in poll fight

Fire-weary residents of Eden-Monaro see the upcoming by-election as just another battle to get through in 2020.

Helen and Wayne Schaefer with their daughter Leah on their property the day after the blaze tore through. Picture: Sean Davey

Helen and Wayne Schaefer are battle-weary.

Through herculean firefighting efforts, they managed to save themselves and their home during the New Year’s Eve bushfires on the NSW south coast but now find themselves in the middle of a very different fight.
PDF: how Eden—Monaro has remained a marginal seat for 50 years

“Bring it on,” Ms Schaefer said of the Eden-Monaro by-election, which she remarked was just another thing to get through in 2020.

“The concern is that what’s happened in some ways will be trivialised and we, the community, will just be used as a pawn in political gamesmanship. Having said that, it’s always been like that. If the community can use it to our advantage and we get something out of it, so be it.”

Four months on from the fire that tore through their 260ha property, about 25km from ­Cobargo, Mr Schaefer acknowledged his family and much of the community was left traumatised by the event.

The Schaefers at their home in Yowrie on Friday. Picture: Sean Davey

Their lowest point came later, when they tried for weeks to secure a $75,000 special disaster-­relief grant for primary producers.

They just needed a win but were left in limbo and feeling demoralised because they had not ticked all the boxes for the grant due to off-farm income.

“We had our fight here, it was a fire. It was a life-and-death fight. We fought it and survived,” Mr Schaefer said.

“We had enough fighting and then we had to fight again because if we didn't … it felt like we were gonna lose it all.”

Support from the state and federal governments to rebuild bushfire-ravaged towns will be front of mind for many Eden-Monaro residents when they head to the polls late next month or early July. So, too, will Scott Morrison’s response to the bushfires, which some said was too slow.

The Schaefers eventually received the grant, allowing them to employ a local man to help rebuild kilometres of fencing, but know others are still having the same battle they did.

Down the road in Eden, 75-year-old Fritz Michelin has been back working for the timber mill for four weeks. It closed, some feared indefinitely, when 100,000 tonnes of woodchips caught fire from bushfire embers. He said the government could not have supported his community more than it did after receiving help from the army, interstate and international firefighters. As the by-election warmed up, Mr Michelin said the promotion of local industry and permanent jobs in the region beyond tourism — a sector decimated by the fires and now the coronavirus — was crucial.

Logging truck contractor Fritz Michelin in Eden. Picture: Sean Davey

Spanning from Eden in the south to Queanbeyan and Yass in the north and Tumbarumba in the west, Eden-Monaro was a bellwether seat from 1972-2016, but has also been a marginal seat for 57 years. It was held by Labor MP Mike Kelly, who resigned last month for health reasons, by 0.85 per cent.

The Schaefers expected the by-election result would be tight and had been impressed by Labor’s candidate and former Bega Valley Shire mayor Kristy McBain during the fires.

They voted for Liberal candidate and local cattle farmer Fiona Kotvojs, who they know personally, at last year’s federal election and will vote for her again if she is endorsed by the party.

Mr Schaefer had been underwhelmed by NSW Deputy Premier and Nationals MP John Barilaro, who pulled out of the race on Monday and launched an extraordinary attack against his federal leader, Michael McCormack, while feuding with his Liberal colleague and friend Andrew Constance.

The farcical scenes — culminating with Mr Constance, the NSW Transport Minister, pulling out of the by-election contest on Wednesday, 24 hours after announcing his candidacy — left the Schaefers bemused.

“When you hear Andrew Constance say things like ‘politics has had it, it’s stuffed’ you go, ‘well, you’re in it, mate, and you’ve been in it for a long time. And that’s what you think? So where does that leave us?’ ” Mr Schaefer said.

Mr Michelin, however, said he would have voted for Mr Barilaro and thought he had a very good chance of winning. Normally a Liberal voter, he was concerned Mr Constance was not up to the job but would make the effort to get to know Ms Kotvojs.

Mr Constance, who cited white-anting by colleagues, including Mr Barilaro, for his decision to quit the Eden-Monaro race, said on Wednesday he was traumatised and “emotionally fragile” after the bushfires. He declared anyone who criticised him for that was a “disgrace”.

The prized federal electorate was full of contradictions when The Weekend Australian visited this week. There was bright, lush green grass as far as the eye could see, with new growth everywhere.

But the towns of Bega, Eden, Kiah and Cobargo were surrounded by hills and mountains with blackened matchsticks for trees.

Though Eden’s timber mill has reopened, acting as a lifeline for many workers, the fishermen’s club on the main street has closed its doors, leaving many residents, particularly the elderly, without a place to socialise.

Anthony Thomas is yet to rebuild the home he lost in Kiah on January 4. Picture: Sean Davey

Wiradjuri man Anthony Thomas had found it hard looking at the ruins of his and his ­father’s home after a mega-blaze that merged on the NSW and Victorian border stormed through the tiny NSW coastal town of Kiah on January 4.

Wire fencing lines the perimeter of their house, which has not yet been cleared, warning of hazardous asbestos dust, but the deer farm is green again after the land of mist turned into one of fire.

“Since it’s greened up, it’s quite nice but even still it’s more the house. I went up there for a few things and I started looking around through stuff and I was like, ‘nah I've got to get this and go’. It’s just too much,” Mr Thomas said.

Mr Thomas, traditionally a Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party voter, has been working on the farm and living in a hut without windows after they exploded in the inferno.

The battle for Eden-Monaro, t he first by-election since last year’s federal poll, will test the mood of an electorate drained by the past and hopeful of a kinder ­future.