Coronavirus: Closed borders reignite agony for fire victims

Border lockdowns are disrupting the recovery of fire-ravaged communities following the Black Summer bushfires, an inquiry has heard.

A bushfire in the NSW south coast township of Malua Bay last December. Picture: Alex Coppel

Border lockdowns are disrupting the recovery of fire-ravaged communities following the Black Summer bushfires amid calls from the Tasmanian government to streamline the disaster funding process, an inquiry has heard.

The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arr­angements was told on Thursday there were inconsistencies between the states and territories when it came to their recovery, and the problem was compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.

“As you would know with the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the border between Victoria and NSW is now closed for the first time in a century,” senior counsel assisting the commission Dominique Hogan-Doran, SC, told the commission.

“This development could prove particularly challenging for the communities and small businesses in fire-affected communities in southeastern Australia.”

She called on the commissioners to consider these factors when listening to victims of the fires.

Among those giving evidence on Thursday were Kevin and ­Milusa Giles from East Gippsland in Victoria, who lost their home and wildflower business after fire tore through their property on December 30 last year.

They have been forced to live in a caravan on the property for the past six months.

Ms Giles spoke of the difficulties the couple had faced in accessing federal and state grants, with the process often requiring documentation that many victims did not have to hand.

She said it took 13 weeks for the government’s relief payment to hit their bank accounts.

“That definitely needs to be improved in the future, because that is something that you — you actually cannot cope with that, with everything else that is going on around you. You know, that’s 13 weeks,” Ms Giles said. “That was a lot of work to get that, which was supposed to be a very simple thing. It was not simple at all.

“Honestly, we’re tough but that just about did our heads in.”

Ms Giles said the mental toll of ­getting back on their feet had been so immense she was now ­receiving counselling. And she called on other victims in a similar position to reach out for help if they needed it.

The secretary of Tasmania’s Department of Premier and Cabinet, Jenny Gale, told the inquiry the onerous process for states to access federal disaster recovery funding needed to be changed so that support could more easily flow to those affected.

Ms Gale said she had just one staffer who worked on the jointly funded disaster recovery funding arrangement, while other larger jurisdictions had about 80.

“We would hope that we could get to the most streamlined arr­angements possible with the commonwealth because we simply do not have the staff that we can put towards liaison across agencies,” she said.

“It really would suit our purposes and enable us to spend our resources — both in terms of staff time, as well as in terms of our funding and so on — more appropriately on the emergencies and the recovery than on resources to work to an architecture that does not necessarily suit each jurisdiction in the same way.”

Tasmania’s state recovery adviser Craig Limkin reiterated that the grant process was complex and lengthy. “The more complex the process to talk to people and collaborate is, the worse outcome it is for a community,” he said.

The inquiry also heard that 73 of 77 councils across Queensland were still trying to recover from disaster events that had occurred since 2018.

Queensland Reconstruction Authority chief Brendan Moon said more than half had experienced three or more disasters over the same period. “Most of our councils are in some form of recovery most of the time,” he said.