Senate Estimates: Labor accuses Scott Morrison’s $2bn bushfire fund of ‘not existing’

So far only $400,000 in loans has been has been given out to farmers and small businesses affected by the devastating summer bushfires.

Labor has accused Scott Morrison’s $2bn recovery fund of not existing, with only $400,000 in loans handed out to farmers and small businesses. Picture: AAP

Only five farmers and small businesses have so far received emergency bushfire loans from the federal government, as Labor accused Scott Morrison’s $2bn recovery fund of not existing.

The loans of up to $500,000 were a key plank of the Prime Minister’s bushfire recovery, but so far only $400,000 has been given out to primary producers and businesses affected by the summer bushfires.

The revelations at a senate estimates hearing came as Labor and Coalition senators came to blows over the official status of the $2bn Bushfire Recovery Fund, which civil servants called “notional”.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Zed Seselja told senate estimates the slow approval process of the emergency loans was due to the pace of state government-run assessments.

“We are certainly encouraging the states to be able to process them (the loans) as quickly as possible, but we are not responsible for the processing,” he said.

“We are working through the Bushfire Recovery Agency … to deliver as much assistance as we possibly can. We don’t actually process those applications.”

The confirmation of the slow uptake of emergency loans was one part of a testy estimates hearing, the first attended by civil servants from the new Bushfire Recovery Agency.

Bushfire Recovery Agency co-ordinator Mark Colvin – the former commissioner of the Australian Federal Police – could not confirm the total spend of the $2bn Bushfire Recovery Fund or its official status when questioned by opposition senate leader Penny Wong.

Labor senator Murray Watt argued that the expenditure for the fund did “not exist” as it does not appear in official papers and BRA deputy secretary Abigail Bradshaw called the fund “notional”.

“The Prime Minister’s announcement … was that he had established a Bushfire Recovery Fund but the fund doesn’t exist, does it?” Senator Watt said.

“It’s not anywhere within the budget statement … the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ‘notional’ as fictional, speculative, existing in the mind only.”

Mr Colvin and Ms Bradshaw took all questions on whether the fund actually existed on notice.

Senator Seselja defended the fund’s existence and called Labor’s questioning of it “ridiculous.”

“You’ve had Mr Colvin outline money that is going out the door and you are calling that imaginary because you’re trying to find some accounting treatment,” the assistant minister said.

“This is beneath the senator … Mr Colvin gave evidence of $380m going out the door and you’re saying that money doesn’t exist … This is absurd.”