Tuesday, 18 February 2020

Ministers statements: bushfire recovery initiatives

Ms NEVILLE (Bellarine—Minister for Water, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (12:10): I rise to update the house today on some of the process around recovery efforts in bushfire-impacted communities. We currently still have two significant fires going in East Gippsland. We have got active fire edges around the Marthavale fire north of Bairnsdale and also the Cann River fire and active edges around Cape Conran, Bendoc and Bonang. Despite substantial rain in some parts of the state, we still also have continuing dry areas in other parts of the state, so the fire risk remains for Victorians.

Significant work is going on supporting those communities that have been impacted. We have got recovery centres open in East Gippsland and also in the Hume area. We also have regular mobile pop-up sessions to reach people who are in more isolated areas. To date we have had over 14 600 financial assistance payments paid out. We have also had over 3800 Australian government disaster recovery payments granted. The bushfire case support program has received over 1600 phone calls. We have road access back into a number of areas. In fact we have been able to open the road to Mallacoota, but also a total of 903 kilometres of arterial roads have now been cleared. Every person who has received an emergency relief grant is also being contacted if they have properties in those areas to look at re-establishment grants and whether they are eligible.

We have also started the process of hazardous waste removal. We have had 293 rainwater tanks cleared up and refilled, more than 660 clean-up program registrations and mental health support being provided to both those impacted from living in those communities but also those other Victorians who lived through that bushfire experience. A lot of work is underway, and there is a lot to go.

I want to thank all of those firefighters who remain out there on these fires. I also want to thank those who are part of the recovery process and assure those communities that we are walking side-by-side with them and will be there throughout the journey of recovery.