Inadequate government relief for Australian bushfire victims
Confronting a wave of public anger over its initial indifference to the country’s bushfire crisis, the Australian government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison is now engaged in an exercise in damage control to salvage its standing with limited promises of aid and assistance.
The federal Coalition government rejected expert advice that the 2019–2020 fire season would be catastrophic and refused to finance even limited increases in firefighting capabilities. Moreover, working people have watched with growing fury as Morrison and his ministers responded to the outbreak of unprecedented blazes by dismissing overwhelming evidence that the fire crisis is linked to global warming.
On Tuesday, with his government under siege, Morrison announced that $2 billion in assistance will be provided over the next two years, dispensed by a newly-established National Bushfire Recovery Agency. The money will be focussed in particular on business with emergency financial grants to farmers and small business owners, the rebuilding of damaged roads, bridges and infrastructure and the provision of mental health services in affected communities. Funds will also be used to promote tourism in the numerous tourist-reliant towns ravaged by fire.
Wildfires rage under plumes of smoke in Bairnsdale, Australia. (Glen Morey via AP)
The announcement followed the government’s unprecedented mobilisation of 3,000 army reservists without bothering to notify fire services as to how they would be deployed. Most have no training in firefighting and are being used to fill in the gaping logistical holes that exist because of the underfunding of civilian emergency services. They are loading and unloading trucks, delivering supplies, clearing roads and burying the carcasses of thousands of livestock killed by the blazes.
State governments have also brought forward their own relief measures. In Victoria, the Labor government of Premier Daniel Andrews, which has presided over the running down of the state fire services, has announced the establishment of “Bushfire Recovery Victoria.” The agency has been allocated an initial budget of just $50 million with other money to come from a government-run charity collecting donations.
In New South Wales, where the losses have so far been the worst, the state Coalition government today announced a $1 billion package to assist in the rebuilding of fire devestated communities. It also unveiled a scheme that allows affected farmers, businesses and non-profit organisations to apply for up to $15,000 in assistance. The South Australian government is soliciting corporate and private donations for a “State Emergency Relief Fund.”
In contrast to these limited government measures, there has been an outpouring of public sympathy and support for those impacted by the fires. Charities appealing for food and clothing to send to the fire victims have been overwhelmed with contributions. An online appeal launched by comedian Celeste Barber, with an initial aim of raising $750,000 for the volunteer NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), has collected over $45 million so far. A Red Cross fire assistance appeal has raised a similar amount. A Salvation Army appeal has collected over $15 million.
Australian and international artistic celebrities, including Nicole Kidman, Kylie and Dannie Minogue, Russell Crowe, Chris Hemsworth, Pink, the rock band Metallica and Elton John, have all announced large personal donations. The Business Council of Australia, representing the largest companies in the country, has asked its members to finance a modest $25 million trust to provide long-term education and other support to the children of firefighters who have lost their lives. Major Australian-based banks and corporations have announced donations of between $1 million and $5 million.
Donations from around the world are also flooding into animal welfare organisations, in response to the footage that has been broadcast of the fire impact on koalas and other native wildlife, and the estimate that at least 500 million animals have been killed.
The financial assistance will, at best, only deliver relief for some of those affected by the fires. Many victims will receive little or no financial assistance.
More than 2,000 homes have burnt to the ground and hundreds more have been damaged. Hundreds of vehicles have been destroyed. Affected people will have to wait for insurance pay-outs before they can even begin to consider whether they rebuild their lives. A Victorian government survey in 2017 found that 26 percent of households in the state had no insurance, and 28 percent were underinsured. So far, 8,000 fire-related insurance claims have been filed across the country, totalling barely $700 million—an average of just $87,500 per claim.
Farms have lost not only livestock, outbuildings, equipment and fencing, but the land itself will take time to recover. Even the most comprehensive insurance pay-outs will not cover the full losses. Many farmers face the wrenching decision of whether re-establishing their operations is even worth the years of financial hardship and stress.
People who suffered physical injuries defending their homes or evacuating from them are not eligible for compensation. Tens of thousands of casual and contract workers who have not been able to work for weeks due to the fires will not be compensated. Unemployment and poverty will soar in affected areas. The tourism will take years to recover—regardless of government-funded advertising campaigns.
Moreover, the federal and state governments have no plan, let alone funding, for the urgently needed expansion of fire and other emergency services and fire prevention measures. The 2019–2020 fire season has already been devastating and the most intense summer months have only begun. The reality, however, is global warming means conditions will only worsen in future years.
Billions of dollars are required to finance the immediate recruitment and training of a standing, professional national firefighting force, equipped with its own fleet of aircraft and helicopters and array of heavy earth-moving and clearing vehicles. Local volunteer fire brigades and overstretched national and state park services are unable to carry out necessary hazard reduction measures during the winter months. More funding is required to ensure that local volunteer fire brigades have up-to-date firefighting vehicles and equipment and to fully pay their members for the time they take away from their work or businesses.
The entire political establishment is complicit. Both the opposition Labor Party and the Greens far from condemning the Morrison government are pushing for another Royal Commission inquiry into the fire crisis as a means of defusing public anger.
Yet the lack of preparedness for the scale of the 2019–2020 fires is in part due to the fact that federal and state governments, both Coalition and Labor, have ignored the main recommendations of previous inquiries into the impact of previous fires and other disasters on the grounds they would be too costly to implement.
Australian bushfire victims speak-out: “What is our government doing at the moment?”
By our reporters
Fire fighters trying to save homes outside the Balmoral Rural Fire Service Station (Source Local resident)
Remains of a Balmoral home
Balmoral Fire Captain Brendan O'Connor
Sydney Childrens Choir
Donations for fire victims in the Balmoral Fire Station
Rosemary
Fire fighters battling flames attacking properties in Balmoral (Source Local resident)
Paul
Australian bushfire victims speak-out: “What is our government doing at the moment?”
By our reporters
9 January 2020
A WSWS reporting team recently spoke with residents from Balmoral, a village some 100 kilometres from Sydney, which is among the many communities ravaged by the intense bushfires of the past four months.
Balmoral has a population of just over 400 people and is southwest of Sydney, in the Southern Highlands region of New South Wales. Between December 19 and December 21, the village was repeatedly hit by fires, resulting in the destruction of 22 houses, or 15 percent of all homes in the community. The area also suffered a widespread power outage.
Fire fighters trying to save homes outside the Balmoral Rural Fire Service Station (Source Local resident)
The defence of the community depended almost exclusively on volunteer firefighters, with little or no assistance from state or federal authorities.
In April last year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to hold a meeting with former fire chiefs who insisted that the states were not adequately prepared for the coming fire season and warned that the potential destruction could surpass previous years.
Morrison’s indifference is indicative of the attitude of the entire political establishment, including the opposition Labor Party. Successive federal and state Labor and Liberal-National governments have refused to adequately fund fire-fighting forces or carry out any measures to reduce global warming that may impinge on the profits of the major corporations. As a result, the Rural Fire Service in NSW lacks necessary resources and equipment.
Remains of a Balmoral home
The contrast between the responses of the government and that of ordinary people could not be starker. Workers and volunteers in Balmoral and around the country have courageously sought to defend the homes and lives of those around them. Many have taken weeks off from work, using up their sick leave and holidays to fight the fires. Volunteers have to purchase their own equipment if they want items such as proper fitting gas masks and portable radios.
Balmoral does not have a connection to the state water supply and relies on tanks and private reserves for water. So intense were the fires that the village ran out of water on December 21 and tanks were brought in from other towns to assist, but they quickly ran out as well. The experiences in Balmoral are a microcosm of the conditions facing communities across the country as a result of the current bushfires.
Balmoral Fire Captain Brendan O'Connor
Brendan O’Connor is the Balmoral fire captain and works for the local council. He has taken at least four weeks off from work to fight the fires and called a meeting to warn residents of the fire danger and organise for people to evacuate.
O’Connor commented on the lack of payments for volunteers, stating: “There’s got to be something new. There’s thousands of firefighters on the ground every day and their businesses are suffering. I was supposed to be going to my niece’s wedding in Queensland in April but I don’t have holidays to do that now. It’s hard because we all want to do what we can, not only for our local community but for the greater community.”
The impact of the fires, he continued, “is a drain on every part of the nation, not only NSW, but we’re thinking, what is our government doing at the moment? The recovery is hard. Everything we have known and loved, most of it’s been turned upside down. About 90 percent of our bushland has gone now.”
Sydney Childrens Choir
As WSWS reporters were speaking to residents, a group of school students from the Sydney Children’s Choir gave a performance at the Balmoral fire station to raise money for one of their members and his family whose house had been incinerated. The children have raised almost $10,000 for the family, who are not insured.
Residents described how they have received multiple donations of food and water, including from a Lebanese community in Sydney who drove down to Balmoral with supplies.
Donations for fire victims in the Balmoral Fire Station
Rosemary also lost her house and everything in it on December 21. She praised the firefighters and denounced the lack of resources provided to them by the government.
“The volunteers are supposed to have the most modern masks and gear and they don’t! It’s very frustrating. The prime minister said, the volunteers ‘want to be there.’ These people want to save their community, that’s why they are here. That is no justification for them not being properly resourced and certainly no justification for us not to pay them,” she said. “Where in the world does this happen like it happens in Australia? We seem to take the volunteers for granted?
“They were even told to stand down and to leave the village but they wouldn’t go. In the end, other firefighters were stopped from coming in because the risk was too high. Later that night, when they finally did get through, I saw them speaking to Brendan, the captain, and crying because they tried to get here, and they couldn’t in time. It is very traumatic for lots of people.”
Rosemary
Referring to the 2009 Victorian bushfires that claimed 173 lives and destroyed over 2,000 homes, Rosemary said, “Did we learn anything from what happened in Melbourne? If they made recommendations it shouldn’t be for just one state, it’s a national issue.
“If the premier declared a state of emergency, why doesn’t she pull out all stops? We’ve seen a few suits come down to the station over the last week but they didn’t go and talk to anyone, they were just there for the camera. Politicians talk about fire plans and we are all supposed to have them but I’m not too sure that they had a very good fire plan. They didn’t plan for the worst case scenario for this village. They just did the bare minimum.”
Rosemary and other residents were forced to take shelter in the local fire station. “The firie [firefighter] who had told me that they couldn’t save my house was standing there [in the station]… They walked me across the road and I saw my house burning down. And with what little water they had left they were trying to save the two houses on either side of mine. They [the authorities] didn’t even take into account that the village runs on tank water.
Fire fighters battling flames attacking properties in Balmoral (Source Local resident)
“The scariest part was being told to get some towels, wet them down and start covering the edges. I was telling myself ‘this isn’t good.’ Then the smoke started to come in and you looked up at the windows and it was just red. We could hear the fire and felt it and saw it coming towards the station. I’ve never felt so claustrophobic in my life.
“The generator went out, which not only operated the lights but also the sprinkler system on the roof. I heard that we had to be water bombed. It may well not have burnt down but I don’t know how well we would have survived with the smoke and the heat.”
Paul, a Balmoral resident, school principal and veteran firefighter who volunteered during the 2001 and 2013 fires said, “Nothing compares to what we saw. We were attacked by fire from every direction possible. It was determined to get us.”
“My plan was to stay at all costs. I had a sprinkler system on the house, I have a fire pump, and I had done preparation around the house. That would have worked if it was a normal bushfire but the conditions we had on Saturday were just unbelievable. I dread to think how high the flames were.
“At that point I thought this is not defendable so I went to plan B and jumped off the veranda, put the sprinkler system on, and ran up to the Landcruiser. As I drove up both sides of my driveway were on fire and that was within 20 seconds of the fire coming out of the gully.
“When you think about 140 houses and two trucks, the resources just aren’t there. I saw footage of choppers waiting their turn to drop their bucket into a dam and fill it up. On that Saturday afternoon, we ran out of water. There wasn’t enough to fight the fires.”
Paul
Paul, 51, described the frustration of many residents over the authorities’ failure to mitigate the effects of bushfires. “The fuel load in the bush was nearly knee high so when you get really hot days and there’s a fire you can’t stop it. There’s only one way you can get rid of that fuel, you’ve got to burn, there’s absolutely no choice in that.
“I know people have been trying to burn for years, they have been approaching the local fire brigade, but they have to go further up the food chain, so in the end it’s bureaucracy and red tape preventing it happening.
“I’m disgusted with it. I’ve come this close to losing everything. I’ve lived in the surrounding district all my life and they always back burn. Every year the firies have their set routines but that doesn’t happen anymore. The last time would have been 10 years ago in Tahmoor…
“It’s a whole host of events all rolled into one creating catastrophic conditions, climate change, global warming, whatever they want to call it. We’ve been through tough times before but nothing like this. The size of fires is unprecedented. All the resources are stretched to breaking point.”
NOTE: THIS BLOG DOES NOT COLLECT FUNDS FOR THE FIRE. ALL LINKS ARE TO VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS THAT CAN HELP.
Bushfire Emergency
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Update January 6, 2020
Milder weather and sprinklings of rain have brought the briefest of respites to a national bushfire crisis that looks set to continue well into the new year.
As Australia continues to smoulder, we brace for another forecast deterioration in conditions and count the cost. At least 20 people have lost their lives - 16 from NSW, two from Victoria and two from South Australia - while others remain missing. Over 2000 homes have been lost in NSW alone. Victoria remains ablaze, with 31 fires burning, 13 of which are categorised as Watch and Act.
The toll on Australian wildlife has been staggering. Heartbreaking images of koalas and kangaroos have flashed across the world: hundreds of millions of animals are believed to have perished, among them over 2000 livestock.
Yet throughout stirring evidence of the resilience and fortitude of Australians has been everywhere apparent. As has the compassion and support of concerned people here and abroad.
Over $170,000 has been raised by Microsoft News readers in Australia and overseas, money which goes directly to the communities that our firefighters - with so many volunteers among them - are bravely striving to protect.
Your continued generosity will have a real impact. By giving you will help:
- Australian Red Cross
- St Vincent De Paul Society NSW
- The Salvation Army Bushfire Appeal
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