For those not familiar with the background, members of the community, including the association, campaigned to convince council to establish a Community Disaster Relief Fund for more than a year before council reluctantly agreed to do so in August, 2019.
While some, including council, would have the community believe that the fund was established shortly after council decided to establish it, the reality is that it only came into existence on January 20th, 2020, after the height of the recent bushfire disaster had passed.
Why it took council five months to act is a matter for it to explain.
Needless to say, last month the SJA announced its intention to conduct a “pilot program” for the distribution of financial assistance from the fund to members of the Cobargo community who had suffered losses in the most recent bushfire disaster.
According to media reports at the time, the fund had grown to more than $600,000 courtesy of the community, including a donation from ratepayers when council generously offered a portion of the proceeds of sale of its
Southern Phone share.
While the SJA “pilot program” was subsequently deferred, indications are that there was strong interest on the part of the community in potentially seeking financial assistance from the fund. The association can only wish the SJA every success with its efforts to assist the community to recover from the recent bushfire disaster.
The association was motivated to advocate for the establishment of a Community Disaster Relief Fund after it became clear that, in stark contrast to its immediate response to the Tathra bushfire in March, 2018, council took almost no action to assist the victims of the Yankees Gap bushfire just a few months later in August, 2018.
While the Mayoral Appeal Fund established by council the day after the Tathra bushfire raised more than $1.5M, legally those funds could only be used to assist the Tathra victims. For reasons known only to council, it simply refused to establish an appeal mechanism to assist the victims of the Yankees Gap bushfire. So, while Tathra bushfire victims benefited by as much as $25,000, victims of the Yankees Gap bushfire, whose losses were arguably greater in some instances, were left to fend for themselves.
The association believes that the loss of a family home in Numbugga or Bemboka is just as much a disaster as is the loss of a family home anywhere-else in the shire, so when council finally decided to establish a Community Disaster Relief Fund, it was pleased to note that access to assistance from the fund would be open to all.
It was only in the New Year that the association learnt that the Charter & Fund Rules established for the new Community Disaster Relief Fund limited assistance from the fund to those who had suffered losses through an official Natural Disaster, declared by the NSW Government.
The association believes that this means that the fund is not available to potentially assist every resident of the shire who may have lost their home or personal property to a natural disaster, but only to those who may have suffered such a loss in a natural disaster of a major scale, such as the Tathra bushfire or the more recent bushfires that consumed most of NSW.
Under the terms of the fund
Charter &
Rules the victims of the Yankees Gap bushfire would not qualify for assistance because a
Natural Disaster was not declared in response to the bushfire there.
The association notes that no such restriction was foreshadowed in the report to council in August, 2019 recommending the establishment of the fund, so it can only assume that the restriction was added by council bureaucrats for reasons known only to them, although the association suspects that the motive was to try & limit the amount of work required to respond to the needs of the community.
Curiously, the restriction added to the fund
Charter &
Rules is not included in the
Memorandum of Understanding executed by council &
SJA establishing the fund.
Sadly, the association believes that the Bega Valley Shire Community Disaster Relief Fund is entirely discriminatory in nature for the simple reason that it will not be readily accessible by the entire community.
On that basis the association cannot & will not support the fund as it is presently constituted.
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tel: 0264945669
Email: secretary@begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
Website: http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au