Bushfire Recovery Support

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:52): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding our recent tragic bushfires.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: Bushfires, as we know, broke out in Cudlee Creek and Kangaroo Island on 20 December last year. On 24 December, the State Emergency Relief Fund was activated, but donations were only able to be distributed to victims of the Cudlee Creek fire. On 4 January, two men tragically died while fighting the blaze on Kangaroo Island, but the relief fund rules weren't changed until 8 January, weeks after the Premier went there for photo opportunities. After 8 January, new and additional donations to the relief fund can be given to both Cudlee Creek and Kangaroo Island. My questions to the Premier are:

1. Why did it take so long for the relief fund rules to include Kangaroo Island?

2. How much money was donated to the relief fund before 8 January?

3. How much was donated to the relief fund after 8 January?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:53): I thank the honourable member for her question. In relation to the particular fires, it's worth casting our minds back to the seriousness of the events and the sequence in which they took place. On 20 December, we had the fire at Cudlee Creek and one on Kangaroo Island, but the one on Kangaroo Island at that stage was on the western end within the Flinders Chase National Park.

The Cudlee Creek fire had done considerable damage to homes and properties within a day, and so the immediate impact for the community in the Adelaide Hills was significant early on. It was not so significant, at that stage, on Kangaroo Island, until we saw some severe weather events which forced the fire further east and changes in wind direction which forced it in a range of directions and at that stage it did considerable damage.

The advice that I have received from my agency is that the State Emergency Relief Fund is governed by an act. It's not a particularly flexible act, which is something that you often find when you are in the midst of one of these events. The initial event was the Cudlee Creek fire and that was placed in the rules which are there to direct the relief fund committee. From memory, they are Governor's directions, so a fairly high instrument. That was for the Cudlee Creek fire.

I think when this matter was reconsidered, when we knew that there was considerable damage on Kangaroo Island, we had to work out how to extend that support to Kangaroo Island. Someone will remind me what the name of the significant fundraiser in Sydney is, who has now discovered—

The Hon. T.A. Franks: Celeste Barber.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: Thank you—Celeste Barber, who has raised considerable funds for what she stated was a particular cause. The state government was in a similar situation in terms of Cudlee Creek in that people had already donated I think it was in the order of about $600,000, and the state government had contributed $1 million to kick it off at the start. The concern was that if that funding, that $1.6 million, was then extended to the Kangaroo Island fires, then there may be some legal implications or people may be upset that they had donated to a particular fire event and then discovered down the track that that money had gone somewhere else.

So the decision was made that that initial funding would be quarantined and that the funding would be equalised for both events, and then any funding over that would be able to be applied to either. That's the explanation behind why it took place in that sequence: because the government is bound to work within the rules within the act, and we had to make some considerations to ensure that these decisions took account of the fact that people had already donated to the Cudlee Creek fire as the Cudlee Creek appeal, which was then extended to the SA Bushfire Appeal.

I am pleased to say that there has been a lot of generosity both locally and abroad, and from interstate, so that fund, I think, is over $6.5 million now. We have distributed and/or approved some $1.2 million in relief and are working to get that funding out as quickly as possible.