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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-05-13 Daily Xml
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Bushfire Recovery Support

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:03): My question is to the Minister for Human Services.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Lee, sit down, please. I need to be able to hear the question, Leader of the Opposition. The Hon. Ms Lee.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Thank you, Mr President. My question is to the Minister for Human Services, regarding bushfire recovery efforts. Can the minister please provide an update to the council on how the Marshall Liberal government is supporting South Australia's recovery from the impacts of the SA bushfires?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:04): I thank the honourable member for her question and for her interest in this area. Once again, I would like to thank members of the South Australian community, whether they be private individuals or organisations. Indeed, I note that a number of the organisations that she has regular contact with amongst our multicultural communities have been very generous in organising fundraisers to provide funds to those people who have been impacted by the bushfires, and I thank them particularly for their generosity.

The SA Bushfire Appeal has managed to achieve over $8.6 million in donations so far. So far, there have been some 934 applications for requests for assistance, over 70 per cent of which have been approved. The outstanding ones may include some which were not in the footprint of the fire and those that are being assessed particularly needing information from third parties.

There has been a range of different categories that were approved to provide assistance to individuals, households and businesses, some of which I may have outlined previously, but they include families of people who died in the fires, those who have been catastrophically injured, those whose principal place of residence was destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, property owners who experienced infrastructure damage to their house or property, another element for non-structural damage and a further category for primary producers and small businesses.

We have now been able to add additional categories which include community infrastructure and assets, so we have opened the applications to those organisations to apply for a grant of up to $20,000 from the SA Bushfire Appeal, and we are encouraging any organisations, community groups, sports clubs, social clubs, etc. who may have been impacted by the fires to apply for those funds. The applications close on 3 July, so we are very keen to ensure that any organisations that have been impacted by the fire will apply for those funds.

Of course, we stand by, ready to assist people who may need assistance with their applications. Clearly, there were people who lost everything, so they may not have immediately available the identification information and so forth. Particularly through the recovery offices, we have had staff available to assist people through that application process, and we urge them to continue to apply for each of these different grants.

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