Bushfire fund projects required minimum spend of $1m, Barilaro says
09 February 2021
Published by https://www.smh.com.au/
AUSTRALIA – NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro says a minimum spending requirement of $1 million determined which councils received funding from a $177 million bushfire relief fund last year, despite almost half of all projects funded falling under that amount.
Mr Barilaro on Monday told a parliamentary inquiry that the Blue Mountains – the 12th worst bushfire-affected local government area in the country – missed out on funding because its projects fell outside criteria of the fast-tracked fund.
It was the first time committee members and council mayors said they had heard of criteria attached to the relief fund, which was spent in mostly Coalition-held seats.
When asked about the discrepancy, a spokesman for the Deputy Premier told the Herald on Monday evening that 50 of more than 70 grants fell under a “sector development scheme” that did not have a minimum $1 million requirement and that the Blue Mountains failed to apply under that category.
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Mr Barilaro fronted the upper house inquiry’s ongoing probe into $250 million in council grants, which were also handed out to mostly Coalition-held seats in the lead up to the 2019 state election.
The inquiry has since been expanded to include the state and federal bushfire fund, which was allocated without application forms, and skipped three council areas that suffered more than $300 million in economic damage.
Blue Mountains City Council applied for $5.4 million to fund 23 “shovel-ready” projects last year, after suffering more than $65 million worth of damage, including losing 114 buildings during the fires.
But during the hearing on Monday, Mr Barilaro told the committee that all 23 were knocked back because “they weren’t ready under the criteria that they had to be able to be completed within six months or started within six months … [with] a million-dollar minimum threshold.”
Around 34 of the grants fell under $1 million, including $131,000 to an oyster farm in Kempsey Shire; $194,000 to a St Ives honey wine producer; and $43,000 to a cellar door in the Snowy Valleys. Two of the three grants issued to Labor-held seats fell under $600,000.
