A FLAMING DISGRACE

A disturbing, but prescient, flashback to the days just after the Black Saturday tragedy.  At 3AW we started getting calls from concerned listeners who claimed they knew friends and neighbours who were rorting the bushfire emergency relief money.

The government was offering $1000 in cash in emergency funds to any people who had lost their homes or had fled the threatened areas. Word was spreading, well, like a bushfire, that anybody could get money. Just say you’d lost all your belongings or your identification. Or you’d been uprooted.

People who had safely gone to stay with relatives were putting their hands up for an easy thousand bucks. It was like a malfunctioning ATM that was spitting out fifty dollar notes to all and sundry.

At the time we tried to alert authorities to the scam but it was put in the too hard basket. Millions of dollars were pouring in – from the hearts and pockets of generous Australians wanting to help. And millions of dollars were pouring out.

Well, there were more heartless, greedy ghouls out there than even we could imagine.

Pat McNamara, the former Deputy Premier, and a member of the bushfire appeal fund distribution panel, claims up to $65 million has been rorted. He says there were about 2,000 homes destroyed in the fires, but figures now show 67,000 payments were claimed.

McNamara says: ‘When you expect to pay out about $2 million and you pay out $67 million, I guess you could call it a rorting of the system.

‘I suppose a lot of people applied for that and they weren't asking for any identification because a lot of people were coming up and saying I've lost all my identification, my driver's licence has gone, my rates notice has been burnt. I think what the Government wanted to do was get money in people's hands as quickly as possible.’

I know from Ash Wednesday experience, 25 years ago, that in the millions of dollars that 3AW collected and handed out some must have gone to people who didn’t deserve it. But, from our experience, people were reluctant to take it. Often insisting there were many far worse of than them.

But here we are talking about $60 million. Are that many people that callous? That greedy? That conscience-free? If true it hurts those who really suffered and insults the millions of Australians who generously wanted to help.  If you’re one of the rorters I hope you choked on it.

The head of the Bushfire Recovery Authority, Former Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, says she does not believe federal bushfire funds have been rorted. She says of the 67,000 number:

‘I think what it probably says, as well, is how many people were touched by the fires. I think it shows the breadth of the fire. I'm not so sure it was about people rorting the system.’

Well, Ms. Nixon I do not believe that nearly 70,000 qualified for compensation and if you do well, nothing much has changed since your deluded days as Top Cop.

Friday, June 5, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009