Aid in the fire affected area

Robin has been very busy since the devastating bushfires helping to provide material aid in the fire affected area of the Marysville Triangle. In Marysville, only 12 houses and one business withstood the firestorm and almost 50 people died in the Triangle area of Marysville, Buxton, Taggerty, Narbethong and Granton. See http://www.travelvictoria.com.au/marysville/

If you live in Victoria, I urge you to visit the town, go up to the mountains this winter where there promises to be a good fall of snow, or just go for a visit. There is a bakery open, where you can get great grub, and your visit will support the townsfolk and bring much needed moral support.

Last weekend, Robin attended the official opening of the Marysville temporary village, which has been put together to enable 40 singles and 40 families to move into temporary accommodation while clearing and rebuilding is done.

The town was made possible by the generosity of Andrew Forrest, who donated 40 of his demountable  ‘mining dongas’, Lindsay Fox, who transported them across the Nullabor, Kim Wilkie, who worked like a Trojan to develop the site from burnt out rubble belonging to the ESA church group and many others, Lions, Rotary and individual volunteers. Most funding came from VBRRA.

As part of our early assistance, my friends and their friends sent up 2 semi-trailer loads of food, clothes, household goods, linen, tools and much more to a big marquee we had erected in Narbethong. We got there 4 ays after the fires. After 5 weeks, the tent had to be returned and we desperately needed a large storage area. As almost everything except a large open-sided dairy shed had been burnt, we stored 90 pallets of stuff there while seeking funds from the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction Authority, headed up by former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Christine Nixon. This funding was refused. It was not seen ‘as a priority’.

Therefore, as I had read that Mick Gatto (colourful character now nationally known through the Underbelly series) was having difficulty giving away to the CFA $900000 he'd raised at a dinner. I thought, I could help him spend that. So I emailed him at Elite Cranes, had two meetings with him, flew up to Marysville in a chopper on 2nd May and he decided on the spot that he and his mates would help. No mucking around, no prevaricating, no more meetings, they'd just do it, probably within 2-3 weeks, after an engineer and architect had drawn up plans for Kim Wilkie to submit to Council as a community to community gesture.

However, Mick’s donation was vetoed by VBRRA. Even though his consortium tried to donate the shed to the owners of the land being administered by VBRRA, the shed was still not approved, by VBRRA. The site for building the shed then changed to the Council owned land at Gallipoli Park, where most of the Marysville survivors huddled during the bushfires, to be used as a community sports and health facility. Unfortunately, after lengthy discussions and three sets of plans being drawn up by the Gatto group,  the Murrundindi Council, who own the park, were unable to agree on a site for this $150000 building in a totally burnt out town, so reluctantly the offer of the Gatto consortium has been withdrawn. Bureaucracy rules!!.

In a final irony, VBRRA commandeered the 2 semis of goods donated by our consortium and trucked them all back to Clayton, to be stored in a big warehouse and only to be released if applicants fill in a blue application form.So much for us trying to get around the red tape by delivering direct to the fire front! AND as a last bureaucratic effort, VBRRA are now LEASING a shed on the property abutting the temporary village, to use as a Material Aid Distribution Centre! Spending money they need not spend on a shed that's not purpose built and fitted out, just so the Gatto consortium could be blocked from putting the shed up in the Temporary Village. I have found out that VBRRA employs 85 people, probably on an average of $70000 pa per person salary, to administer the Rebuilding and Recovery period. No wonder they couldn't afford to build a shed! Your taxes at work. See chart below: