The millions of cash gathered by comedian Celeste Barber for firefighters affected by Australia’s 2019 bushfires have failed to reach those in need.
Families of firefighters murdered during Black Summer have yet to receive donations.
During the disastrous fire season, Celeste Barber helped fund $51 million. At least $10 million has been designated for volunteer victims but has yet to reach them.
Legal procedures are to blame for a two-and-a-half-year delay in financing.
NSW Labor MPs questioned the state administration as to why it had taken so long up to this point.
Bureaucratic squabbling has stopped wounded firefighters and relatives of the deceased from the 2019 Black Summer bushfires from receiving ‘a single penny’ of the $10 million fund donated by Australian comedian Celeste Barber over three years ago.
The delay has been attributed to legal and administrative procedures, as reported during a NSW budget estimates hearing on Friday.
At the height of the 2019 Australian bushfires, Barber’s internet appeal generated $51 million for victims.
A deed controlling the New South Wales RFS trust initially restricted the Rural Fire Service’s use of the funds to equipment and training.
A judge eventually determined that $10 million of the funds generated might also be distributed to the families of fallen and wounded firefighters.
Australian firemen (pictured) wounded in the Black Summer bushfires have yet to receive the funds of a charity campaign organized by Celeste Barber, according to a Friday hearing on the NSW budget estimates.
After a call-out at the height of the bushfires, Celeste Barber (pictured) garnered more than $51 million in contributions for the Rural Fire Service, but trust regulations mean less money will reach the families of fire personnel and volunteers impacted by the flames.
The amount was put aside by the RFS in a fund for firefighter victims and their families.
Friday’s budget estimates for the New South Wales government revealed that despite the deaths of four volunteers and injuries to 860 firemen over the summers of 2019 and 2022, no money had been withdrawn from the fund.
Steph Cooke, the then-Minister for Resilience, was quizzed by state Labor lawmakers who demanded to know why, after almost three years, “not a dime” of the millions had reached people in need.
More than 800 RFS firefighters were hurt and four volunteers perished in the Black Summer bushfires in Australia (Pictured, Fire and Rescue crews battle to save their truck from a raging fire at Bilpin, NSW in 2019)
Ms. Cooke said, “We will continue to work on its formation and distribution of monies.”
It is crucial that we establish this fund effectively from the beginning.
Mark Buttigieg, a member of the Labor Party, deemed it unacceptable that it had taken so long to establish the fund.
“It is now August 2022, two and a half years after the fund was created, and not a single dollar has been distributed to those families,” he stated.
“You’ve had fatalities, injuries, a lady who went out of her way to raise $51 million, $10 million of which was hypothecated to the families, and not a single penny has been given to the families.
Have we just recently established governance for this fund?
Rob Rogers, commissioner of the RFS, said that he intended the fund to care for volunteers for years to come, envisioning a Police Legacy-style “Benevolent Fund.”
The state administration hopes to create the fund before the end of the year.
Rob Rogers, Commissioner of the RFS, hopes to establish a fund similar to Police Legacy to benefit firefighting casualties in the future (Pictured: 2019 flames in Batlow, New South Wales).