Too little, too late: Australia’s disaster response has been … a disaster

Since Ruth Haggar lost her home in the New South Wales town of Quaama in the Black Summer bushfires more than two years ago, she has wanted a single, local source of help.

"You've got fire brain, you're traumatised, you're running on adrenaline, you're filling out a bunch of paperwork, you're running after this grant and that grant, you're sitting in queues," she says.

"One day this charity is offering $500, then another is offering $1,000. And that took a toll. It seemed like for months we were chasing grant leads."

She fears the same mistakes are now playing out in communities affected by the floods in northern NSW, where residents claim recovery efforts have been patchy, under-resourced and too slow.

Lucy Wise, whose home was affected by the floods in Lismore, agrees.

"It has been a bureaucratic nightmare for a lot of people."

Labor in opposition were critical of the Coalition failing to spend any of the $4.8m Emergency Response Fund on disaster recovery or prevention three years after it was created. Having now taken power, it will be in the firing line from communities up and down the east coast demanding a more urgent federal response.

Those on the ground say the whole structure of recovery efforts needs to be rethought, to get practical resources to people like Haggar and Wise more quickly.

Two and a half years on from Black Summer, the co-coordinator of the Cobargo relief centre, Chris Walters, says it is clear having a centralised recovery agency sitting in Sydney or Canberra doesn't work.

"Having one staff member on the ground isn't enough," she says. They need more people on the ground and really working with people."

Walters says money flowing directly to bushfire survivors so far has been "woeful", but it's not just about handing out big chunks of money to build homes.

"It's about the federal government helping the state and local governments to assist people on the ground, so that individuals are being helped."

Walters says part of the problem is that councils are "absolutely drowning in work".

"They are doing all they can to help but they have not gotten enough staff," she says.

Janelle Saffin, the state Labor MP for Lismore, agrees that "councils cannot do it alone", and that flood-affected communities desperately need more boots on the ground helping people.

Shona Whitton, the national lead for emergency recoveries at Red Cross, says each disaster-affected area needs a designated community group to help government agencies understand what the needs are, and to build, at minimum, a five-year recovery plan with committed funding.

"Thinking about how to do [disaster recovery] better is a whole thing that people just don't have time for because they're so overwhelmed with work under the way the current system is set up," she says.

"There also needs to be an acknowledgement that these types of disasters have long-term impacts and 12-24 months of funding is not long enough."

"I think the challenge with the federal government at a local level is that in all states and territories, emergency management is different. So I think what we need is leadership from the federal government and consistency in equity of service delivery after disasters."

These issues are front of mind for Kristy McBain, the new minister for regional development and the MP for Eden-Monaro, which spans a number of bushfire-affected communities.

"There was definitely a missing element in understanding that there needed to be coordination between the three levels of government," she says, adding that planning issues, in big part stemming from under-resourcing, need to be addressed.

Murray Watt, the new minister for emergency management, says the government's Disaster Ready Fund, which will replace the Coalition's Emergency Response Fund, will invest up to $200m a year in disaster mitigation projects such as flood levees, cyclone shelters and bushfire evacuation centres.

Watt says he will also do "all in his power" to see that the recommendations from the the royal commission into natural disaster responses are implemented, not all of which were supported by the previous government.

"Too often, we saw the former government refuse to plan or listen to the warnings as disasters approached, and then abandoned disaster victims, blaming others for their own slow response. This will change under the Albanese government," he says.

Those still struggling with the aftermath of repeated disasters say a better system cannot come soon enough.

David Allen, the owner of the Cobargo hotel, says putting the onus on bushfire survivors to navigate a confusing recovery system has disadvantaged older and less computer-literate people, resulting in many missing out on grants they were entitled to.

"Instead of [bushfire survivors] having to go the charity to try get what they need, they could have that list where they go 'right, this person needs X, Y, and Z, this other person needs this and that, let's give them X, Y, and Z - because charity donations don't match up with what people need."

Haggar says Anglicare has launched a program in the past few weeks to help bushfire survivors in her area with building advice. She says this will be a huge help, as tradie and supply shortages plague those trying to rebuild, but should have been put in place two years ago.

"Some hands-on physical support early on would have really given us a boost to commit the energy and feel encouraged and supported to go forward, and I really do believe a lot of us would be in houses now."

In Lismore, Wise says what she wants is clarity on her options. She and her husband spent part of their super to raise their home above flood levels according to council guidelines, only to be flooded again.

She sees a land buyback or swap scheme as her best option, but that requires politicians to act quickly.

"So we're very dependent on policies by the government," she says.

On Wednesday, the NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, said he would support the relocation of residents in flood-prone areas of Lismore if the independent inquiry under way recommended it. Steph Cook, the NSW minister for flood recovery, said the government would respond to the inquiry "as quickly as practicable".

Haggar says timely, practical support is also a good investment, both psychologically and financially.

"Feeling supported would dramatically improve our mental health. We're getting mental health counselling because no one will help us - if someone helped us, we wouldn't need as much mental health counselling."