29 March, 2024
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GOVERNMENT FAILS TO DELIVER FOR FIREFIGHTER FAMILIES 

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The NSW Government has revealed in Budget Estimates today that two years after the Black Summer Bushfires, it has failed to activate a Benevolent Fund for the families of injured or deceased firefighters.
 
$10 million was earmarked for the Fund as part of the $51 million raised by Celeste Barber fundraising efforts during the 2019/2020 Black Summer Bushfires.
 
RFS Commissioner Rogers told Estimates on 6 April 2022, the fund would support families, saying “things like that are ready to go, but we are just going through some formalities.”
 
Today the government failed to provide an explanation for why the Fund had not been established, citing the need to ensure the governance arrangement were adequate. The Board to administer the Fund will only call for members next week indicating further delays before a single dollar is distributed to families of firefighters.
 
Adam Searle MLC put to the Minister that her responsibility was to ensure families and injured firefighters were not the collateral of these delays. Minister Cooke’s response was to defend her actions generally without citing actions she had taken to expedite the delivery of the Benevolent Fund.
 
Injured and deceased firefighters sacrificed everything to protect NSW during Black Summer. NSW Labor calls on the government to expedite the delivery of this fund.
 
Jihad Dib, NSW Shadow Minister for Emergency Services, said:
“Government delays can be measured in missed opportunities for kids and families. Making families and injured firefighters collateral is the worst kind of government failure.”
 
“There is no excuse as to why two and a half years after this money was raised by the community and put into a benevolent fund, not a single dollar has been provided to families eligible for this support.”
 
“Injured and deceased firefighters sacrificed everything to protect NSW during Black Summer. The least the government can do is look after them and their families with the same urgency they gave the state in its time of need.”

JIHAD DIB MP
MEMBER FOR LAKEMBA
 SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMERGENCY SERVICES

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