It says a lot that despite governments showering billions of dollars on bushfire-affected communities, some areas are being left high and dry.
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The scale of the government and public response to the disaster was overwhelming. The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements this week heard more than $1 billion was now at work in communities, with around $240 million going out in disaster recovery payments and allowances alone.
But these massive numbers have paled in comparison to the need arising from this crisis.
Approximately 35 million hectares burnt across Australia over the last bushfire season. Smoke from the fires reached 80 per cent of the population.
But only 111 local government areas covering 13.5 million hectares are able to access disaster recovery funding. And while 193,000 claims for the disaster recovery grants or allowance have been approved, more than 24,000 have been rejected.
National Bushfire Recovery co-ordinator Andrew Colvin acknowledged to the commission that the help you received depended on which side of an "artificial line" you lived on.
This is because historically when a flood, fire or hurricane hit, you needed to be directly impacted to claim government aid.
The sheer immensity of the Black Summer bushfires has broken that model.
Businesses who are on the brink because their summer customers never arrived deserve help, even if the flames did not touch them directly.
As the Ernst and Young modelling shows, the indirect impacts of the bushfires have been enormous. In the Bega Valley, the indirect impacts of the fire on the economy are estimated to be nearly $60 million. In Snowy Monaro, it's more than $35 million and more than $34 million in Eurobodalla.
Businesses who are on the brink because their summer customers never arrived deserve help, even if the flames did not touch them directly.
Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud has wisely announced a review of the disaster funding arrangements.
Emergency Management Australia director-general Robert Cameron said funding should instead be linked to specific disasters, instead of particular geographic locations. This has merit.
It made sense that the government used existing delivery mechanisms to distribute aid to people in the aftermath of the disaster, given the speed at which money had to be doled out. But the experience of bushfire survivors shows our systems are not built for the scale of disasters we are seeing. A national crisis demands a national response.
And with the frequency and intensity of these disasters expected to increase due to climate change, the sooner we can set this new framework up, the better.
