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The government is directing a further $650 million to help towns and regions hit by bushfires get back on their feet.
As part of the Regional Bushfire Recovery and Development Program, bushfire affected communities will share in $448.5 million from the federal government to support the delivery of local recovery plans, with priority given to the most severely impacted regions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the National Bushfire Recovery Agency (NBRA) would lead work to drive a strong economic recovery so the more than 18,600 families and businesses in bushfire-affected areas could get back on their feet.
“The same communities that were hurting most from the bushfires are hurting from the impacts of COVID-19. The impacts have been devastating,” the Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday.
“This funding injection comes as the damage from the bushfires has made itself clear in the weeks and months after they passed and regions have been finalising the sorts of projects they want to get underway to build back better.”
The latest support will back local projects and recovery plans, including those that build community capability and wellbeing through workshops and events, projects that focus on the landscape and water, replacing produce and stock, supporting local jobs and building future resilience.
This assistance is part of the government’s $2 billion pledge to help bushfire affected communities back in January, of which half a billion dollars of grants and loans has already flowed to families and businesses, as well as $214.9 million in disaster recovery payments and $240 million in Community Recovery Packages.
The remainder of the $650 million, the PM announced, will be divided between forestry transport assistance, community wellbeing, wildlife and habitats regeneration, and telecommunications emergency resilience.