CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Dr HAINES (Indi) (09:41): In August, I stood in this chamber and spoke about bureaucracy getting in the way of communities building back better after the January bushfires. Today I want to return to that story, because every good story deserves its ending. Across Murrindindi Shire, nine wooden bridges were damaged in the fires.

These are communities that have already weathered terrible floods in 2022, fires in January and everything that comes after such disasters—the fencing, the repairs and the slow and exhausting work of putting a life back together. All the while, their bridges sat broken. These bridges connect people to work, to farms, to schools, to essential services and to one another.

When a bridge is out, the whole community feels it. In Fawcett, a tiny place, winter flooding cut access to the temporary causeway, effectively cutting this community in two. In Acheron, people have been waiting years for a replacement for their single-lane timber bridge damaged in the 2022 floods.

The government estimated repairing the Fawcett bridge at $350,000 but, to rebuild the bridge to a standard that would better withstand future disasters, would cost $800,000, a difference of $450,000. Let's put that in perspective. The average cost of removing a single-level crossing in Melbourne is more than $100 million.

That hasn't stopped the Victorian government from removing 95 of them, yet regional communities have had to fight and fight hard to secure a fraction of that to rebuild essential infrastructure properly. That's the story I told in August. Disaster recovery should help communities rebuild for the long haul, not add yet another obstacle to an already exhausting journey.

With the community, we kept at it, working alongside the people of Fawcett and Murrindindi Shire, taking their concerns directly to the Victorian and federal governments, pushing for practical action and refusing to let the tale end there. Now, I'm pleased to say this chapter has a conclusion that's worth celebrating. Funding has been secured to build back both those bridges and build them back better.

This did not happen by accepting the status quo. It took a council led by a fabulous mayor, Damien Gallagher, that kept making the case. It took locals who refused to give up, and it took sustained advocacy to deliver action.

I'm proud to have played my part, but make no mistake that this is a community victory. It belongs to the people of the Shire of Murrindindi. I want to acknowledge the tenacity of Sam Hicks and all the locals who attended my community briefing at the Fawcett Hall, and I want to thank Minister Paul Edbrooke and Minister Kristy McBain for working with me to achieve this outcome.

There's a lesson here for governments. Funding must be practical to access, and governments must work together so councils stop having to go cap in hand, disaster after disaster. Regional communities should not have to fight this hard to get their bridges back.