‘We never envisaged it would take this long’: families exasperated by bushfire rebuild red tape

Farmer Brooke McKimmie had hoped to be in his new Towong family home by now.

But almost two years on after deadly bushfires razed his north-east Victorian property, it is still being built.

“We never envisaged it was going to take this long,” he said.

Mr McKimmie, a farmer who is renting a home in Corryong and driving to his property each day, has been caught in an almost perfect storm of the pandemic, materials and skills shortages, and red tape barriers.

It is these hurdles, he said, that are wearing down many locals battling through the long recovery process.

Delays and shortages

Mr McKimmie said the delays began with the clean-up, as local families watched in frustration as recovery teams often prioritised outbuildings before homes.

Then the red tape hurdles emerged.

The Towong Shire Council relies on the neighbouring Indigo Shire Council to help process building and environmental health permits, and received separate funding through Bushfire Recovery Victoria for a planning officer and environmental health officer to help residents who lost homes in the 2019/2020 bushfires.

But Mr McKimmie said there were still delays.

“Even at the planning stage with local council, we had to wait several months just to get the planning permit on a place that already had a house on it before the fire came through,” he said.

The pandemic then hit, materials became difficult to source, and skilled tradespeople in the rural region were hard to find.

The McKimmies finally found a bricklayer from Wagga Wagga, in southern New South Wales, until the pandemic forced border closures.

Frustrations began to simmer as recovering families, like the McKimmies, were left to feel they had to compete in an industry already under pressure with the huge uptake of the popular HomeBuilder scheme.

As of June 30, the State Revenue Office Victoria had received 39,336 HomeBuilder applications.

Victoria recorded the most applications of any state or territory in Australia.

“I guess we are pretty angry,” Mr McKimmie said.

“Putting in this COVID stimulus right after the fires where poor people who had lost their homes had no priority and suddenly, we are getting put into a queue.”

‘We should really be in this house’

Behind the McKimmie’s property, over the imposing 990 metre summit of Mount Mittamatite, Alice and Greg Albert have divided their lives and belongings between a shearing shed and two small transportable homes on their Cudgewa property.

Rebuilding after fire destroyed their home was not a hard decision.

“There’s no way we were leaving, going anywhere,” Mrs Albert said.

“Too much out here to leave.”

Red tape also bogged them down; it took almost three months for their permits to be processed.

“We should really be in this house; we are three months behind due to permits not being allotted,” Ms Albert said

They faced pressure in the rural region to secure a plumber and felt like they were put in line behind people who were building new homes.

She wants to see more support and prioritisation for people recovering from disaster.

Industry hammered with pressure

The building sector has acknowledged the slow recovery in the Upper Murray.

MasterBuilders Victoria chief executive officer Rebecca Casson visited north-east Victorian operators facing a registered builder shortage, a skilled migration freeze, materials and skills deficits, and surging prices.

She said builders are exhausted.

“There are some problems in relation to building and construction post the bushfire that have been really compromising in relation to the pandemic situation, and there are actually a very limited amount of registered builders up in that Upper Murray area, and electricians too, which can cause issues and delays.”

The squeeze is being felt across the globe.

Timber shortages and supply issues are also being investigated by Anna Cronin, in her dual roles as Commissioner for Better Regulation and Red Tape.

Ms Casson warned the pressures on the building industry could escalate.

“What we want to minimise is insolvencies, because as prices increase, some builders are not going to be able to pass those prices onto consumers,” she said.

“No one wants for homes to be half built and then the builder to fall over.”

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