Community & Business
16 April, 2026
Tenterfield seeks bushfire funding enquiry
Bushfire funding enquiry
It is now official: there will be no Level C/D funding for victims of the 2023 bushfires in Tenterfield. But there may be an inquiry. MP Janelle Saffin confirmed to the Town & Country Journal last week that the NSW State government has been formally advised by Federal Minister for Emergency Management Kristy McBain that funding will be withheld because there is “no longer an emergency”.
Local bushfire victim, Stuart Bell, is stunned that the government has used it’s own endless delays to green-light the funding as an excuse not to approve the grants. The bitter truth that neighbours just over the Queensland border received Level C/D grants within months of the 2023 bushfires raises serious questions of transparency and process.
“I am going to be asking for a full inquiry into this,” Mr Bell told the Town & Country Journal. Stuart has begun the preliminary process of forming a committee that will seek a state and federal inquiry into the disparity of funding across the border.
Furthermore, Stuart is going to insist that an officer be put in place, perhaps as part of the Border Region Organisation of Councils, to make sure that in the future Tenterfield and other impoverished regional local governments are made aware of what their rights are.
“Because no one really knew until it all started to come out, which the federal government have now used as an excuse. We didn’t know, initially, what we had the right to apply for, what should have happened. We weren’t asking the right questions quickly enough, obviously.”
Ms Saffin said she would discuss options with Mayor Bronwyn Petrie.
Minister McBain tried to soften the blow by saying that she, too, comes from “a community that has been heavily impacted by bushfires.”
“I understand the challenges communities face in recovering from natural disasters.”
While she was “unable to support a later request for extraordinary support under the DRFA” she says the federal government remains “committed to supporting communities like Tenterfield in the aftermath of natural disasters.”
Stuart Bell is making a list of victims, members of peak bodies, local politicians, and other influential identities to come on board and push for an inquiry.
“This process should be opened to the light,” he says, adding that local Tim Carpenter spent years “contacting the right people” with an end result that looks, frankly, un-Australian.
“We shouldn’t be getting excuses. I think there should be a full, clear investigation into what happened.”
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