Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

The Allan government spent $22.5 million on just 80 cultural burns. CFA volunteers treated six times more land last year — essentially for free.

Victorian taxpayers are funding cultural burns — a program restricted to Aboriginal Australians — at $28,000 per hectare, 93 times the cost of comparable fuel reduction work performed by Country Fire Authority volunteers.

An investigation by Peter Hunt in The Weekly Times found the Allan government spent $22.5 million over four years on just 80 cultural burns covering roughly 800 hectares.

Hunt’s analysis of departmental and bushfire management reports found the $28,000-per-hectare cost dwarfs the $300 per hectare CFA volunteers spend on comparable planned burns.

CFA’s 2024–25 Annual Report shows volunteers completed 202 planned burns treating 4,774 hectares last year — work performed largely without labour costs.

The disparity has drawn sharp criticism from the opposition and fire management advocates, who say the spending is both wasteful and symbolic.

The Numbers

Forest Fire Management Victoria, the state’s paid workforce, manages burns at approximately $1,500 per hectare — a figure that covers all administrative, planning and on-ground costs.

Even that figure is nearly 19 times cheaper than what the government is paying Aboriginal groups through its cultural burns program.

The $22.5 million commitment was made in the 2021–22 state budget. Then-environment minister Lily D’Ambrosio said at the time the funding was about “empowering traditional owners to deliver cultural burning.”

The Allan government has since committed to 211 further cultural burns, with no timeline attached.

One senior Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action officer defended the costs, saying the grants were helping traditional owners re-learn “how to use fire in the landscape” and navigate bureaucratic and legal hurdles.

The officer acknowledged the burns are not always for fuel reduction: “They may use burns for simply putting a bit of smoke through country for spiritual purposes.”

‘Just Symbolic’

Howitt Society president Peter Flinn said the results to date showed cultural burning “is just symbolic and hasn’t achieved much,” given the legal and bureaucratic obstacles facing traditional owner groups in a densely populated state.

Opposition public land management spokeswoman Melina Bath said the costs were plainly unjustifiable. “Clearly, cultural burns should not cost anywhere near that level,” she said.

Bath questioned whether government bureaucracy was actively constraining what the burns could achieve: “It begs the question: What level of interference by the department is taking place to constrain and inhibit cultural fire practices?”

Environment Minister Steve Dimopoulos declined to address the cost question directly. His office issued a statement saying the government was “supporting Victorian traditional owners to implement the Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Strategy while strengthening cultural fire capability,” and that grants fund “planning, training, organisational capability and delivery.”

Volunteers Carry the Load

The CFA’s 2024–25 Annual Report documents the scale of volunteer-driven fire management. More than 51,000 unpaid members completed 202 planned burns last year, treating 4,774 hectares — exceeding the annual target. Volunteers contributed 438,875 hours to incident response across 41,925 incidents statewide.

None of that labour appears on the government’s expenditure ledger.

This is the context in which the Allan government is directing taxpayer funds toward identity-based programs at boutique prices.

As The Daily Declaration has reported on Victoria’s spending priorities, the state’s debt trajectory has long outpaced its service delivery.

Victoria’s gross debt is forecast to reach 213 per cent of operating revenue by 2027 — among the worst of any comparable jurisdiction in the world, according to S&P Global. The state’s interest bill is projected to climb to $10.5 billion by 2029.

The pattern extends beyond fire management. Premier Jacinta Allan has made identity-based programs a signature of her government, from pride marches to race-based grants — while volunteer Victorians continue to do the hard work of protecting their communities for free.

___

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.