The Australian Government has provided funding to local community projects in the Hinkler electorate under the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants program.

Federal Member for Hinkler Keith Pitt said upgrades to the nbn network across Bundaberg and the Fraser Coast are among the 524 projects funded under the program.

Mr Pitt said the overall program funding was boosted to $390 million to further support communities around Australia to recover from the 2019-20 bushfires.

“The grants will fund a broad range of recovery and resilience projects, from social and community wellbeing right through to projects that support local jobs, small businesses and infrastructure.

“Both Fraser Coast and Bundaberg Regional Council’s will supply and install nbn Hybrid Power Cubes to increase the resilience of the telecommunications network to keep communities and businesses connected during natural disasters.

“Anyone that has been through a natural disaster knows how important it is to be able to communicate with loved ones and its an important resource for emergency responders.

“The cubes will be deployed across the nbn fixed wireless network in areas in both local government areas either impacted or at risk of being impacting by bushfire events.”

Local projects funded in the Hinkler electorate include:

• Fraser Coast Regional Council $805,202 – nbn Bushfire Resilience Hybrid Power Cube Project
• Bundaberg Regional Council $1,342,000 – nbn Bushfire Resilience Hybrid Power Cube Project
• Bundaberg Regional Council $1,600,000 – Bundaberg Community Hub
• Burnett Mary Regional Group $3,201,862 – Bushfire remediation and resilience in the Burnett Mary

The Australian Red Cross and the Alternative Technology Association have received funding for bushfire recovery projects which will be run across multiple local government areas, including Bundaberg and Fraser Coast and Billion Bees Ltd has received funding with the Fraser Coast listed as a project area.

Details of the funded projects are available on the National Recovery and Resilience Agency website at: https://recovery.gov.au/programs/black-summer-grants