Opposition leader Peter Dutton has continued his unofficial election campaign in Victoria’s fire ravaged Grampians region. He spoke with business owners in the tourist town of halls gap, which reopened for visitors a week ago after fire forced it to close during what's usually its busiest season.
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00:00Businesses in this small town have reopened now the bushfire threat has passed, but their
00:06challenges are far from over.
00:09Even though it's safe now, visitors have been slow to return and many tourism operators
00:14are struggling.
00:15Today, they met with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
00:18I've got to say the meetings that we've had this morning have been pretty confronting
00:22and all Australians watched their television screens in horror when they saw these bushfires
00:28raging just across here and when you think of the impact on lives, on livestock, on businesses,
00:38it's been devastating.
00:39He's joined the chorus of locals calling on tourists to return to this region.
00:43The entire town was forced to evacuate when the Grampians fire tore through.
00:48Firefighters saved the town, but the blaze destroyed four homes, triggered mass evacuations
00:53and burned through an area bigger than Singapore.
00:56Every business in Halls Gap was forced to close during what's usually peak season.
01:01Some have lost a third of their annual earnings.
01:03The Victorian and Commonwealth governments are offering support via emergency relief
01:07payments and income support for workers and sole traders, but many business owners aren't
01:12eligible and there are concerns some operators will be forced to close.
01:17Peter Dutton today called on the Victorian State Government to pull the trigger to offer
01:21more support to businesses.
01:23State governments have to do the assessments and provide that advice to the federal government.
01:28That's the way that the emergency management arrangements work and I think there is a lot
01:32of frustration understandably here on the ground from the people that we've spoken to
01:36that that decision hasn't yet been made by the state government.
01:39It's understood that assessment phase and consultation with businesses is ongoing.
01:45A Victorian State spokesperson told the ABC it will continue supporting impacted communities.
01:51Officials here say one silver lining has been the support from each other.
01:55They're rallying around businesses that have been impacted, but they say they need other
02:00people, tourists and visitors to come and help as well.