A month into his new role as Resilience NSW Commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons has hit back at claims money isn’t flowing into disaster-affected communities.

The newly appointed Commissioner told Mark Levy adjusting to his role has been ‘very difficult’.

“The scale and magnitude of work is enormous.

“It’s not just the bushfires … a lot of these areas have also been on their knees with drought.

“Some areas then had to deal with storms and floods, and everybody’s now affected by the implications of the COVID pandemic.”

Mr Fitzsimmons addressed the growing frustrations of communities who aren’t receiving government funding and charity donations, urging anyone who feels they’re missing out to contact the Service NSW hotline on 13 77 88.

“There’s a lot of money going out, delivering lots of results on the ground.

“Over 15,000 properties have been cleaned up at no cost to the owners, … $176 million’s gone out to small businesses in $10,000 grants, another $80 million’s already gone out to primary producers.

“If the money’s not getting to them, I’ll be first to be raising the issue, I assure you.”

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview