Financial Counselling Victoria’s submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the 2026 summer fires is informed by substantial frontline feedback and expertise from financial counsellors working directly with affected communities across Victoria. The submission draws on the lived experience of financial counsellors supporting individuals, families, small businesses and primary producers through Community Recovery Hubs, rural outreach and disaster recovery services.

Financial counsellors have played a critical role in disaster response, assisting affected community members with insurance claims, grant applications, debt negotiations, access to temporary accommodation and navigation of complex and fragmented recovery systems. This submission reflects what financial counsellors are consistently seeing and hearing: prolonged power, water and telecommunications failures, digital exclusion, inconsistent and opaque eligibility decisions, barriers for underinsured households, and recovery pathways that place administrative processes ahead of timely, human‑centred support.

Based on this extensive frontline insight, FCVic’s submission calls for stronger infrastructure resilience, transparent decision‑making, genuinely accessible ‘no wrong door’ service delivery, and the embedding of trauma‑informed practice in recovery system design. It emphasises that effective recovery depends not only on funding, but on systems that reflect the real financial and emotional realities faced by disaster‑affected communities.