What bushfire-devastated areas need the most is for their recovery to be coordinated by their community, Shadow Minister for Recovery and Rebuilding Yasmin Catley said.
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She visited the Bega Valley this week and said from what she had seen the recovery progress in the region was at a similar level to other bushfire-hit areas in the state.
"It's slow, people's mental health is deteriorating," the Deputy NSW Labor leader said.
"I think it's possibly going to get worse because it's getting longer."
But she said there was one community in northern NSW called Nymboida that had set up a community-based emergency recovery, which had installed a "sense of hope".
"The number one thing on the South Coast is that the recovery process needs to be from the ground up, not from the top down," she said.
"I'm not criticising the recovery coordinators. But their catchment areas are too big.
"It's not running the way it should. These communities need someone coordinating on the ground."
She said in order to make the recovery process easier for residents the widespread adoption of innovative ideas needed to be considered.
"I think we need to start to look at innovative initiatives like Tilba Tiny Homes, providing assistance and using local suppliers," she said.
"The rebuild is going to take a very long time and we need to have somewhere for people to live."
She said the people she had spoken to in the Bega Valley felt like the preparedness for the area, when it came to last season's bushfires, was "non-existent".
"If this is now the norm, how are we going to prepare for a fire event again and what will it look like?" Ms Catley said.
She said the state and federal governments should ensure evacuation areas had disabled access into toilets, sleeping areas and change rooms, as well as separate areas for animals and people, enough food to feed everyone and that the centres had the capacity to meet the needs of the people who were evacuating.
She also took aim at the government-sponsored clean-up of fire-destroyed properties saying "the clean-up is not happening fast enough".
"One of the real take-aways for me is how emotional people are seeing that rubble in in the middle of the yard or farm that was once everything they owned," she said.
"Quick action on clean-up is a part of the healing process."
While she has travelled to the bushfire-devastated regions Ms Catley is optimistic, saying "this is an opportunity to rebuild NSW".
"Yes there's going to be a lot of people out of work, so let's give them a new opportunity," Ms Catley said.