Friends Mark Warren and Nathan Addis have set up a Facebook page calling for New Zealanders to show the Anzac spirit and offer a place to stay for those affected by the Australian bushfires.
A Givealittle page has also been set up.
Places have been offered from across the country and they're going to work Australian agencies to arrange the accommodation.
Photo: AFP
Mark Warren says the response from New Zealand farmers has been overwhelming.
“I had a mate from Australia over recently, he's from Gunadah, and I gave him a bit of a green-grass holiday because I know he was down in the dumps, obviously, after four years with no rain.
"And then I saw the devastating results of bushfires and saw a picture of some guy who’s got to shoot his stock, that's the worst thing, asking to shoot your family I think, it's just devastating.”
So Mark called out for help on Facebook.
“Everyone was sympathising, but no, we've got to get stuck in and do something. So, I put something on Facebook and said, right, we've got to do something, this is what I propose. my house has got some space in it. I said mine’s available.”
His friend Nathan Addis helped build the page.
“He's got great skills in that area. Well in no time we’d built that and all of a sudden, we started getting some huge response.”
The two of them put in place a plan.
“We've put in a management plan, we put it into phases. Phase 1 was that farmers have got some space in their house, but not only just the roof over the head, farmers who in New Zealand are probably in a better space mentally, can actually sit and listen, help these guys plan their next move when they've lost everything. Just be like individual little counsellors – a cup of tea, a few beers, just have a listen and say ‘hey guys have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? There's life after this, what can we do?”
The other phase is people affected who may not necessarily be farmers.
“The chap from the local country garage who’s been out on the firefighting team for weeks and his business has probably gone as well.”
He says they will hand over the coordination of the programme to an agency with appropriate skills.
“Let the professionals handle it, it's way above my pay scale.
“We're really focused on nailing the boxing before we pour too much concrete, otherwise we're gonna have a hell of a mess on our hands and not going to be able to deliver properly.”
He says offers of accommodation have exceeded 4000.
“My phone's pinged twice since I've been talking to you. I’ve lost track, it was over 4000 when it popped up this morning.
“It's just gone viral because it's very easy for people to share the page with their friends and through their networks.”
He asks that people do no contact him directly.
“We're asking everyone please to focus their response through the Facebook email put on there, because we're going to have an agency to correlate all emails and put them in spreadsheets and put them in some sort of order.
“People are ringing us and texting personally saying ‘I can help, I've got a house’, but don’t, we're going to lose control. We've lost control after 4000 odd responses, and we're trying to keep it professional.”
Although nothing is yet finalised, Mark says Federated Farmers has offered to help.
“This is a farmer-to-farmer initiative and they will have the people to work out where it's most needed and most worthy, it's very easy for it to go to the wrong place.
“But so many people want to help in some way because of the devastation, that's possibly one efficient way that they can help.”
