After the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, approximately $400 million was raised through the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal. Some 'left over funds' were distributed to various communities to help with the recovery process.

The Into Our Hands Community Foundation was established in 2012 with clear rules about how $1 million was to be spent. This included grants to projects in the area directly impacted by fires, maximum grant $10,000, foundation to run for 10 years.

However, changes were made to these rules after $526,000 was distributed. CFA and other worthy organisations benefited from these initial funds.

But questions must be raised about funding going towards some other causes, such as ACRE getting $10,000 in 2014 for regional social enterprise education pilot and a further $48,922 strategic grant to commence planning for the development, including a master plan for the Old Beechworth Gaol, which is privately owned. This grant doesn't appear in any of the online annual grant recipients lists, it is only in the Foundation's newsletter in June 2018.

Another recipient includes the Wangaratta Art Gallery - Redevelopment Feasibility Study for a grant of $25,000. This Gallery is owned by the Rural City of Wangaratta.

After the most recent fires the Foundation is after more funds and has set up new accounts to achieve this. What about the money left from the Black Saturday Bushfire funds? Surely this should have been set aside and made available straight away for recovery purposes?

As a long-term CFA volunteer and someone who has been involved in many bushfires, I consider this to be greed by some in our community post bushfires and I think it is a disgrace.

An inquiry should be held on where funds are distributed and to whom and any perceived conflicts of interest. The public has every right to know where these funds go.

There have been some comments about Albury rates being spent in Wodonga and the uneven funding of the Albury Base hospital between NSW and Victoria so let me try to add some clarification.

It is abundantly clear that there is a gross imbalance between the NSW and Victorian governments' funding of the hospital and Albury City and Wodonga have been lobbying both governments to provide better balanced funding along the lines of the percentage of users who come from each state. We cannot continue to bicker about this. We cannot afford to have two separate facilities with emergency departments, obstetrics, cancer treatments and all the other services our community needs.

And on a smaller scale the cricket centre is another example of "we can't afford to have two centres of excellence". We need one properly funded by those who use it. In the case of the cricket centre 60 per cent of the users are from Albury so it is only fair that we should contribute. Let's not give up on the Two Cities One Community initiative when it's only just getting off the ground.