He says the Federal Government initially offered $1,000 payments to fire victims the day after Black Saturday.
Mr McNamara says there were about 2,000 homes destroyed in the fires, but figures now show 67,000 payments were claimed.
"When you expect to pay out about $2 million and you pay out $67 million, I guess you could call it a rorting of the system," he said.
"I suppose a lot of people applied for that and they weren't asking for any identification because a lot of people were coming up and saying I've lost all my identification, my driver's licence has gone, my rates notice has been burnt.
"Rorting" is a new word for me. It's not in my hard-copy dictionary (and I didn't even bother with the OED); the online dictionaries say a "rort" (rawrt) is a modern term referring to a wild party or a dishonest scheme, with the verb form meaning to falsify something.
The suggested etymology is a back-formation from "rowdy," but the pronunciation offered makes me wonder if it could have arisen from "riot." I presume it is another one of that multitude of words added to our language by you Aussies sitting around the barbie creating neologisms. :.)
