After repeated assurances to the community since the devastating 2022 floods of government support for those impacted by the floods, NSW Reconstruction Authority CEO, Simon Draper yesterday said the government had not committed to 2,000 house buybacks, 2,000 house raisings, and 2,000 retrofits.
At the media briefing on the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation’s (NRRC) Resilient Homes Program yesterday (28 June, 2023) Draper claimed he had looked at the commitments made by the government at the time and it was 2,000 buybacks, house raisings, and retrofits combined.
‘My reading of the media statements that were released by the governments at that time, was pretty clear. So there were 2,000 homes across all of those remedies, home buybacks, raisings, and retrofits,’ said Mr Draper.
Contradicts NRRC
This is in direct contradiction to statements given by leader of the NRRC David Witherdin at his first meeting with the community on 4 November 2022. At the meeting Mr Witherdin told gathered community that they were ‘predicting that there will be around 2,000 offers to buy properties in the highest risk areas, approximately 2,000 offers to raise houses and another 2,000 offers for retrofitting.
‘“The program of works will touch about 6,000 homeowners,” Mr Witherdin told the meeting.‘
This commitment has also been confirmed by the ABC in Bruce MacKenzie’s article on yesterday’s briefing where he clarifies that:
‘At the time the program was announced in October, the ABC sought clarification from the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation, the body created to oversee the initial stages of the region’s recovery.
‘This statement was attributed to an NRRC spokesperson. “Approximately 6,000 Northern Rivers homeowners are eligible to receive assistance from the Resilient Homes Program, which will offer home retro-fitting, home raising and home buybacks. Of the 6,000 eligible homeowners, approximately 2,000 homeowners will be eligible for a home buyback. The others will either be eligible for retro-fitting or home raising”.’
Draper claims money never promised
Questioned on the rewriting of the government’s commitment Mr Draper said, ‘If you’re going to buy back 2,000 homes, you would need about $1.3 billion. That figure was never announced by the government.’
In fact the government announced a figure of $1.5B at the time. This was recently pointed out by the seven mayors and three MPS across the Northern Rivers when they wrote to the NSW Premier, Chris Minns, calling for the second tranche of funding that was promised by the previous coalition government, and supported by Labor, to be put on the table.
‘We the elected representatives of the Northern Rivers are writing to you to ask you to deliver on tranche two of the Resilient Homes program (RHP) as soon as possible,’ they said in their letter.
‘Our communities need to know that the funding they believed would come is definitely coming and that the RHP as promised will be completed.
‘The RHP was initially given funding of $750 million, but when officially drawn up and presented to Cabinet the figure stood at $1.5 billion. A decision was made by cabinet to fund the first tranche and any commitment to the second tranche would follow.’
Lismore Labor MP Janelle Saffin has confirmed with The Echo that the community was told that there would be a combined 6,000 houses that would benefit from the RHP.
‘It has been incredibly hard getting consistent information out of the NRRC and the latest media briefing appears to continue this trend,’ she said.
‘The problem of NSW not having disaster readiness like our Qld counterparts and accompanying machinery of government is that all of these programs have been – and are being – designed on the run. When disaster hit we quickly realised there was little in place to rescue, recover or rebuild. That is what is trying to be sorted out now, after years of nothingness.
‘Disaster planning has to be for “what if”, not “what was” and we did not have even “what was” readiness when we were smashed on February 28th and March 20th 2022.
‘It is a fact that our communities were directly led to believe by the NRRC that there would be 2,000 buybacks, 2,000 house raisings and 2,000 retrofits.
‘We were also told that tranche 2 funding would come if needed to complete the Resilient Homes Fund (RHF).’
Ballina MP Tamara Smith (Greens) also confirmed with The Echo she had been told that there would be 2,000 buybacks.
‘Sadly, the goal posts have been moved several times. I was told that there would be 2,000 buybacks with Tranche 1 and that most of the house raising and wet proofing would come out of a Tranche 2 – certainly for the Ballina electorate based on the NRRC’s data metrics. I genuinely think that we will discover that a lot of money was wasted on consultants and that the shortfall for Tranche 1 is a result of costs blow outs, money wasted and mismanagement.’
Not my responsibility
When Mr Draper was questioned on the second $750M tranche of funding that would have provided the funds for their original commitment of 6,000 houses to be assisted he said, ‘I think that’s a matter of government consideration.’
‘I don’t believe that governments have formed a view about that at this stage. We can certainly provide important advice to the government if asked, but at this stage, it’s a matter of government consideration.’
You’re not eligible
The Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) will be transitioned from the Department of Regional NSW into the NSW Reconstruction Authority from 1 July 2023.
This is consistent with Recommendation 15 of the independent 2022 NSW Flood Inquiry,’ said an NRRC spokesperson.
Mr Draper said people who had applied for support through the RHP would continue to receive calls in the near future.
‘The NRRC is working hard to speak with all households that have applied,’ said an NRRC spokesperson.
‘We increased the number of staff working as part of the call centre, communications and case management team. The call centre has also gone from a business hours service to a 24-hours service.’
Following a story at the briefing of an older gentleman who had tried to drive his car off a bridge following the news he was not eligible for assistance from the NRRC, Mr Draper told the briefing that, ‘We do have other recovery support services. They don’t have all the answers but they can provide help for people through these processes. And we’re very, very keen to make sure that people put in contact and proactively seek out people who are experiencing that level of distress.’
However, locals who have recently received calls (often more than one to tell them they will be getting no help) have told The Echo that the only offer of support provided by the callers was that they would be receiving a follow-up email.
‘The caller was acutely embarrassed when I pointed out that I had already been so informed, but I feel it is ironic that my very last contact (to date) with the NRRC should be as a result of its consistent incompetence,’ one community member told The Echo.
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