More misleading statements from NRRC

Last week, the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) was subsumed into the NSW Reconstruction Authority, which is ‘dedicated to disaster prevention, preparedness, recovery, and reconstruction’. 

It follows the dissolution of the similarly inept Resilience NSW in November last year, after the 2022 NSW Flood Inquiry found it was ineffective.

Both the outgoing NRRC and Reconstruction Authority report to NSW Planning Minister, Paul Scully and Minister for Emergency Services, Jihad Dib MP, thus avoiding parliamentary and public scrutiny. 

Further to the unfolding NRRC debacle, NSW Reconstruction Authority CEO, Simon Draper, last week contradicted statements by NRRC CEO, David Witherdin, around what was initially promised. 

At his first meeting with the community on November 4, 2022, Witherdin said 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’.

Questioned on the rewriting of the government’s commitment, Mr Draper told a media briefing on June 27, ‘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 NSW Premier, Chris Minns, calling for the second tranche of funding that was promised by the previous coalition government, and supported by Labor at the time.

As previously reported, Minns did not appear across the details when asked by Sydney journalists, and said he wanted the first tranche of funding ($700M) to be spent first, despite that not being enough to fund the entire project.

Meanwhile, the NRRC have avoided naming the members of a newly formed appeals panel, who will adjudicate disputes with home owners rejected from the NRRC’s Resilient Homes Program.

Anon appeals panel

When asked ‘who is on the panel, and what are they paid?’, a spokesperson told The Echo the panel is independent, and ‘a mixture of senior executives from the NSW government, who are not connected to NRRC or the Resilient Homes Program.’ Some members will be ‘compensated’, the NRRC said, but they did not say how much.

The Echo is still seeking answers from MP Paul Scully, who is one minister responsible for NRRC. The Echo has asked whether Scully believes the NRRC ‘has acted in good faith with the North Coast community’.