NSW Labor ministers visit Northern Rivers, fail to commit to more disaster recovery funds

The state’s emergency services and planning ministers failed to clarify when a second tranche of Northern Rivers recovery funds will be delivered and how much when visiting on Tuesday.

Emergency Services Minister Jihad Dib and Planning Minister Paul Scully opted to continue their briefly abandoned media conference in Lismore MP Janelle Saffin’s office when it was interrupted by rowdy protestors.

The small but noisy group of activists lived up to Lismore’s reputation for colourful and eccentric style, dressed in theatrical costumes and masks, carrying placards and blasting AC/DC’s Highway to Hell on a boom box.

Tensions soon broke into heated spats between some activists and others attending the media conference. Some of the peaceful protestors felt that their voice was being drowned out by the raucous protestors who they felt did not fully represent the flood-affected community.

‘How high did the flood water come in your house?’ one person** was heard demanding of another as politicians and reporters scurried away from the Memorial Baths in Lismore where the conference had been set up outside.

Protestors followed the pack to Ms Saffin’s office before continuing to yell and play sirens outside during the media conference, at one point banging on the building repeatedly.

Three police vehicles and around six officers were on standby outside the building after the conference.

Government blame game over Northern Rivers recovery funds

Labor NSW Premier Chris Minns promised the ministerial visit earlier this month after thousands of disaster survivors received official letters without warning advising their applicatons for recovery funding had failed.

Mr Minns also promised to visit the region himself at a later date.

The former coalition state government announced round one of funds under a Resilient Homes and Lands Program.

Labor Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin has maintained ever since that the $800 million package was merely a ‘down payment’ for a larger recovery funding pool to be delivered via at least one more tranche.

But her government colleagues have accused their predecessors of misleading the public over available funds, saying no money was allocated.

Ballina MP calls for gov’t to ‘cut loose’ survivors in limbo

Greens Member for Ballina Tamara Smith says the government needs to ‘cut loose’ people’s hopes and expectations by revealing there isn’t enough funding for the 6,000 homes originally quoted in the program announcement.

The broader Northern Rivers community is still reeling from the shock of learning recently only 1,100 homes are expected to be eligible for buybacks, and fewer than 400 have been approved for retro-fitting.

Ms Smith says nobody in the Ballina electorate should expect to receive any funding, aside from the few who have already, including a couple of buybacks in South Golden Beach.

She says the process of assessments and allocations has been a ‘bureaucratic bungle’ and there isn’t enough money in state coffers for the scheme to continue in its promised form.

The Greens member says she is pushing the federal government to contribute more and has suggested the state government start means-testing grants applicants.

Ministers refuse to commit to more funding

Speaking in Ms Saffin’s office, neither Mr Dib nor Mr Scully would commit to anything on the matter of future funds other than more advice.

ABC North Coast reporter Bronwyn Herbert tried repeatedly to get a number or date from the ministers on round two, a possible third tranche, or on the whole package.

The closest she came to a clue was when Mr Scully said ‘$800 million’ when asked how much money there was in funding for the package.

Mr Scully made no attempt to clarify this money only represented round one, effectively echoing the government’s earlier statements.

The minister also failed to say how much money the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation cost to set up when asked.

Emergency services minister promises to work with community

Meanwhile, Mr Dib said in his introductory statement he understood the local desire for a community-led recovery focus.

The emergency services minister said he and the planning minister were sent to the Northern Rivers to find out what the community needs, ‘what’s the feel at the moment, what’s working and what isn’t’.

‘We’re not here saying that everything’s perfect, it isn’t,’ Mr Dib said, ‘but we do want to make it better, and we know that we need to make it better, and we need to make it better because this can’t be an issue that can be resolved by government alone’.

‘It can’t be an issue that is resolved by community, it needs to be resolved with all of us working together,’ he said.

‘I think the feedback that’s really clear to us is that communication has been problematic, that it’s been really difficult to access support, that there have been some elements of confusion,’ Mr Dib said.

‘I think also the community up and down the whole coast is tired, and they want to move on. They want a little bit of clarity, and they want to know where they stand.’

Evicted pod villagers living on the streets

The Echo asked about two emergency pod village tenants reportedly evicted and living on the streets in Ballina, with Ms Smith’s office saying staff were trying to help the disaster survivors.

Ms Smith says the two aren’t the only ones to have been evicted from pod villages across the Northern Rivers.

The Ballina MP says the villages feature cramped conditions, inhospitable fluro lighting and constant security guard patrols, with the environments compounding pre-existing mental health conditions for some.

Pod village tenants don’t have the same rights as residential rental tenants in New South Wales and Ms Smith says community housing providers in charge use a code of conduct instead, with a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ clause.

Mr Dib said he would be meeting with pod village operators today.

‘Obviously, we’re working with the operators of those pod villages,’ Mr Dib said, ‘we want people, as much as possible, comfortable, and to be feeling safe and we’ll continue our discussions tomorrow’.

Dib questions justification of NRRC grants assessments

The emergency services minister said he would also look into the case of two South Lismore women who told the Lismore City News this week they lived side by side and suffered the same torrential flood waters but only one was offered a buyback.

The other was told she was ineligible for either of the three streams under the Resilient Homes program but the person informing her couldn’t provide a reason.

‘This is not the first time I’ve heard a story similar today, if not that one in particular, but they are the challenges that are facing us,’ Mr Dib said.

‘Obviously, how do you justify something like that?’ Mr Dib asked, ‘we need to know as well, how a decision like that has been made’.

When asked about survivors receiving conflicting assessments on the same applications for the same properties, Mr Dib referred to being new on the job.

‘We’ve been in office and in government for a little over 100 days, right?’ the minister said, ‘there’s been two years, or nearly two years, of things that have happened prior to us being place’.

‘We’ve now got to take the information we’ve got, we’ve got to take what we’ve inherited, we’ve got to work with that and our aim is to make it better,’ Mr Dib said.

‘We will come up with a better program into the future, you’ve just got to give us a little bit of time to be able to work through what that is.’

Housing minister to visit Northern Rivers

The Echo asked when his government will create social housing in the Ballina and Lismore electorates, but Mr Dib said he would have to refer the matter to Housing and Homelessness Minister Rose Jackson.

‘The issue around social and affordable housing is one that’s affecting the whole state,’ Mr Dib said, ‘obviously it’s quite profound where so many people have been made homeless due to the circumstances of natural disaster’.

‘We also know that there was an announcement, you know, $600 million, towards affordable and social housing that the federal government has committed to NSW and I can comfortably say that Minister Jackson talks about wanting to prioritise parts of the Northern Rivers.’

Mr Dib said Ms Jackson would be ‘up in a couple of weeks’.

Public encouraged to share feedback on controversial NRRC Draft Resilient Lands Strategy

The Echo asked planning minister Paul Scully about the lack of community consultation on the NRRC’s Resilient Lands Strategy.

The strategy identifies 22 lots to be considered for fast-tracked housing development approval, with 15 listed for immediate action.

There are three lots listed in the Byron Shire, one of them particularly controversial being on land near Saddle Road at the Brunswick Heads highway turnoff.

Land in the same area has previously failed to be approved for an eco village project.

Reclaiming Our Recovery group members representing disaster survivors in Lismore told Bay FM’s Community Newsroom* last week they were concerned the sites were to be targeted at outside investors and homebuyers rather than those needing to get out of the flood plain.

Ballina MP Tamara Smith says the process has lacked community engagement and transparency and that a few private landholders look likely to gain a financial windfall post-disaster as a result of the proposed change.

‘Our priority, our baseline priority, is making sure that we are doing all that we can as a government in conjunction with community to support the victims of the flooding,’ Mr Dib said.

‘That doesn’t change no matter what the program is, no matter what the funding stream is, that doesn’t change, that remains our priority,’ he said.

‘In terms of the resilient lands, the 15 sites that have been selected are out for community consultation at the moment, I would encourage people, if they have views about that, to make those views known through that process.’

Planning minister refers to ‘technical issues’ regulating holiday letting in Byron

The Echo also asked the planning minister when the Byron Shire could expect to find out his decision on a proposed holiday letting cap.

Mr Scully rejected earlier advice from Byron Shire Mayor Michael Lyon that no changes would happen until June next year.

‘A couple of weeks ago, we received some initial advice from Byron Shire about what might be able to be done, we’re looking at that at the moment,’ Mr Scully said.

The minister said the recommendation from the Independent Planning Commission for a shire-wide 60-day annual cap on unhosted holiday letting could ‘run into some issues with respect of having to do large rezoning of areas that already exists’.

Mr Scully said his department also had to contemplate ‘existing use remits on properties’.

The IPC in hearings earlier this year quizzed the Byron mayor on why the council wasn’t prosecuting property owners breaching development consent conditions related to affordable housing in second dwellings being replaced with holiday letting.

The council has since announced it is investigating breaches and pursuing legal action where necessary.

‘We’re working through some of those technical issues at the moment,’ Mr Scully said, ‘the bottom line is though, in all of these areas, whether it be as a result, or contributed to by short term rental, by flood, or by anything else, we have some acute housing pressures in the Northern Rivers that we have to deal with, as a collective, as a government in conjunction with the communities’.

* Mia Armitage is also Bay FM’s Community Newsroom EP and attended the media conference on behalf of both Bay FM and Echo Publications

** this article said ‘angry participant’ when originally published but has been changed as of 11.17pm 13.07.23 to ‘person’ to avoid unintended suggestion. The person asking was part of the media conference.