Federal Greens candidate Mandy Nolan is keeping up the pressure on both NSW and federal Labor over their response to the 2022 flood recovery, with a joint protest held on Tuesday outside the Tweed offices of sitting Labor MP, Justine Elliot, and the office of Lismore Labor MP, Janelle Saffin.
Nolan says community groups across the Northern Rivers have signed an open letter to the Labor prime minister and Labor NSW Premier, ‘calling on them to ‘jointly provide funding to cover the $700m shortfall for the Resilient Homes Program before the end of 2023 and communicate clear and appropriate timelines for the delivery of 4,000 retrofits and house-raises and 2,000 buybacks for homes affected by the 2022 flood event’.
She says the letter was signed by 38 local organisations, including residents’ associations, Rotary Clubs, CWAs and flood-advocacy institutions.
Noelle Maxwell, a flood-affected Mullumbimby resident, said, ‘The floods were deeply traumatic for me and so many people’.
She added, ‘But being kept in limbo for nearly two years with no idea if you’ll ever receive the support you need to return home has needlessly compounded that trauma’.
The Echo asked Mrs Elliot, ‘Are you satisfied with the flood recovery effort outcome so far, and the process around the Resilient Homes Program? What have you, as the local federal MP, done to expedite what looks like a stalled process which lacks transparency?’, and, ‘Has the NSW government sought federal funding assistance yet, and if so, is there a time frame available to give those seeking flood assistance confidence in government?’
She replied in part, ‘In a desperate attempt to divert attention from the Greens’ recent destructive actions in the federal parliament, Greens Party candidate Mandy Nolan is now shamelessly using flood victims to try and pretend that the Greens actually care about housing’.
‘Protesting outside Janelle Saffin and my offices, while at the same time continuing to block housing help, is just another cheap political stunt by the Greens’.
She said the Greens political party ‘don’t support housing’ as they ‘again teamed up with Peter Dutton and the Liberals and Nationals’, to block Labor’s latest plan to help renters buy a home.
Help to Buy Scheme
‘Labor’s “Help to Buy Scheme” will change the lives of tens of thousands of Australians. It’s a path to home ownership for people who have been unable to buy their own home’.
But Mandy Nolan’s spokesperson told The Echo Labor’s Help to Buy Scheme would ‘only help 0.2 per cent of those seeking to buy a home’.
‘And even then, the Productivity Commission says such a scheme would just raise house prices, and give even more advantages to developers, as there so few houses available’.
Mrs Elliot also referred to the Greens ‘blocking’ a social and affordable housing bill earlier this year – the Housing Australia Future Fund.
While negotiations led to more money on the table, Mrs Elliot said in that in those six months, ‘we could have built 6,000 houses in the time’.
‘In relation to additional recovery support, I’m advised that the federal government hasn’t received a formal request from the NSW state government. We stand ready to assist and work with them’.
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