Sixty people came to a community led disaster recovery forum and workshop in Ballina on Monday, organisers said, nearly two years on from the floods and landslides of 2022.
The event was co-hosted by two community groups from the Northern Rivers, Reclaim Our Recovery in Lismore and the Byron Flood Emergency Action Group (BFEAG).
The partnership is an example of a regional trend in smaller groups joining forces to share resources and advocate since the disasters.
Many of the groups have, as BFAG says of itself, ‘evolved from a support network for flood-affected residents’.
Organisers said numerous community groups, political representatives, and flood recovery bureaucrats gathered at the Ballina RSL for the forum.
The event ‘was a resolute demand for a fully funded flood recovery in the Northern Rivers region, specifically addressing the critical $700 million shortfall in the Resilient Homes Program,’ organisers said, referring to the first promises made by the NSW government in the aftermath of the floods.
Majority of Byron Shire outside highest risk area
Funding so far appears to have prioritised people in the Lismore flood plain, something Greens Member of Ballina Tamara Smith has said make sense, while calling for more transparency around criteria applied.
Organisers of Monday’s forum said only eight per cent of flood-affected homes in the Byron Shire had been deemed eligible for a buyback, retrofit or raise.
The figure was in reference to the response Ms Smith received in budget estimates last year as to how only four homes out of 977 applications in the shire were approved as of 29 September.
Applications were ‘prioritised based on the greatest risk to life in most future floods,’ was the official response.
‘The majority of the Byron Shire is outside the highest risk area,’ department officials said.
By 27 October, they said, 34 properties had been deemed eligible for buyback, 46 for raising or retrofits, with ‘floor level surveys’ happening at another 21 properties.
Organisers of Monday’s forum quoted from a Mullumbimby based participant who said the floods were ‘deeply traumatic’ yet she was ‘coming up on two years of being kept in limbo’.
“My house was flooded so badly that I have not been able to return, but I’ve been told multiple times that I’m not eligible for house raising,’ Noelle Maxwell said.
‘So even if I did fix my house it would be devastated in the next inevitable flood,’ she said.
Disaster survivors plan convoy to parliament
Attendees on Monday took part in what organisers said was a ‘popular assembly format workshop’.
Six key projects/focuses for the alliance, which organisers said was being ‘loosely’ termed the ‘Northern Rivers Flood Advocacy Network’ have been announced as arising from discussions in the popular assembly:
- Community-led recovery – determining what this looks like to participants;
- Building the regional network of the seven relevant local government areas (Lismore, Ballina, Byron, Tweed, Kyogle, Richmond Valley and Clarence Valley);
- Convoy to Sydney – get flood impacted people in front of politicians and make noise in Sydney, ‘otherwise they ignore us,’ the statement from participants read;
- Broaden the scope – geographically by collaborating with other regional areas, and in terms of issues, move beyond Northern Rivers 2022 Flood Recovery to issues like the disaster preparedness budget and a national disaster insurance scheme;
- Messaging – ‘we have to make attention grabbing content that’s active, visual, clever, fun and broadens the narrative,’ participants said;
- Disaster preparedness.
The group was to meet online Wednesday 14 and 21 February at 11 am with anyone wanting to attend invited to email [email protected] for meeting links.
