The office of Lismore Labor MP, Janelle Saffin, has made the claim that ‘No government, state or federal, has cut the funding promised for Resilient Homes and Resilient Land programs’ for 2022 flood recovery after reading work experience student Bella Clay‘s article on her flood experiences.
And despite campaigning along with other north coast leaders for the promised $1.5b, which was presented to parliament – her office blamed the former head of the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation, David Witherdin, for making that figure public.
The Echo asked Ms Saffin if she had given up on securing the $1.5b, as promised?
She replied, ‘I am still advocating to get to the $1.5b for the Northern Rivers and the seven mayors, and four MPs sought the additional $350m in tranche 2, as we called it, and we secured $100m of that from the NSW Premier’.
‘There is some commentary about having to spend it first. I have asked since then, and we as a group are asking collectively again’.
Additionally The Echo asked ‘How can the public have trust in this government and its RA corporation (now the third incarnation after the last two were a disaster), given the long list of blunders, lack of progress and lack of transparency?’
She replied, ‘I have made it clear that the [former flood agency] NRRC was a basket case, and the NSW Reconstruction Authority inherited that, and is doing some good work, but has been a failure in terms of communications and public information.
‘They have doorknocked some 5,000 people though’.
Still $600m short
Local Ballina MP Tamara Smith (Greens) told The Echo the $1.5b commitment was backed by both the Perrottet government and then Labor opposition leader, Chris Minns, in the 2023 NSW election lead-up.
‘In the months since the 2023 election, it has become clear that Witherdin was either mistaken or misled.
‘The fact is that we are still $600m short on the money our community was promised by a senior bureaucrat, that was neither corrected or revised by the premier of the day at the 2023 election, nor revised by the then opposition leader, who is now premier.
‘Even on conservative estimates, and with high inflation, you would have to concede that $600m would assist several thousand households’.
‘I raised with the premier last week that most flood-affected homeowners have either moved on, done the retrofitting or house raising themselves, or left the area’.
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