Protestors are gathering again today in Lismore against house demolitions under the order of NSW Premier Chris Minns.
The NSW Reconstruction Authority has been demolishing homes bought-back under its Resilient Homes Program, with Disaster Recovery Minister and Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin saying last week the demolitions were always part of the recovery plan.
Fifty-five homes have reportedly already been demolished across the Northern Rivers with another 65 scheduled for demolition by mid-2025.
But it wasn’t until Premier Minns was asked on commercial radio about squatters living in some of the homes that demolitions were announced for Pine Street in North Lismore.
Supreme Court hearing next week
That’s where most of the squatters to have spoken publicly live and the RA this week said it would be starting demolitions on the street’s southern end.
Last week TV news bulletins featured footage of a house being demolished on Lismore’s Baillie Street, where protestors were gathered ahead of a scheduled Supreme Court hearing in Sydney.
Campaigners say there is now a hearing scheduled for 22 April to evict the squatters.
Meanwhile, a campaign media release said community members had witnessed contractors crushing stained glass windows, solar hot water systems, solar panels, cast iron fireplaces, and French doors ‘to pieces’.
The contractors were ‘sending everything to landfill with zero salvage of perfectly reusable materials,’ the campaigners said.
Property price fears cited
The campaigners are also criticising the NSW RA’s management of the Resilient Homes Program in other areas, saying only homes have been relocated so far under the scheme compared to ten people they say they know of who have arranged relocations themselves.
They say some communities have ‘actively resisted relocated houses based on unfounded fears about property values’.
‘The government has the power and the money to streamline the relocation process to make it as easy and pain free as possible for people to move from the floodplain,’ their media release read.
‘The community is calling for an immediate halt to demolitions and a shift to relocation, reuse, raising, and retrofitting of flood-affected homes as promised under the Resilient Homes Program,’ it continued.
Protestors say they are meeting today outside Janelle Saffin’s office in Lismore from 10.30am.
Organisers include House You and Reclaim our Recovery.
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