The NSW Reconstruction Authority (NSW RA) will now be seeking to evict squatters from houses in Lismore and Mullumbimby following their win in the NSW Supreme Court.
‘The NSW RA welcomes yesterday’s judgment in the NSW Supreme Court regarding the matter involving illegal occupants in Pine Street and other government owned properties in the Northern Rivers,’ said a Spokesperson for the NSW RA.
‘These homes were bought back by the government because they pose a serious and ongoing risk to human life.
‘We will now seek to obtain a writ of possession from the Court to enforce the judgement.
‘The NSW RA will continue working through the Courts and with the Police to resolve this issue.’
Responding to the decision. Chels Hood Withey from House You (who has been living in the Mullumbimby house in question) told The Echo that:
‘The NSW RA’s actions expose the systemic failures in their flood recovery program. My home in Mullumbimby did not flood in 2022, yet it received a buyback while tens of thousands of people with water through their homes were denied support from the NSW RA.
‘This raises serious questions: Why did an unflooded home receive a buyback when flood victims remain abandoned? Why can’t this structurally sound house be used for public housing, or awarded to its occupants through a rent-to-buy program, or simply allowed to pay rates and rent until reuse or relocation plans are finalised?
‘The RA claims these homes ‘pose a serious and ongoing risk to human life,’ she said, ‘but my home in Mullumbimby is not in a high-risk flood zone and should have been raised or retrofitted, not bought back with taxpayer dollars. Independent engineering reports confirm all ten properties on the writ are safe for habitation. If the NSW RA was genuinely concerned about risk to human life, why have they not supported all 31,000 households impacted in 2022?’
No defendants
Kitty McMahon, Community Organiser for the occupied houses in Lismore told The Echo that they were ‘very disappointed’ that ‘ the NSW Supreme Court did not respect of allow the cause of natural justice to take place.’
‘In the end there were no defendants at the court case, as they were threatened with extremely heavy penalties; penalties that should not be given to homeless people with no assets, very unfair threats. So the ruling was not really over the squatters as such as there were no defendants, it was a one sided submission where any evidence submitted by the NSW RA was ultimately taken and accepted as there was no defence allowed to be submitted. A sad day for natural justice, as that is and always should be a basic right allowed to all members of society for justice to truly be served.’
83 per cent of those in need abandoned
Chels has highlighted the fact that that only 1,000 of the 6,000 applicants to the Resilient Homes Program have received support from the RA in three years.
‘That’s an 83 per cent abandonment rate. Yet the NSW RA has resources to take homeless people to court and displace them just to demolish perfectly liveable publicly owned housing that is cheaper to relocate,’ she told The Echo.
‘This isn’t about safety – it’s about dividing and distracting our community from their catastrophic failure to deliver meaningful flood recovery while criminalising vulnerable people who simply need shelter during Australia’s worst housing crisis. I hope the NSW RA can reflect on their actions and meet our community with compassion – saving our historic homes and supporting those with nowhere else to go.’
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